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 […]
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A new book from Adam Wishart
My friend Adam has written a book. It’s about cancer and he weaves together the story of his own father’s death from cancer with a history of the disease. The…
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Complete Cant
Cameron’s Bill of Rights may be meaningless, even mendacious and certainly legally incoherent but it is outstanding politics. Proper agenda-grabbing spin. A policy so insubstantial as to be practically invisible…
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While I’ve been away…
I’m sorry, I’ve not been concentrating properly lately. Also, I’m not 100% sure you can even see these entries since I got Robin to upgrade me to MT 3.2 the…
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Gonzo risk assessment
We, by which I suppose I really mean ‘the media’ are famously bad at assessing risk. Case study: is it just me or is there something scarily dim-witted about the…
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Knife amnesty be damned
Obviously I’ve been buying Kitkats like mad so I can get in the house and wreak terrible, bloody havoc among the terrible bloody people they’ve got in there. I’ve marked…
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How do you unite Europe?
And I don’t mean the European Union. I mean the whole bloody continent (more or less). Well, let’s think. I suppose you could teach everyone Esperanto. Or pick someone everyone…
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Are poor white people stupid?
The response, on the whole, of the mainstream press (or at least the non-Nazi press) to the swing towards the BNP in various working class suburbs last week goes like…
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What’s so cool about The Economist?
There’s nothing quite like The Economist. Many have tried to duplicate its authority, its prescience, its attitude but it takes a blend of uptown (that’ll be Oxbridge) haughtiness and downtown…
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Excellent business radio
Peter Day’s excellent In Business is back on Radio 4 – and, now that they’ve got a podcast, I don’t need to steal the episodes any more. The first in…
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Nick Griffin and Mussolini
Are the BNP fascists? Ordinary members and voters may not be. They may own none of the party’s deeper convictions. Ordinary Germans who voted for the National Socialists in 1932…
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Still angry really
What’s frustrating about Blair’s culpable ineptitude in the last fortnight or so is that it favours principally the Old Labour rump of maybe 50 bitter and increasingly vocal old-timers. Gordon…