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 […]


  • A failure of nerve on immigration from accession states

    Britain deserves better than a knee-jerk ban on Bulgarian and Romanian migrants Closing the door to Romanians and Bulgarians is not irrational. No nation should be obliged to provide unlimited…

    Read more

  • Nasty news from Tibet

    This video, which looks horrifyingly like one of the dopey Flash shooting games my son plays, ran as an exclusive on ITV News this evening but it’s evidently been on…

    Read more

  • Wanted: PHP5 or Rails coder for eBay widget

    Could you code a clean, usable web widget using the eBay API. Required functionality • The widget will display a user’s eBay items for sale (and possibly some other stuff)…

    Read more

  • Today’s stupidest job title

    Independent Domestic Violence Advocate I know it’s not really funny and I know this is a serious job dealing with sad people and I’m pretty sure this job doesn’t actually…

    Read more

  • Another sad, jug-eared Tory comes out…

    I bring you – without comment, of course – the voting record of Gregory Barker, utterly true blue MP for the constituency of Bexhill and Battle. I think you’ll also…

    Read more

  • Neglect, plain and simple

    This note was sent downstairs long after bedtime by my eight year-old last night. He got his sister to bring it down because he’d been sent back to bed without…

    Read more

  • Competition in unexpected places

    Competition has already arrived in bits of the marketplace that seemed out of reach not long ago: domestic electricity and gas supply for instance. So called ‘natural’ monopolies turn out…

    Read more

  • Hungary 1956 links

    A handful of interesting archival videos at YouTube, including this lovely 90 seconds of trams in Budapest (nothing to do with the uprising, though, as far as I can see).…

    Read more

  • Computing in a (really big) box

    Sun’s big black shipping container is the most exciting thing to happen in computer hardware since they stopped shipping them with casters.. I remember sitting around rapping with my friends…

    Read more

  • Inkjet wheeze

    The Epson R220 is a nifty (and cheap) photo inkjet but it takes six inks and costs a fortune to feed (over £70 if you buy inks singly, £50 if…

    Read more

  • Reuters arrives. Cool departs.

    I guess the warbloggers who’ve convinced themselves that hyper-objective, scrupulously neutral Reuters is an arm of the giant global liberal conspiracy will be sending their avatars to picket the news…

    Read more

  • The veil and social capital

    The niqab makes social solidarity harder to achieve. Is that a bad thing? Robert “Bowling Alone” Putnam would say that the veil is a source of ‘bonding capital’ – the…

    Read more