A previous boss (I’ll spare his blushes) once said to me: ”To do things differently, you have to see things differently”. Since then, life has been a constant search for new ways of looking: You can find alternative lenses in the most unexpected places. Indeed, the less expected, the fresher the view. In recent weeks, [...]
It’s been a while since my days of constant international business travel; I’d forgotten just what a pleasure it can be. In recent weeks, a pan-European project has taken me on multiple day-trips, and all my fondest memories have flooded back. Especially over the past 24 hours, as a French Air Traffic Control strike left [...]
Brilliant final-furlong analysis of the election in the Financial Times this weekend. In summary: it has been a campaign devoid of content. Faced with a huge fiscal problem, whoever gets in will need to sack public sector workers, cut pay, reduce pensions and axe services. No party has deigned to explain how it would do [...]
Back on the Blog. Back on the Bike
How are you dealing with mid-life? A Harley Davidson and a ponytail? A spiritual retreat up a mountain? Writing the Great Postmodern novel? For me, it’s getting back on a racing bike. Of course, it’s not called a racing bike any more; it’s a road bike. But the drop handlebars, the razor-blade saddle and the [...]
According to Wired Magazine, the average American spends 8 to 9 hours a day in front of a screen. Based on the premise that information consumption should be as healthy as food consumption, the magazine suggests this as a ‘balanced diet’ in this information-overload age: Now, I’m reasonably media-savvy, and the very existence of this [...]
(Populist philosopher Alain de Botton says that he loves his new project – a £30,000 fee for writing a book about Heathrow. He says that airports are “the imaginative centres of our civilization.” On the day his appointment was announced, I was in Terminal 3, on my way to Stockholm. So here’s my immediate take [...]
In a recent radio interview, Alan Ayckbourn recounted going for a drink with a young Harold Pinter, and the two of them being accosted by a man with the opening line: “I think I may have murdered my Mother-in-Law”. After they had listened to a convoluted tale of family members being pushed up chimneys, Pinter [...]
Sit looking at a blank blogging screen for long enough, and eventually the most unlikely memories arise as you search for an opening sentence. It’s just happened again, which explains why this piece doesn’t start in Schenzen, but on a train in a story by David Nobbs. “Cupid’s Dart” was a TV film that Nobbs [...]
“It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consistent of believing, or in disbelieving; it consists of professing to believe what he does not believe.” Thomas Paine It is Sunday morning. Ben and I sit in the kitchen. I skim the pages of a broadsheet, [...]
So, you’ve built a very successful business. You’ve put heart and soul into it, burnt the midnight oil, taken risks, made sacrifices, reached your goals. You are now richer that Croesus and more famous than the Queen. Next step? The business biography. You interview some ‘co-writers’, select one you like, set to work and within [...]
As well as being an interesting data set in itself, this New Scientist graphic is a master class in information design. A rich source of facts and a joy to read:
Source: Exploring the Exploding Internet. New Scientist, April 2009
Popularity: 16% [?]
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