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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Questions questions
I have many questions about Islam and those cartoons. I wish I could sit down with one of the young, apparently intelligent and obviously articulate spokesmen I see rolled out…
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An open letter (about the Schools White Paper) to grumpy Labour backbenchers
Hello Guys, I’m pretty sure you won’t argue with me when I say that education is important to national competitiveness but I wonder if you’ll agree with me when I…
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Big, stupid cars
If you do the school run in a Land Rover Discovery 3 you’re hauling fifty times your own weight with you (maybe twenty times the weight of your whole family).…
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The unlikeliest survivor
How can one man be so irrelevant and yet, at the same time, so influential? How does John Prescott, a politician who belongs not to the last generation but to…
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Sort of Proustian, really
Germolene used to be pink. It was famously pink. People used to call it ‘pink ointment’. For generations the distinctive colour and thick, putty-like texture defined the whole category. Everybody…
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Cameron again
I schlepped down to Demos at London Bridge to watch David Cameron make an unimpressive speech in which he largely failed to convince his audience that a) Margaret Thatcher believed…
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Fear and loathing in Palestine
How do you get a stalled peace process back on track in the world’s most complicated and fragile region? Well, I’ll be honest, I have no idea (you thought I…
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So why did they do it?
Why did Google cave in to Chinese censorship? Because of American accounting principles. In the US (and, increasingly, elsewhere) a listed business reports to its shareholders every 90 days. The…
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Whalers on our whale
Naturally enough, when London’s poor lost Northern Bottlenose Whale started to get worldwide press I thought I’d see what the less sentimental whaling nations were saying about it. Not much,…
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Would you carry an ID card?
I might carry an ID card. I might carry one that said something like: “the bearer has proven, to the satisfaction of somebody accountable, that he is the person he…
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Don’t tell me…
Do not tell me you’re not watching Nasty Pete, Wise Maggot, Vain (definitely not Gorgeous) George, Strange Traci, Sad Michael, Clever Dennis, Ditzy Chantelle and Cute Preston on the show…
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Books and bombs
Will books be replaced (or even substantially substituted) by ebooks and hand-held readers? Robert McCrumb in The Observer thinks so. Maybe he’s right. A better question – do they need…