Isn’t there something about the IKEA brand that we British don’t take entirely seriously? We are full of respect for John Lewis, and Fortnum and Masons and Harrods, but when we picture this jaunty Swedish furniture and household goods company I think many of us can’t resist a smile. At those funny (apparently) made up… Continue reading
50 years on, is global warming today’s Cuban missile crisis?
50 years ago today President Kennedy had a cold, or more precisely an “upper respiratory infection.” We soon knew that wasn’t true. It was a “diplomatic cold”, an excuse to cancel engagements so he could attend to the greatest and most pressing International crisis the modern world had known. That night, October 22, 1962,… Continue reading →
Top motoring writers unite to praise car that does 2000 miles – and more – on a tank of petrol
So, you have £29,995 to spend on a nice new car, or your firm is doing it for you and letting you make the choice. You think about going green. But you don’t want a model that would draw disparaging glances from the Top Gear team, or their many supporters. So that rules out green? Wrong…. Continue reading →
Down to street level to find the future for politics? New movie Grassroots reopens the debate.
I have been to see the film Grassroots, directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal based on the book Zioncheck for President by Phil Campbell. It’s the story of Grant Cogswell, a naive environmental zealot in Seattle who campaigns to extend a short stretch of monorail throughout the city. In 2001 he runs against the incumbent local councillor… Continue reading →
3-D print your own tractor (and an infinite number of other things) at home – why wouldn’t you want to do it?
So how far is 3-D printing going to go? There’s a lively debate. (3-D printing is a compellingly simple technology. You take a CAD – computer-aided design – file of the object to be produced. Software then tells the printer how to lay down successive, minute layers of material – anything from plastic to metal… Continue reading →
Saved from the chop – how councils interfere to benefit us all
The media strains to find positive things to say about the work of councils, and elected councillors. It’s much easier to report the opposite. The sort of news story that goes down well, and has the reader or listener nodding in agreement, is about petty, obstructive Town Hall bureaucracy, interfering busybodies imposing silly rules that… Continue reading →