Year: 2003

  • The wonders of capitalism – or something

    I don’t pretend to understand the food manufacturing business at all but this invention – “the first media technology that is put into the mouth” according to its promoters (at the…

    Read more

  • Deflation – don’t sweat it…

    Brad DeLong (who is, like, you know, the Dickens of economists or something – at least in terms of output – and, as far as I know, is also the…

    Read more

  • Brands have been wiped out for less

    Nike is a big firm and golf is a teeny tiny part of its portfolio but the economic fallout from Tiger Woods’ decision to dump his custom-engineered Nike clubs in…

    Read more

  • Holiday diversions, part 1

    The Royal Airforce Museum at Hendon is a top day out with the kids – especially now that, like all national museums and galleries – it’s free. It’s a pretty sobering…

    Read more

  • Biotech overload

    Glenn Crocker in New Scientist says that too many biotech firms are started and too few allowed to go bust when it becomes evident that they’re not going to work.…

    Read more

  • No. I do not have a Nectar card

    Rachel Shabi in The Guardian’s Saturday magazine has got herself all worked up about loyalty cards and RFID tags. She’s probably right to worry. In the advanced economies we’re consumers…

    Read more

  • Berger on Palestine

    John Berger is brilliant and infuriating: Bolshevik, poet, monk. The man who gave his Booker Prize money (for G) to the Black Panthers and radicalised a whole generation of art…

    Read more

  • A new role for Government: bullying the well-off

    James Crabtree and Noah Curthoys from the Work Foundation’s iSociety research project have written a report about e-government targets. They think the current goal of getting 100% of government services…

    Read more

  • Thinking ahead

    At the House of Commons event the other day I ran into a futurist called Susan Clayton. I like futurists. They do important work reminding us to remember our descendants.…

    Read more

  • Early retirement, Mr Kaufman?

    You don’t have to be a Dykista (A Dykie?) to think that DCMS Select Committee Chairman Gerald Kaufman’s attack on the corporation yesterday was unprincipled, opportunistic – really a politically…

    Read more