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 […]


  • Going to Cambridge?

    I’m going to be at the RTS’s Cambridge Media Convention on Friday 19 September. The event looks fascinating. Let me know if you’re going.

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  • Say it loud: ‘No. I do not have a Nectar Card’

    So, thanks to Robin and his idle mates, I now have a big enough Nectar logo and I’ve set up my Cafe Press shop so you can actually buy a…

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  • Say it loud

    Last time I went to the little Sainsbury’s round the corner I told the kid on the till that I was going to make a t-shirt saying “No. I do…

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  • Hallmark to bid for ITV?

    It says here, in a pretty good scoop for Andrew Neil’s The Business (they don’t seem to have a web site, though), that David Elstein ? top broadcasting wit, former…

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  • A day at the races

    Drag racing is unbelievably noisy, toxic (“Remember, ladies and gentlemen, cover your children’s eyes as we spray the track…”), decidedly unsophisticated and about the least green pursuit I’ve ever witnessed…

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  • We went to the beach…

    Dunwich, in Suffolk. Beautiful…

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  • Wi-fi obstacles

    A bit of fairly well aimed Wi-fi cynicism from Richard Wray in The Guardian. Wray’s principle objections are: the total lack of roaming and a potential boom in laptop theft.…

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  • Help my family see Mars

    Mars is whizzing by, the skies are clear ? and I can’t get my telescope to work! If you have a manual for a Tasco Starguide 80 telescope (or the…

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  • Healing the health service

    Ideology may have created it ? ideology of the purest, most saintly kind ? but it won’t be ideology that saves the NHS. It will be management ? creative, inspirational…

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  • Electricity

    Flows of electricity are obviously going to be a big deal over the coming decades. According to Wired Magazine, in the kind of euphoric article that wouldn’t be possible since…

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  • Arrivederci

    Buongiorno is the UK subsidiary of an Italian firm of the same name. On July 9 2003, the company’s Finance Director and Company Secretary, David Kearns (a man with some…

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  • Piratic instincts

    I’ve just levered an 80GB drive out of the near-legendary Kitchen Cube (it’s a Cube and we keep it in the kitchen…) to replace it with a larger one (media…

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