invention
Why I won’t patent my brilliant idea
In the past 30 years, I have driven about 8,000 miles in France in right-hand-drive cars. And I would be…
Saying yes slowly is what’s hampering progress today
One of my long-held beliefs is that evolutionary biology should be taught extensively in schools. There may be some objections…
Master of disguise: the British genius who concealed whole Allied battle lines
Early one morning in October 1874 a barge carrying three barrels of benzoline and five tons of gunpowder blew up…
Their Brilliant Careers: The Fantastic Lives of Sixteen Extraordinary Australian Writers, by Ryan O’Neill reviewed
Almost 120 years ago, the Australian writer Henry Lawson offered some counsel to those who came after him, writing that…
The keys to Chinese
The history of industry is the story of the reduction of complexity to easily manageable, replicable components or actions. But…
Steve Jones’s chaotic theory of history
‘They fuck you up, your mum and dad.’ Philip Larkin’s most famous line has appeared in the Spectator repeatedly, and…
Whoever invented the referendum deserves a kicking
My favourite quote of the year so far comes from the author Fay Weldon. ‘If this were an all-woman society,’…
When Britannia ruled the digital waves
Everyone, we hear these days, must learn to code. Being able to program computers is the only way to be…
Why the most important years in history were from 1347 to 1352
A group of retired Somerset farmers were sitting about in the early 1960s, so Ian Mortimer’s story goes, debating which…
