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 […]


  • Fraudster?

    Update: looks like it’s been in use since 1975 – and the first use is from the revered Financial Times! When did we all adopt the Daily Mail-ism ‘fraudster’ and…

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  • Winter of Discontent update: unrest spreads

    School teachers, tube workers, firefighters. Now monks? How will we know they’ve gone back to work?

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  • Intensely New York

    I have no idea whose link I followed to find Hugh MacLeod’s gapingvoid.com but I think these cartoons drawn on the backs of business cards are just about the most…

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  • Knocking Docherty

    I think Danny’s wrong to knock David Docherty’s ‘Cookie Monster‘ analogy. David may have been on a hiding to nothing from the beginning at Telewest, but the nub of truth…

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  • BBC Online under the microscope

    A long overdue enquiry into the BBC’s investment online should be a good thing for all parties but it must strike a delicate balance. If it turns into a mugging…

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  • What were you doing in 1964?

    Rachel Frank runs an online wine store called Arthur’s Bar. It’s a good site – excellent customer service, next day delivery, single bottles (most sites require you to buy a…

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  • You read it here first…

    After four years on the rollercoaster running another.com – and nearly ten years in the industry – I’m a free agent again. If you know me, you already knew this,…

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  • I want Danny O’Brien’s job

    Danny and Quinn interviewed Brewster Kahle.(Things I have written about Kahle and the public domain recently: Public domain in Peril? Not again! “It’s just not that big!”).

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  • “I don’t know why we call it a mouse…”

    I just found Douglas Engelbart’s 34 year-old SRI demo in which he introduced the mouse, word processing, outlining, graphical displays, a nifty chord keyboard and dozens of other concepts that…

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  • Mog is dead!

    Judith Kerr, much-loved children’s author, on why Mog had to die.

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  • HTML help!

    Can anyone vaguely HTML-literate view source and tell me why the GIF at top right doesn’t display in Mac OS X Mozilla 1.2? It works in Explorer. Apologies in advance…

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  • Blogging from my camphone

    I wondered if I could ‘blog real life’ from my new camphone. Cynical Matt Jones says ‘don’t hold your breath’, optimistic Azeem Azhar says ‘watch this space’, clever James Cronin…

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