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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My inspiration
I’m not a geek. I missed the boat. When I left school they’d just acquired a computer. It was a mysterious, chattering presence in a room in the maths department…
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John Cooper Clarke
John Cooper Clarke showed up as (usually unannounced) support at practically all the gigs I attended… you know… back then. Or at least that’s how I remember it. Everything about…
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Shiny floor democracy
I expected little of the debates. I thought they’d slot into the campaign like all the other more-or-less artificial election media gewgaws and gimmicks: like party leaders going on kids…
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Big bogus ratio
Anti-piracy people are fond of citing the big ratio. They’re talking about the ratio of paid-for music downloads to non-paid-for (i.e. stolen) music downloads. They like the big ratio because…
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Getting used to the new BBC Radio 4 web site
I know I work there so my impartiality is hardly to be relied on but I’m not a member of the design or tech teams at Radio 4 and I’ve…
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Ryanair vs the world
Ryanair’s miserable, humiliating customer service (this grizzled 45 year-old seasoned traveller was reduced to tears by a nasty piece of work representing Ryanair at Cork Airport a few weeks ago)…
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I don’t want a right to see my MP’s expenses
UPDATE April 2022: I wrote this in January 2009, right at the beginning of the expenses scandal and several months before the Telegraph began the week-by-week disclosure of hideous abuse…
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A parable of sorts (about the music business, I feel obliged to point out)
The year is 1823. Nathaniel Burrell, sheep farmer, has stumbled upon a method for duplicating sheep. To cut a long story short, after years of essentially random cross-breeding he now…
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Wordle: my last 1000 tweets
UPDATE April 2022: do you remember the time before Wordle meant ‘addictive daily word puzzle bought by the New York Times’?
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Measuring the health of the open source economy
Here’s a fascinating thing. A really detailed analysis of a single very important open source project, Open Office.org (OO.o). The author, Michael Meeks, a prominent Open Office hacker, has tabulated…