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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An endless round of perfectly-formed gotchas
Some people can’t tell the difference between advertising billboards and politics. What is it that’s so contemptible about these stupid stunts? This shallow, patronising bollocks? For liberals, this kind of…
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The bankruptcy of the growth mindset
Of course he’s on LinkedIn I shouldn’t be surprised that the British Prime Minister – any contemporary national leader, really – is on LinkedIn. It’s supposed to say “I live…
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And your enemies closer
’Close-marking’ is an electoral strategy, the invention of the now legendary Labour Party spokesman Alastair Campbell and strategist Peter Mandelson. The idea is that an opposition party assembles focus groups…
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End of the line
The Conservative Party is, famously, the most successful political party in history. The party is a shape-shifting cockroach that’s survived the whole industrial era, the expansion of the franchise, the…
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Metre disorder
I love poetry. I write poetry, I love rhyme and rhythm and structural play of all kinds. I write in rhyme. But I can’t see metre. I know what metre…
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Civilianise the police
Trying to turn a 19th Century property-protection force, organised like the army, into a 21st Century organisation, modelled on a corporation, is a mug’s game. The Met is in trouble…
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How do you like your tradition?
Essentially perfect small town joy or ridiculous and contrived ceremonial fiction? I was watching this ace video about the shrovetide madness that takes over in several small English towns in…
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1998, the last time New York City had the correct amount of visual chaos
It was the end of history but it was before 9/11, before the dot.com crash, a whole decade before the Great Recession Zuckerberg was still at school. I was in…
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More Klingon than Starfleet
A Musk spaceship will be a Musk workplace FURTHER UPDATE 13 January 2025. It’s difficult to know where this will end. Musk – a foreigner, remember – now has the…