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 […]


  • Ouch

    Bill Thompson comes back stoutly to my sarcastic response to his BBC article about Google and the Bloggers. Read the comments here. The thing is, I usually find it difficult…

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  • Planet Parent

    Juliet’s latest column at Tigerchild is up. This week she discusses the difficulty she experienced bonding with our second baby Billie. It’s a very moving piece.

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  • Guardian.jpgMicropayments and probability

    I could have been kinder to the big brains at Peppercoin I’m sure but someone had to say it. This week’s Guardian column is about the latest brilliant but doomed…

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  • Blogger basher

    Bill Thompson has flipped. According to this article for the BBC (and in no particular order): blogging is not journalism and will not effect mainstream journalists, link frequency and pagerank…

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  • invisible architecture

    Should I tell the architects of BBC News Online‘s far-reaching redesign that, far from being confused, put off or even pleased by the redesign, I didn’t notice it at all…

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  • Note to self

    Check editor’s credentials carefully. HANNAH ARENDT’S NAZI EDITOR. From Amygdala

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  • Attention Deficit Cinema

    Waldman advocates tearing a century of movie culture into bleeding chunks and playing the whole lot back in no particular order – a sort of Attention Deficit Cinema. Personally, I…

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  • Drive-through zoo

    What’s the latest thinking on Safari Parks? A beautiful sunny Winter’s day, lots of entertaining animals (and a diverting attempt to eat our car by the giraffes) made for a…

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  • No substitute for a fat consulting fee

    I’ve just noticed that the sweeties at think tank Demos have given me a heart-warming credit on their new weblog. ‘Inpired by Steve Bowbrick’ it says. This is in lieu…

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  • Great writing

    This, from The Guardian’s John Sutherland, is how I’d like my column to read. Fat chance.

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  • Power laws

    Bloggers are fixating on ‘power laws’. I’ve read all the stuff (including Clay’s perfectly sane starting point) and it’s obviously useful stuff with plenty of predictive power but it’s dry…

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  • Golf War

    Watching the anti-war march on the TV the other day we noticed that two of the most prominent placards in the throng at Piccadilly Circus were advertising a Golf Sale.

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