Browsing all posts in Featured.

Bye, then. Shut the TARDIS door behind you.

A regeneration is a big deal for Dr Who and its fans, and I hadn’t been so excited since Logopolis. And yet by the time Matt Smith took over the role on New Year’s Day, I was hoovering David Tennant out of the TARDIS like an overstayed party guest. I never wanted to see his overexposed pointy Scottish face again.

Not blogging but writing

Yes, I have gone a bit quiet, haven’t I? Here’s why. I’m working on a book for FT Prentice Hall on online marketing for small businesses - due to publish summer 2010. If you’d like me to consider your business as a case study for the book, please get in touch!

Criminalising Dissent

The Tomlinson case is a symptom of a wider malaise in British society that I find deeply troubling. Protest is not a crime. Thinking about protesting is not a crime. I THOUGHT about attending the protest at Scotland Yard this week. Does that mean I should have expected Tom Cruise to come crashing through my window in a Minority Report style pre-cog bust?

Winter in Woking

I’ve discovered my photographic forté: local rag reportage. We had a bit of snow in the UK this week. I took advantage of the first snowfall on Monday, took a walk into town, and a few photos along the way. My local paper spotted them on Flickr and asked if they could publish one or [...]

Throw away your TV

The BBC drove me to it. It’s not just Gaza - but that was the final straw. The BBC’s eccentric, inconsistent, cravenly partial decision not to screen the DEC Gaza Appeal is just the latest sign that the world’s best broadcaster has become a weakened, withered, cowering institution. From sexed-up dossiers to mis-named Blue Peter [...]

The information diet

Did you survive the festivities? We had a good one at Reed Towers, and enjoyed the patter of tiny feet around the estate. There’s nothing like having a midget for a butler, as W.C. Fields would say. I’m now also emerging from the seasonal sugar coma induced by all those Cadbury’s Heroes, mince pies and [...]

I’m not the one wearing a frock, your Holiness

The spiritual leader of a fifth of the world’s population is at it again, spreading seasonal tidings of hatred and fear. Pope Benedict, showing as much compassion as during his Hitler Youth days, took the opportunity for a spot of gay-bashing in his annual address to the Curia this year. We may be neck-deep in [...]

A Leonard Cohen Christmas

I regret not being able to make it to the Nice Jazz Festival this year for a number of reasons. Top of the list is that Leonard Cohen was performing there. Unfortunately for him - but fortunately for the fans - he was the victim of a $5m embezzlement that forced him out of his [...]

Cobblers to the Credit Crunch

I just saw an item on BBC News about how certain businesses are thriving in the credit crunch - such as cobblers, as people economise by getting their Manolos mended rather than junking their Jimmy Choos. So what other businesses are recession-proof?
Don’t say loan sharks and reposession companies, you cynics at the back. Pizza delivery [...]

The collapse of capitalism

Here are a couple of my recent Facebook status updates:

Sep 02: Jon thinks rumours of recession are crazily exaggerated. Worst times for 60 years? What, since the War?? Calm down, Darling…
Sep 15: Jon wishes newsreaders wouldn’t use hyperbole like “global financial meldown”. It makes him nervous.

That now seems like ancient history. I was wrong. “Global [...]