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 […]


  • Belgium in the West

    There’s an excellent profile of Kofi Annan by Philip Gourevitch in the March 3rd issue of The New Yorker but it’s not at the web site, which is annoying. In…

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  • McDecline

    When McDonalds lost the disastrous McLibel case I used to say that it wouldn’t be the greens or the anti-globalisers that’d bring down the fast food giant but much more…

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  • Business Week on Linux

    Business Week goes big on the Linux Uprising: “…and don’t be fooled by Linux’ harmless-looking penguin mascot, Tux: This stuff is shaking up the balance of power in the computer…

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  • Bowblog – like reading the Sunday papers on Monday

    Couple of good articles from sections of The Observer I don’t usually look at. I like the look af Matali Crasset’s playful interior and product design in the colour magazine.…

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  • Dead Herring

    In 1993 and 94, when I was learning about the net and about how to run a business and all the scary money stuff, I discovered a weird American business…

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  • Wraparound

    Check out this collection of 360 panoramas from Hans Nyberg in Denmark. He gathers Quicktime VR panoramas from around the world, like this gorgeous wraparound view from the top of…

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  • Butterfly encore

    On Tuesday I took my son Oliver to see Richard Wilson’s Butterfly at the Wapping Project. Maybe I didn’t read the publicity properly but I really wasn’t expecting anything so…

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  • New York decides

    I don’t want to gush but I’m really thrilled for NYC (and for the rest of us emotional New Yorkers) that the City settled on Libeskind’s replacement for the Twin…

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  • Don’t panic

    Are you getting spam like this yet?

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  • Forget Moore’s Law

    Michael Malone, top tech journo, says in The Herring that we should forget Moore’s law. The thesis is that, as the universe of chips expands, more buyers are sticking with…

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  • PR Works

    The recording industry has the best PR. Evidence: a quite startling suspension of balance on The BBC’s agenda setting morning news show The Today Programme today. An item, by Stephen…

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  • Reassembly in Wapping

    Half term is over but Olly (my four year-old) and I saw out our last day of freedom in style. We went to the handsome Wapping Project in… er… Wapping…

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