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
Banditry
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?
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’
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?
In memory of everyone's favourite alcoholic Jewish female jazz singer-songwriter (bonus points for anyone who has a different favourite alcoholic Jewish female jazz singer-songwriter: please share in comments), a single question today. What was the highest UK chart position achieved by Amy Winehouse's cover version of Valerie?
I've not abandoned this blog - just, whilst struggling with painful paid work on the kind of social media and consumer goods marketing work I tend to post here (it's rewarding and worthwhile paid work, but whilst working on it for pay I'm not so keen to blog on it for no money), most of … Continue reading Why credit ratings weren’t important in the Thameslink deal
I went to a state primary school; admittedly, one in a fairly posh part of the world (Christchurch School in Ware, Hertfordshire, for the morbidly curious). It was the 1980s; education was OKish; there were about 30 people in my class, and the ones who properly dribbled on themselves were removed for maths and English … Continue reading Tesco Academy
As a 30ish male, if you walk around the place with a black eye, you will get a combination of contemptuous looks, studied avoidance, and slightly unnerving deference. I'm assuming the latter comes from people who assume that the owner of a black eye has managed to acquire it through being an ultraviolent Begbie figure, … Continue reading Minor observations and questions
As if to add ammo to the fervent Marxists who've been criticising me for my slavish adherence to neoliberal economics lately [*], I'm going to admit that I'm a fan of The Economist on Facebook. Not because it's my favourite paper - I subscribe to the New Yorker, Private Eye and Crikey, and would subscribe … Continue reading Baffling or flattering?
My lack of interest in the forthcoming Royal nuptials is about as total as it gets. However, people will keep writing about it, and I don't always look away from their articles in time... So Johann Hari has written a fairly boilerplate piece about the monarchy, and why the UK shouldn't have one. He sensibly … Continue reading A defence of royalty