Highlights
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
Browse by year
Latest
-
Said on the war
I supported this war. I did it in a queasy, compromising way ? like all the pro-war lefties I know. I have a phrase: “…conditional support”. I don’t feel any…
-
A distributed business
Up many flights of stairs to the not-very-glamorous offices of brainy trend-spotters Sense Worldwide. Jeremy Brown, Tom Savigar, Raj Panjwani and Inma Martinez run an unusual business, employing only 8…
-
Pilger vs. Lloyd in The New Statesman
Absolutely compelling war writing in this week’s New Statesman. John Pilger’s article is bitter, Messianic, despairing stuff. For him, the actual conduct of the war confirms everything he said and…
-
Radio stars
To unlovely Shoreditch via lovely Liverpool Street Station with its disfiguring retail warts (the station concourse and train shed remain beautiful but only if you hold up your hand to…
-
An Athens by the Central Line
So UpMyStreet – apparently a latterday Athens peopled entirely by cool, fun people who worry about things like geo-encoding their web site – has gone bust. Over at NTK the…
-
Word out (but not up)
Word is a worthy and probably doomed attempt to tackle books, cinema, music, art… everything really… for literate middle-brows in one monthly magazine. It’s the first project from the stellar…
-
Beeb to Charter renewal opponents: ‘give up now’
According to Dan Milmo and Maggie Brown in The Guardian: “The BBC has begun a three-year battle to secure its future and retain the ?2.5bn licence fee by appointing a…
-
Churchillian in more ways than one
Ed Richards, principle advisor on Telecoms and new media to the Prime Minister until he took a job at Ofcom last week, reveals Tony Blair’s decisiveness on Broadband Britain: “First,…
-
Mars please…
Oliver Morton, who wrote the excellent Mapping Mars, says in Wired that we should scrap the shuttle and head straight for Mars. I’m in.