Highlights
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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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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Holiday diversions, part 2
A beautiful Summer evening spent at Carter’s gorgeous Steam Fair. Original, often steam-powered fairground rides, lovely painted horses, a proper coconut shy, test your strength, ring toss… and not a…
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6 megapixels and no digital camera…
If you go into one of those Kodak one-hour photo concessions in just about every High Street you can get your film scanned onto a CD for a few extra…
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Secret codes in packaging design
If you want to tell Kodak to cut your Kodachrome film into strips instead of putting the slides into little plastic mounts you have to snip the corner off the…
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A lake in West Cork
Loch Hyne (pronounced ‘Loch Ine’) was Europe’s first marine nature reserve, a strange and beautiful square kilometre of partly tidal inland lake about as far South and West as you…
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Indestructible brands
Donald McRae on the struggle for survival outside the Premiership. Excellent business journalism by a very good sports writer. “Eleven clubs have been through the mill of administration this year,…
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Somebody’s listening
I’m pleased to be able to tell you that, a few short months after I suggested it, Craig’s List has arrived in London. Danny wrote about it back in June.…
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Carter, got
He’s in post, seems to know roughly what’s going on (260 duties on his to do list), writes nicely (or at least his press office does) and he has a…
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What was that about a free lunch?
The bad news about hydrogen is coming in. Alex Farrell at UC Berkeley and David Keith at Carnegie Mellon University conclude that the switch to hydrogen will quite likely just…
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Is it just because I’m a boy?
Yesterday, somewhere in Kent, a train reached 200 miles per hour. When I was a kid – long before the tunnel – I used to find it exciting to stand…