I did a thing at Citymetric on the interesting way folks are completely happy for Scottish companies to run the railways in southern England, but lose their minds when Hong Kong companies do the same thing. My favourite self-quote: The RMT, famous for being the least sensible or survival-oriented union in the UK since the National … Continue reading Depends on how foreign your Aberdeens are
Banditry
Those of you who pay attention to such things (and, realistically, most of the people who read this blog are tremendous nerds about one thing or another) may have noticed the exciting green secure HTTP padlock to the left of the URL in their browser bar. Yes, we're now officially just as secure as a … Continue reading On moving to SSL, infinite loops, and the downright impossible
There were a couple of by-elections in the UK this week, both in traditionally-safe-ish Labour seats. Normally in the sixth year of Conservative government, this would be a boring event that nobody cared about: a medium-strength opposition wins government seats at by-elections (even if, as with Labour under Neil Kinnock pre-1992 and under Ed Miliband … Continue reading The Corbyn Effect, or ‘you’re nobody til everybody hates you’
I'm not saying blogging is obsolete, just that I've had a lot of outlets for my views lately that aren't here, and also everything* has been sufficiently terrible that I'm not sure I want to publicly express some of the views, etc etc. But I try and do this sort of thing at least once … Continue reading I have ruined the weird sidebar shape
Southern's parent company know that they're in the G4S bracket of mean thugs. The government know it, and that's what they're for. The RMT know it, and fighting them is their job. The non-union marketing people at Southern, who are probably your nice mates, don't. This is unfortunate. Me at the New Statesman
I've not been blogging here a lot lately. Partly because I've been doing that horrible thing known as "working for money and trying to forget", partly because now that Facey and Insty exist, there's no real need to stick amazing holiday photos up here, and partly because Brexit has completely fucked up my predictions and … Continue reading The future, and other things I have no idea about
I did a piece at Citymetric on why the disastrous shenanigans at Southern Railway are actually a resumption of a very old battle. They paid me a lot less than a Southern Railway guard gets for the same hours. I probably enjoyed it more, though. Image: an EMD E6A leading the US Southern Railway's The Tennessean … Continue reading Southern Railway, now arriving in 1973
I've refrained from long-form comment on the UK's EU referendum, partly because the debate is generally painful, but also because there are extremely clever people who've already made most of the points I've wanted to make. One thing that I think is worth addressing, though, is the current suggestion that people are switching back to Remain because … Continue reading Actually, it’s about ethics in plebiscite campaigning
I've tended not to blog here about my migration status in Australia, for reasons that are probably obvious. But to my great delight and relief, earlier this month I was sworn in as an Australian citizen [1]. The process, from tourist to citizen, wasn't super-easy. However: it was a hell of a lot easier for me than … Continue reading Disruptive illegal migrant gets come-uppance
I don't know what's going to happen in the next US general election. I also didn't know what was going to happen in the US electoral primaries, although I don't think there's any great shame in admitting the current situation isn't what I anticipated. It seems highly likely, at this point, that Donald Trump will … Continue reading Electability and absurd arrogance