Sat at the BBC late at night, waiting to go on air, so just time to craft my two-penneth on the Government’s broadband plans. Firstly, though I was never fan of the distinctly unambitious 2Mbps target, it was at least a defined target. I don’t understand why the coalition has felt the need to ditch this target rather than maintain it alongside the new objective for 2015. Unless of course it is a target they knew they would fail to meet in any case, which I suspect is probably accurate. The new target seems to be...read more.

Discussed two topics with Becky Want this morning on Retail Therapy, live from the Arndale on BBC Radio Manchester. Listen again if you fancy it here. The second topic was the top toys for Christmas 2010. According to the Toy Retailer’s Association, the Lego Airport, VTech KidiZoom video camera, and Moon Dough Barn are amongst the ‘dream dozen’ toys this Christmas. There’s certainy a lot of high tech in the list – including semi-lifelike robot animals – but it’s these three ‘creative play’ toys that have really caught my attention. Watching my own toddling daughter play...read more.

Discussed two topics with Becky Want this morning on Retail Therapy, live from the Arndale on BBC Radio Manchester. Listen again if you fancy it here. The first topic we covered was robots. I think that we might finally see domestic robots coming into the mainstream in 2011. There’s a huge variety available today and they have been around in various forms for some years, but they don’t really seem to have caught on in the UK. When I talk about domestic robots, don’t expect to see R2D2 and C3po roaming around your living room any...read more.

A couple of weeks back my phone was pinched. While I was busy throwing shapes in one of Manchester’s less salubrious nightspots, someone else was dipping into my pocket and lifting out my iPhone. Because of a bit of an insurance snafu, I realised there would be about a month’s gap before I got a new one. Unfortunately I’d already eBayed all my old phones. So what to do? A quick trip to the o2 store gave me an answer: a phone for £10. I was staggered. I had no idea you could get a phone...read more.

This is one of those times I wish I had a statistician’s skills. Maybe I ought to write to More or Less… The BBC reported this morning that 78% of graduate recruiters are filtering out any candidates with less than a 2:1. As someone with a 2:2, and having been involved in recruitment for some years now, I take issue with this. In my limited experience, degree score has practically no bearing on the value that an employee brings to a business. I have seen graduates with firsts last a matter of weeks, unable to make...read more.

Built-in obsolescence is the design of objects for a specific lifespan. The idea is that when one object fails, you’ll buy another one. It is a very wasteful business model, especially when the things being designed could last so much longer. Take cars for example. Modern cars are made from many materials with a limited lifespan, and designed with fixings that aren’t meant to be repaired or replaced. Just look at the faded and cracked bumpers hanging off many cars just a few years old. Beyond a certain point, maintaining them becomes uneconomical for all but...read more.

This is a rather angry piece I wrote for my other blog (now dormant again) a few weeks back. ## I’m getting a little sick of science denialists. The people who – either through sheer bonkersness or for personal profit – reject established scientific orthodoxy on all manner of things: vaccination, global warming, AIDS, evolution, homeopathy. I’m all for scepticism, but beyond a certain point if you haven’t accepted the weight of evidence, you are simply not a rational person worth debating with. Unfortunately the anti-science movement seems to be gathering pace rather than diminishing. Even...read more.

It’s nearly twelve months since I blogged here. In that time I’ve done almost no long-form writing apart from a couple of posts about my new project (a kit car) on the stalled attempt at a replacement for BOTF – man-blog.co.uk. Why? Well with a baby and two businesses under twelve months old, my attention has been needed elsewhere. And yes, with a baby and two young businesses, not a lot has happened on the kit car either. So what am I doing here now? Well to be truthful I have missed this blog. I have...read more.