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 […]


  • World Trade Center replacements

    A useful and funny critique of the candidates to fill the WTC’s footprint. Thanks to Gawker for the link.

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  • Steam-rollered?

    Felix Velarde – or at least his business < shouldn't exist. Underwired is a successful independent web design studio. Businesses like Felix’s are supposed to be extinct

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  • The Economist keeps the faith

    The last time The Economist ran a big survey of the Internet (1996?) I bought dozens of copies and sent them to all my clients and suppliers with a stern…

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  • Pizza with a pioneer

    Roger Green is a media backroom boy, a veteran of many years as a top manager at Britain’s number 2 magazine publisher EMAP (until he left the company last year)…

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  • Practically a proper journalist…

    The nice people at The Guardian (in particular Online editor Vic Keegan) continue to indulge me and have now allowed me a weekly ‘at large’ column which you’ll be able…

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  • Double clever?

    Emily Bell in The Guardian greets Ofcom’s new boss and wonders if the BBC might have been excluded from Ofcom’s scope in order to provide a PR win for the…

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  • Net aversion

    Owen Gibson wonders why the ad agencies are still steering clear of the net.

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  • Kazaa busted

    Kazaa Media Desktop is a slick, commercial-grade file sharing app, shielded – so far – from prosecution by the application’s distributed architecture and the company’s multi-layered off-shore status. A US…

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  • I’m bored saying this

    Charles Mann in Wired Magazine, restates the euphoricists’ case for the imminent dissolution of the recording industry. The recording industry is nearly 100 years old and has weathered dozens of…

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  • Rosen resigns – slowly

    Hilary Rosen, the downloaders’ Great Satan, will step down from her job running the US Recording Industry’s trade body, the RIAA, ‘by year end’. Considering it’s only January, she’s certainly…

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  • The management consultants, the toothpaste marketers and the other Carterets…

    The Observer’s profile of Stephen Carter as he prepares to assume the role of Chief Executive of Ofcom. Most interesting is the ballooning payroll. The first estimate I can remember…

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  • The right to be annoying

    For some reason, people have been asking me lately about the increasingly visible Trots at Spiked! and the Institute of Ideas. Why are they so cynical and snotty? What is…

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