The presentation of choice
The appallingly bad photograph below was taken on my mobile phone about 15 years ago. It shows the menu layout…
Just giving
Seven years ago I wrote here about a site called Kiva.org. I had met the co-founder of this charity when…
A lightbulb moment at the self-checkout
I spent the last few days in Deal and Folkestone with Professor Richard Thaler at Nudgestock, Ogilvy’s seaside festival of…
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 estate agents aren’t dying out
I don’t like to make business predictions, but — barring some apocalypse — I suspect there will be plenty of…
Let’s rethink the working 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
In the late 1980s, the parks service in the United States were concerned about the deterioration of the stonework on…
Looking for answers you can’t see
Driving from Dover on the M20 a year ago I missed the turning for the M25. A month later I…
Is that Green or red?
Few people know this, but hidden within the FedEx logo, between the E and the x, there is a small…
Going the wrong way one step at a time
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
Are you sitting comfortably and wearing your tinfoil hat? If so, open YouTube and watch a full-screen version of the…
Shopping and viewing
Some time in the 1960s, a group of people in an advertising agency (among them Llewelyn Thomas, son of Dylan)…
Reputations at stake
‘J’ai failli attendre’ — ‘I almost had to wait’ — allegedly said by Louis XIV when his carriage drew up just a…
What Miliband needs is a grilled tomato
My children have a phrase called ‘fomo’ — which stands for ‘fear of missing out’. It is a constant, mildly…
Cashmere socks and the secret of happiness
I had always attributed it to bad luck in the genetic lottery. I am three-eighths Welsh and a quarter Scottish,…
Have airport designers 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…
The dark secrets that your clicks reveal
About four years ago, an irate father in Minneapolis walked into his local Target shop with a complaint. He wanted…
S&M and B&Q
I never got beyond page 20 in Fifty Shades of Grey. No one got shot in the first chapter, and…
Putting words on the map
I stopped using London buses when some coward put doors on them. Twenty years ago, you could board any bus…
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…
The psychology of either/or
It is a trick which often works on children. Do not tell them to eat vegetables; instead ask whether they…
The pound sterling doesn’t buy happiness
My second favourite religious joke is an old Jewish joke (which I read in the Harvard Review, so I assume…
The kick of the habit
I was waiting on an office forecourt recently puffing on an e-cigarette when a security guard came out. ‘You can’t…
How oneupmanship ruins things for everyone
‘There’s a little bit of a fascist in all of us. For some, the tragedy of human want may provoke…
