Highlights
Count Binface and electoral theatre
Don’t be a costumed loon — It’s trivially easy to stand for Parliament in the UK. Any loon can do so. You need ten electors to nominate you and £500 for a deposit – and it’s actually been getting easier. The deposit was introduced in 1918 (£150 – quite a lot of money then). Before […]
I hate this
But does it matter? — I don’t usually say that sort of thing here. I try to be more measured, less personal. I’m talking about the police face recognition vans obviously. This might not surprise you: I mean that I don’t like them. I’m an old git after all, a man who’s written here before […]
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 […]
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Consolidation’s final frontier
I watched practically all of Glastonbury over the weekend (on the TV, obviously) and I think I’ve figured out what’s wrong with the music industry: there are too many bands.…
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People Ready? Not really.
OK. I’ve scouted around and read all the blogs and I think I’m up to speed with the MS People Ready spokesblogging thing. Still haven’t seen any actual live ads…
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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…