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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Gordon Brown – Presbyterian Hit Man
I’m impressed. I’m properly impressed. Gordon Brown’s night raid on the Liberal party was muscular shit-kicking, twenty-first century politics. It was never going to work but that wasn’t the point.…
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I like this
There are two phone numbers on Steve Johnston’s web site. One is an ordinary landline and the other a prominently-labeled premium rate (£1.50/minute) number. When I called him this morning…
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More ID card hubris
I admire Liam Byrne’s effort to position ID cards as a great national institution. Really. Eight-out-of-ten for effort. My position on ID cards is similar in that I agree we…
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Moral flexibility
I’m not surprised to hear that the Pakistani legislature has voted unanimously to condemn the Rushdie knighthood (nor that students who probably weren’t born when the book was published are…
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Direct Line vs the comparators
You’re a consumer brand. You long for a better relationship with your customers. You’re not getting it, though. There’s always someone in the way, usually a retailer with a dopey…
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Wrong wrong wrong
I’ve been thinking about the 2012 logo. It’s pretty simple: you are all wrong (obviously I mean those of you who disagree with me). People have actually been phoning me…
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Channel 4 – more useful than ever
I’m very impatient this morning with the clueless and elitist response from mainstream media to Channel 4’s latest race row. Big Brother has provided C4 with two opportunities to tackle…
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How do you select a web 2.0 vendor?
Option 1:Look in the Yellow PagesSend everyone a 22-page RFP (a Word document, prolly)Wait for responsesPick a winner. Option 2 (after you’ve lost patience with option 1, cos it’s rubbish):Seed…
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Am I the only man in Britain who likes the London 2012 logo?
Since I left the office this evening and turned the radio on I’ve been so immersed in the (entirely predictable) torrent of nastiness, ignorance and cynicism coming from… well.. practically…
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What’s wrong with eCommerce tools?
Why don’t eCommerce platforms behave like blogging platforms? Is it because the cool developers don’t want to work at ecommerce application developers? Is it because all the big ecommerce platforms…
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Turning Russian riot policemen into HOMOs
Meanwhile, I’m entertained (because I am a very simple man) to note that all you have to do to turn a nasty Russian riot policeman into a HOMO is to…
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The unwisdom of streets
The bin-men used to come on Thursdays. Simple. Since the council introduced ‘Alternate Week Collections‘ nobody knows when they’re coming. We’re all at sea. One day it’s plastic and tin…