I think he’s depressed. I suspect he’s been depressed for his whole adult life, mind you. But he’s just moved to a big new job and that’s triggered a crisis. Everything about his behaviour shouts depression. He’s turned in on himself. His instinct when things get tough has always been to retreat – hide out,… Continue reading Is Gordon Brown depressed?
Month: November 2007
Cynical? Moi?
Parties to the Middle East talks in Annapolis fall into two groups: those who frankly don’t care if the ‘Palestine problem’ is resolved and those whose lives and livelihoods depend on it. Unfortunately the former group includes all the nations with the power to do anything about it and the latter only the utterly powerless.… Continue reading Cynical? Moi?
Data abuse thoughts
The child benefit data cock-up highlights all sorts of public data issues, most of which are missed totally by both participants and observers. Data literacy in Britain is non-existent. Here are a few points that have come to mind over the last couple of days of coverage (please add your own in the comments if… Continue reading Data abuse thoughts
I’ve got a Child Benefit question
Update: it turns out the answer to my question (‘why does the National Audit Office need my National Insurance number?’ below) is ‘they don’t’. I feel like a bit of a jerk climbing onto the lost Child Benefit data bandwagon but I do want to ask a little question: one I haven’t seen answered anywhere… Continue reading I’ve got a Child Benefit question
“My wife wants a Kindle. She’s dead to me now…”
I’m feeling a bit guilty about yesterday’s Kindle post, which was sarcastic. But since then I’ve been tracking ‘Kindle’ on twitter and I’ve seen no more than two or three positive opinions of the gadget amongst hundreds and hundreds of Kindle-related tweets (my favourite: “my wife wants a Kindle. She’s dead to me now”). And… Continue reading “My wife wants a Kindle. She’s dead to me now…”
McDonalds and virtual coffee bars
McDonalds are going to roll out a big coffee chain. Good timing. Coffee’s mainstream now. Intra-day refreshment used to be divided sharply down the middle with tea in a styrene cup on one side and a decaf skinny latte in a paper cup with an elaborate lid on the other. Now I stand in the… Continue reading McDonalds and virtual coffee bars
Kindle. Segway for books?
Some people are calling Amazon’s Kindle ‘iTunes for books’. I’m calling it ‘Segway for books’. Not because it’s got two wheels and a giro-stabiliser but because it’s got Jeff Bezos on it. Jeff is a fascinating and clever man (I’d like to meet him one day. I tried to once but a bizarre canapé-related incident… Continue reading Kindle. Segway for books?
Trivial, fabric-of-everyday-life stuff really
Ordinary-sized people riding around in truck-sized 4X4s now look as silly as the fat blokes in bubble cars we used to laugh at in 70s sketch shows. AND I think they should put a ‘thank you’ button on those automated check-outs in supermarkets. I miss saying ‘thank you’ (and I guess the machine could be… Continue reading Trivial, fabric-of-everyday-life stuff really
Speechification improved!
Hey. You should get over to Speechification. We upgraded (actually, Roo upgraded). So we now have comments, links in the navbar, better programme credits. Oh, and comments. Did I mention comments? So now you can comment. Nip over and leave a comment.
Beating child labour
The Gap (and lots of other Western businesses) have invested a lot of money in systems to monitor supplier labour practices because they don’t like to be thought of as ‘the child labour people’ (at The Gap they employ 90 people for this purpose and fired 23 suppliers last year for failure to comply). It’s… Continue reading Beating child labour