Highlights
I hate this
But does it matter? I don’t usually say that sort of thing here. I try to be more measured, less personal. I’m talking about the police face recognition vans obviously. This might not surprise you: I mean that I don’t like them. I’m an old git after all, a man who’s written here before about […]
Nearly half a bicycle
The atomic theory in Kilburn This place (on Kilburn High Road) has been morphing steadily from dry cleaner’s to bike shop over the last few years. I remember being surprised one morning to see a few kids’ bikes lined up for sale outside but I’d say the shop is now approaching 50% bike shop. You […]
Where is my patriotism?
Come, love of country, fill my heart… I do love Britain. I guess I love England more. London most of all. I hope that in my life I’ve honoured the place I live and not disgraced it or undermined it (I support England and GB in sporting events – I fly a little flag on […]
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Remembering Tony Blair, part one
Tony Blair ignored, neglected and ultimately abused the party that gave him power. He was right to do so. In the early 1990s Tony Blair saw that the Labour Party…
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What is our problem with entrepreneurship?
I wrote a piece for the supplement that accompanied The Guardian’s Changing Media Summit last week: What is an entrepreneur? “A person who organizes and operates a business or businesses,…
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Rupert Murdoch wants me to move
To America, in fact…
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Small pleasures
Tea, in a small polystyrene cup, on the way to work, from Mr Patel’s paper stall on platform 1 at Radlett station.
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What are you going to do about poetry?
Poetry’s a drug on the market. You can’t move the stuff. No one reads it any more. The people who learnt it by heart at school are all dead or…
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I’ve been in denial
I’ve been sort of vaguely expecting that Tony Blair’s troubles would fade with the arrival of the warm weather and that, by conference time, he’d be secure again and ready…
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Goldfish and Beavers
So here’s why I was late for work Tuesday. I was photographing the goldfish. My 7 year-old son rushed into the kitchen to tell me that those morons on the…
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Some centre-left reading for you
The thing about Britain’s big newspapers, the ones we call broadsheets (although they come in all sorts of sizes these days), is that they belong to two groups: pre-industrial, 18th…
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Under the ice
The Archive Hour is one of those Radio 4 programmes that really ought to have a decent… erm… archive. Since it doesn’t and since you won’t be able to listen…
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Google on Radio 4
Jonathan Freedland’s excellent The Long View maintains no archive and isn’t part of the Beeb’s podcasting trial so here’s the latest episode – a terrific parallel reading of 21st Google…
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Commuting again
As some of you know, I’ve been at home for a while now, developing a detailed understanding of my children’s appalling table manners (and helping my wife start a business,…
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Testing humanity
We’re very pro-cuddly creatures in our house. Some of our most treasured companions are very realistic fluffy bears, dogs, otters, giraffes, lions and so on and our favourite stories usually…