In praise of the ‘Don’t know’ voter
I am scraping the edges of my memory here, but I am fairly sure that opinion polls in my childhood…
The importance of selective inefficiency
Readers of a certain age may remember choosing a cassette player in the 1980s. In theory the process was simple:…
Why the internet hasn’t killed estate agents (and what might)
I don’t like to make business predictions, but — barring some apocalypse — I suspect there will be plenty of…
Sod hard-working families: let’s have a four-day week
Whenever I hear the phrase ‘hard-working families’ a little voice in my head asks ‘what about the lazier, chilled-out families?…
Why plane crashes are getting weirder – and if we’re lucky, other problems will too
In the late 1980s, the parks service in the United States were concerned about the deterioration of the stonework on…
A lesson in decision-making from the world’s worst road sign
Driving from Dover on the M20 a year ago I missed the turning for the M25. A month later I…
How to make Ukip supporters love green policies
Few people know this, but hidden within the FedEx logo, between the E and the x, there is a small…
Want more diversity? Hire groups, not individuals
If I were to give you a budget to choose your perfect house, you would quickly have a clear idea…
From Umbrella Man to the Coughing Major, the truth is often very strange
Are you sitting comfortably and wearing your tinfoil hat? If so, open YouTube and watch a full-screen version of the…
How consumer habits are subject to the law of unintended consequences
Some time in the 1960s, a group of people in an advertising agency (among them Llewelyn Thomas, son of Dylan)…
The joys and sorrows of two-way ratings systems
‘J’ai failli attendre’ — ‘I almost had to wait’ — allegedly said by Louis XIV when his carriage drew up just a…
Let’s appoint a Ministry of Scandalous Ideas
My children have a phrase called ‘fomo’ — which stands for ‘fear of missing out’. It is a constant, mildly…
How to pick the perfect present
I had always attributed it to bad luck in the genetic lottery. I am three-eighths Welsh and a quarter Scottish,…
Have the people who design trains and airports noticed that laptops exist?
It’s taken years to work this out, but there is a subtle art to designing an airport lounge. 1) Install…
Why does Amazon think my friend is a kidnapper?
About four years ago, an irate father in Minneapolis walked into his local Target shop with a complaint. He wanted…
S&M&B&Q: Why aren’t there sex-and-shopping novels for men?
I never got beyond page 20 in Fifty Shades of Grey. No one got shot in the first chapter, and…
The best navigation idea I’ve seen since the Tube map
I stopped using London buses when some coward put doors on them. Twenty years ago, you could board any bus…
Why everywhere should be more like Essex
Apart from the Wye Valley, where I grew up, there are only two places in Britain I’d consider living: Kent…
Was the phrasing of the Scottish referendum question designed to create division?
It is a trick which often works on children. Do not tell them to eat vegetables; instead ask whether they…
Why is nationalism OK when prefixed by the word ‘Scottish’ but not ‘British?’
My second favourite religious joke is an old Jewish joke (which I read in the Harvard Review, so I assume…
Why don’t more non-smokers try e-cigarettes?
I was waiting on an office forecourt recently puffing on an e-cigarette when a security guard came out. ‘You can’t…
How oneupmanship wrecks things for everyone
‘There’s a little bit of a fascist in all of us. For some, the tragedy of human want may provoke…
Four gadgets to take on holiday — and two to leave behind
One inarguably good thing about electronic publishing is that it solves that old quandary about what books to pack for…
Why we’ll never go back to smoking indoors
What would happen, I wonder, were we to rescind the smoking ban as Nigel Farage wants? My guess is not…
Adam Smith is the father of more than one sort of economics
Gandhi would test his resolve by sleeping between two naked virgins, an avenue not really open to me, as my…
