The cultural hodgepodge that is Europe
If Geert Hofstede’s name is familiar to you, it might be from pop-science articles explaining a spate of Korean airliner…
The cultural hodgepodge that is Europe
If Geert Hofstede’s name is familiar to you, it might be from pop-science articles explaining a spate of Korean airliner…
A monkey-brained case for Donald Trump
A few years ago I was asked to speak at a conference in New York. ‘Where would be the best…
How your brain buys a sofa
Almost every popular commercial product owes its success to two different qualities. First, it does the job it is ostensibly…
Tea and honesty
We recently moved -offices from Canary Wharf to Blackfriars bridge. When you move after a long time in one place,…
How to do better at darts – and life
I have always been intrigued by the scoring systems for different sports, and the degree to which they contribute to…
My tip for the next cool shop: Argos
When I was at school in the 1970s, some of the richer kids would come back from their summer holidays…
Directions your phone can’t give you
In many ways a satnav is a miraculous device. A network of US military satellites more than 10,000 miles above…
What’s the point of the driverless car?
A first last week: a Google driverless car in autonomous mode was partly at fault in a collision, interestingly one…
The 5 per cent of people who get to decide everything
What happens when 95 per cent of people like something, but 5 per cent of people prefer something else? You might think…
Tax me more, but don’t touch my dishwasher
There was a big fuss a year or so ago about a book by a French chap called Piketty about…
The power of painless payment
I am one of those annoying, mildly claustrophobic people who sit at the end of a row in cinemas. There…
Q: What is a good school? A: One that other people like
A few months ago I received a call from someone running a small private school near New York. They believed…
Things we don’t mind paying for
Here’s a challenge for film buffs: can anyone remember, from the entire canon of cinema and television, a single scene…
Why the greatest innovations do only one thing, but do it well
McDonald’s got rid of cutlery. Uber does not allow you to pre-book taxis. Amazon began by selling only books. Conventional…
The other side to the division of labour: the concentration of attention
Adam Smith’s theory on the division of labour first appeared in 1776 in The Wealth of Nations. The idea was…
Does HS2 pass the Butterfield test?
Despite my opposition to High Speed 2, I am quite a big fan of HS1, the line which runs from…
Hayek was right: you can’t understand society without evolution
In December the controversial satellite TV channel ReallyTV launches its Christmas season with a flagship reality show called From Homs to…
Spontaneous recombustion: how vapers have re-invented pipe-smoking in electronic form
A fascinating newcomer on the British high street is the vape shop. These were perfectly described by my friend Paul…
We let programmers run our lives. So how’s their moral code?
A few years ago, in the week before Christmas when supermarket sales are at their highest, staff at one branch…
From A to B, differently
Afamily member is thinking of moving and asked for commuting advice. Well, first add 25 per cent to any journey…
Eugenics for your email
You won’t read much about Sir Francis Galton nowadays because, while it’s inarguable that the man was a giant in…
Two industries in need of regulation
I had a water meter installed in my flat a few months ago. I looked at it just now and…
Free markets and dumb luck
The greatest mistake made by conservatism was its overly close relationship with neo-classical economics. This was a marriage of convenience:…
Let’s pay for the BBC content we use
What follows is a proposal for reducing the BBC licence fee and improving the corporation’s output while saving the British…
