Demedicalising death
Wendy and I were both struck by the measured tone of this week’s Parliamentary debate on assisted dying. It’s a complicated topic. To me, the starting point is certainly that assisted death should be...
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There are few things more likely to make my eyes roll than the headline: Wallace’s response to MasterChef claims was misogynistic, says No 10 The fact that a television presenter has made people feel...
View ArticleThe artifical intellgience wall
A lot has been written recently about the development of artificial intelligence tools hitting a wall: that is, we’re reaching a point where the pace of improvement in models has slowed considerably....
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Cascading sets
Yesterday, in the context of the first passenger service of the new Metro train, I said: with the UK’s public realm and infrastructure suffering from long term under-investment, it looks like we’ll be...
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Coming of age
The Twentieth Century Society is currently running the first iteration of what it intends to become an annual campaign highlighting exceptional buildings which are turning thirty years old. Buildings...
View ArticleChoice and value
In 2008, about £1 in every £25 spent in a UK supermarket was spent in Lidl or Aldi. Today, it’s closer to £1 in every £5. These discounters have seen enormous growth, driven by a complex web of...
View ArticleFacts are sacred
It was covid that drove me off Facebook, but it perhaps wasn’t until nearly five years later that it left my mind entirely. Wendy and I were writing Christmas cards last month, and I—perhaps not fully...
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Evacuation order
It’s less than seven years since Wendy and I wandered along Hollywood Boulevard, comparing it—not entirely favourably—to Blackpool’s promenade. It’s astonishing, distressing, and tragic to think that,...
View ArticleWest End success
The FT had a lovely ‘long read’ by Daniel Thomas about the success of the West End last week: footfall is well above pre-pandemic levels and the industry is in rude financial health. But not so on...
View ArticleA different fox hunt altogether
In the early days of this blog, the political debate around whether to ban fox hunting was a big deal. Those were, perhaps, simpler times. I think some would be surprised to read these days that I...
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