29 Jul 2025

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. […]

13 Jan 2025

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 […]

6 Sep 2024

Some bullet-points about regulation

In case you’d got the wrong idea about how the ’regulatory state‘ is supposed to work — UPDATED 23 May 2025. I could update this thing daily. Regulation is always a news story in the UK (Search any news service for ‘regulation‘ right now and you’ll get a long list of current news stories about […]


  • How do they do that?

    This £9.95 toy records twenty second sound clips and incorporates them into its programme of lights and sirens and racing around. Oliver, aged four, takes this entirely for granted, of…

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  • Tily in the gloom

    The questionable low-light capabilities of this Ericsson cam-phone (have you wondered why the TV ads all seem to be set in the Sahara or Southern California in high summer?) and…

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  • Time for a photolog

    I will use these instructions to create a photolog using MT in five steps when I get around to it. I will. I will. I will.

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  • Matt’s meme for Christmas Number 1

    Partly to celebrate Matt’s meme and partly to test Ben’s ‘More Like This from Others’ thingie, Im blogging Ben’s link to The New York Times‘ Ideas of the Year. Do…

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  • King of the fishes

    Olly, our four year-old, is on his way home dressed as a fish after his impeccably multi-cultural, non-denominational Xmas concert yesterday.

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  • Oxford conference on code, the net, ideas

    I just registered for this conference. Looks like a good opportunity to hear Lessig et al in action – organised by the ambitious (and well-funded) Oxford Internet Institute.

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  • Telecoms mast toppled – singularity deferred

    Here’s a tough reminder that technology always exists in a (potentially hostile) human context. People respond to technology and to change in complicated and often contradictory ways. As a result,…

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  • “Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy” – Tim O’Reilly

    I’ll join the throng bookmarking this cogent defense of file sharing from publisher Tim O’Reilly. Tim is the man who made a fortune by selling his early portal, the Global…

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  • A ‘documentary musical’

    I have no idea what it’s like to live in a young offenders’ prison like the notorious Feltham but I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that…

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  • Barbie is among us

    My daughter Billie is three today and yesterday we had a party. Barbie came. I mean the real Barbie. Then she left and fifteen dumbstruck three and four year-olds won’t…

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  • Speechless

    Matt Webb’s account of what happened to him fourteen years ago left me speechless. Link via LINKMACHINEGO.

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