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 […]


  • Sainsbury’s arrives

    Round here everyone’s been talking about the opening of a dinky branch of Sainsbury’s in the village. It’s one of the firm’s tiny convenience stores (no car park, no deli,…

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  • Azeem says crap

    Appropriately fogey-ish response to blogging from Damian Whitworth in Britain’s least wired broadsheet The Times. He’s obviously intrigued but trying hard not to sound too keen in case the other…

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  • Did you know Winston Churchill’s mother had a tattoo?

    Most news about Selfridges‘ new tattoo parlour mentioned the fact that Winston Churchill’s mother had a snake tattoo on her wrist, even The Guardian’s cheeky Pass Notes and the FT’s…

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  • I’ve come over all 1950

    Wired on private space planes, New Scientist on flying cars (you need a subscription or a free trial to see this one).

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  • Yes, but it’s so practical

    Around the time we acquired our third child we also acquired a ‘people mover’ (or an ‘MPV’) like the one in the picture and now we’ve been forcibly recruited to…

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  • Blogging blokes at Blacks

    Very privileged to have entertained some of the bloggerati at Blacks on Monday night. From left to right, Dan Gillmor, James Crabtree, some sardines on toast (I think they call…

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  • Keeping an eye on Ofcom

    I can’t tell from his weblog what Luke Gibbs does for a living but I think he’s going to save me a lot of effort by trawling the media to…

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  • Cheer up. It might never happen…

    I’ve been sarcastic about Steven Pinker’s knee jerk Darwinism in the past but this piece from today’s Guardian is the best debunking yet of the apocalyptic strain of genetic futurology…

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  • Neocon update

    If you’re trying to keep up with the progress of the hyper-adapted neocon meme – coming soon to a democracy near you – this very good NYRB article by Elizabeth…

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  • The contemporary British family revealed

    Our friend Fiona Kenneth has made two wonderful programmes in a series of programmes about modern relationships, called Mr & Mrs. This is great documentary making in an important British…

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  • History

    Bill Gash, one time commercial head for Yahoo! UK and the motor behind an occasional gathering of Internet old lags called Netvets, is shown auctioning the legendary December 1996 edition…

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  • Cycling lawyer blogs…

    Mark Lloyd has been my lawyer for years and is now keeping an interesting weblog – mostly about sporty things and cycling in particular – Mark’s passion. Should be worth…

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