Highlights
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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DIY Coffee Table Book
Which brings the number of links on the left of this page to a frightening twenty, if you take into account the two external ones. It is way too much.…
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Docherty repulsed!
I can’t help but warm to David Docherty’s image of greedy Cookie Monsters spoiling the broadband party for the unfortunate content creators. The geeks, in particular, never warmed to David…
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Bragg snooze
What winds me up about Melvyn Bragg’s appeal for Ofcom’s scope to be extended to include the BBC is not the sentiment itself, which is unexceptionable. It’s the fact that…
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dot.com lunacy
During the dot.com boom, some crazy people blew upwards of £5,000 of their precious VC funding on – believe it or not – deluxe Swiss-made professional espresso machines! Click here…
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Blogging real life
Matt Jones likes hiptop nation. I like it too and, now that I’ve got my MMS camphone, I want to know if I can blog real life. Is this possible…
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Nocturnal logic
Four O’Clock this morning. Olly, our 4 year-old, wakes for a half hour tantrum. Nothing will quieten him, nothing make him happy. Everything is wrong. Nothing can make it right.…
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‘Bible codes’ recycled
The very human desire to find pattern in random data – meaning in a cold, unmeaning world – is alive and well. The pop media have decided it’s time to…
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Essential broadband reading
The clever people at The Work Foundation have done some ethnographic research (the first in Britain, they think) into the use of broadband. Their conclusions are fascinating. In summary, pretty…
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Wi-Fi in the park
Steve Johnson’s excellent weblog links to a great story in the NY Times about the free Wi-Fi network in Bryant Park. I remember the park as a gorgeous place to…
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Resource wars
John Gray in the New Statesman says we’re entering the era of ‘resource wars’ and that our starry-eyed faith in technology or in central planning has blinded us to the…
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Migration Watch UK – not much think, mostly tank
Migration Watch UK is a shabby pressure group masquerading as a think tank. The group’s neutral-sounding name masks its real concern with immigration. The group’s founder, Sir Andrew Green –…
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3G auctions revisionism
Paul Klemperer, auction guru and advisor to the Government on the 3G bids, mounts a point-by-point defence of the much criticised 3G spectrum auctions: In retrospect, of course, the licences…