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 […]


  • Protect your family…

    Best spam this week… Easily. In the picture, that’s a model, right? “Armored Vehicle protection. So you have it covered, finances in place, investment portfolio don’t stable, don’t under control……

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  • Murdoch gets religion (finally)

    In 1995 I tried (for about ten minutes) to persuade Rupert Murdoch to give the keynote speech at the Internet World London conference that year. In my address book (which…

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  • I’m impressed (and relieved)

    Really. I am. Labour’s campaign is good. On stage yesterday, at the manifesto launch, the front bench was awesome – handing off and harmonising like The Beach Boys. Brown’s seething…

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  • John Berger is back

    When I was young, I used to love John Berger. Then I went off to college in the Big City and quickly learnt that he was out-of-date: a crusty old…

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  • My fantasy

    My wife thinks I’m naive (or it might have been ‘stupid’ – I can’t remember). Anyway, I have a fantasy: Tony and Gordon are good mates. Really. They’ve been together…

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  • So long Longbridge

    Heart-breaking business reality finally steam-rollers the Rover dream. Having been through one liquidation (a bit smaller, I’ll admit) I feel pretty confident in saying that Rover is tragically but definitely…

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  • Book review: Hypercard reborn?

    Going on twenty years ago Hypercard, created by Bill Atkinson, felt like something helicoptered in from a William Gibson novel. “Make my own computer programmes? Pretty ones with sounds and…

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  • Phil Gyford fixed my blog

    Not many people can say that. The master has very kindly been picking over the entrails of my blog and it should now be working nicely on all platforms and…

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  • I’m back (like you’ve been missing me…)

    I’ve been to Ireland with the family for a few days. We stayed on my cousin’s farm (complete with ducks and calves and so on) and we are now sorely…

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  • Whacked

    Howard’s Conservatives look impressively like The Sopranos this weekend. I suppose the unfortunate Mr Flight should be pleased he didn’t leave that final meeting in the trunk of a party…

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  • and in business news…

    Fascinating and Troll-like Barry Diller buys Ask Jeeves. No visible logic to this deal but, then again, who predicted Diller’s epic upside from buying the lacklustre Home Shopping Network or…

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  • Patronage

    On 14th September I will be having dinner at The Ivy. I tell you this, of course, purely in the interests of the kind of accountability and transparency that we…

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