11 Jul 2026

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 […]

3 Jun 2026

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 […]

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 […]


  • Davis is wrong about the death penalty

    David Davis thinks he’s got his finger on the pulse. He thinks the opinion polls support his enthusiasm for the judicial execution of serial killers (how do you qualify, by…

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  • Murphy drawn

    Paul Murphy, noted blogger and curator, who’s been drawing me lately, has been drawn himself ??by my five year-old Oliver. We gave the artist a picture of Paul standing around…

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  • She blogs. She blogs…

    …(paraphrasing Ricky Martin). Juliet, who is my wife (and – some of you will remember – the author of the near-legendary proto-blog ‘bird’ back in about 1996), is blogging –…

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  • A work of art…

    …if you ask me. Michel Gondry’s video for The White Stripes’ The Hardest Button to Button (helpfully ripped from TV by Ryan Cerbus because all the official versions seem to…

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  • Paul drew me, which is a good thing

    Enigmatic Paul Murphy has drawn my portrait from a photograph he found on the Internet. I think there’s a reasonable chance that this isn’t a drawing at all but just…

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  • Endless deferral

    Voodoo Pad is one of those applications that promises to get me organised. Of course, I long ago resigned myself to never actually getting organised – in fact, downloading and trying…

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  • I dreamt this

    If you dial 1471 from a BT phone you can find out the last number that called you (you can get the last five numbers now, in fact). If you…

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  • Should I buy a Tivo?

    Never shy of jumping on a bandwagon nearly a year after it closes its UK operation, I’ve been bidding on Tivo PVRs (‘Personal Video Recorders’) at eBay. Do you think…

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  • places and camphone privacy

    Camphone hysteria is building. Gadgets with built-in cameras are being banned all over the place. Looks like we’ll see an arbitrary patchwork of camphone rules emerge ??some will ban them,…

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  • How strange are the Electric Light Orchestra?

    Juliet asked me to download some of their stuff so that she could be fifteen again for a while so I did and now I’m speechless at how we let…

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  • Looking for Laurent

    Laurent Byford (or is it Bayford?) used to work at a web design firm called Designercity (now defunct). I need to contact him urgently on some another.com business. Do you…

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  • Dancing

    I’m in the kitchen washing up and watching Twyla Tharp‘s staggeringly beautiful In The Upper Room on BBC4 ??a piece from 1986 with a score by Philip Glass (They’re having…

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