Poms, Paddies, Jocks & Taffs

I wrote this piece about British national terms after my Cross-Cultural Communication lecturer asked me about the differences between different UK-ish groups. Anyone/everyone disagree? The most important bit, and by far the most offensive to get wrong, is recognising that the non-English nations within the UK can never be called ‘England’. England, Scotland and Wales … Continue reading Poms, Paddies, Jocks & Taffs

Blogging is dead and no-one cares?

My riot policing piece yesterday attracted 600 unique visitors in 24 hours. That isn't exactly Perez Hilton, but is about six times my current normal run rate (I think the biggest this blog has ever been is about 1000 daily visitors, for some of the global financial crisis articles). The fact that the piece had … Continue reading Blogging is dead and no-one cares?

Riot strategy, or ‘why calls for tougher cops are missing the point’

I'm not going to do a hand-wringing riots piece. We've seen a million of them, whether from a cartoonish 'make them less poor' point of view, an authoritarian 'hell in a handbasket, we're doomed' point of view, or a bigoted 'rivers of blood' point of view. It's dull. However, following on from Jamie's post about … Continue reading Riot strategy, or ‘why calls for tougher cops are missing the point’

Have Google ever met any foreigners?

The World's Unsurprisingly Fastest-Growing Networking Platform, Google+, is getting stick from various corners for its naming policy. This formally restricts you to "Use your full first and last name in a single language". The idea behind it is sensible. G+ aims to be a combination of a professional network like LinkedIn, and a personal network … Continue reading Have Google ever met any foreigners?