Why we hate surge pricing – but love happy hour
It’s not the cost that matters, but how it’s framed
Why driving above the speed limit is a mug’s game
Imagine you are choosing between two proposed road-improvement plans, but have the budget for only one. Both of the roads…
What a full English breakfast can tell us about the state of the NHS
Among devotees of the full English breakfast, few things polarise more than the inclusion of baked beans. Some people are…
What I learned from being debanked
My own debanking story concerns a card rather than a bank account. Not the same degree of inconvenience as Nigel…
Just stop HS2!
I have two suggestions for HS2. Either stop it or make it stop. The spiralling cost and delays are reason enough…
How to increase your home’s value – with a sandwich
It is a tenet of neo-liberal economics that there is no such thing as a free lunch. This is obvious…
Light bulb moment: the flaw in the petrol car ban
This week, writing in the Daily Mail, Matt Ridley produced a devastating takedown of the government’s 2030 ban on the…
We are experiencing an unusually high volume of bureaucracy
I have a hunch why people in late middle age are abandoning the workforce: their jobs, as they once knew…
Property prices represent the real cost-of-living crisis
I sometimes feel my entire life in advertising has been wasted, and not for the reason you may assume. No,…
The case for building more roads
Suella Braverman was completely wrong to ask her civil servants to investigate the possibility of arranging a one-on-one speed awareness…
How to bag the best spot in the supermarket car park
Our local Sainsbury’s, though admirable in every other way, has a slightly inflated estimate of the disabled population of Seven-oaks,…
The case against koalas
There was a reason 18th-century rulers were eager for their subjects to grow and eat potatoes: the miraculous tuber offered…
Why are beds flat?
Last month in a Swiss hotel, I came across an idea so beautifully simple that I felt it would be…
What the British could learn from the French
If I ran the British government, to promote more heterodox thinking I would employ a small cadre of French people…
Why should everyone have an electric car?
Some excellent thinking this month from the Italian complexity theorist Luca Dellanna: Two days ago, the EU parliament approved a…
How to dress for air travel
Even though I fly a lot, I retain the notion that air travel should be treated as a special occasion…
How to outperform ChatGPT
Much of the magic of Curb Your Enthusiasm comes from the show being plotted but not scripted. The direction of…
Seeking autonomy
I recently heard a tip from an older colleague on managing a department. ‘Everyone is primarily interested in one of…
The dwindling case for living in London
The recent debate around ‘levelling up’ may be missing something. I would argue that there is another way to consider…
The case for maths to 18
Recently Chinese 11-year-olds faced the following question in a maths exam. ‘If a ship has 26 sheep and ten goats…
Why work is no longer working
It is often said that Rishi Sunak has no idea what it is like to survive on a low income…
Why should I be compensated for a delayed train?
In early 2020 my family and I were due to fly home from visiting a friend in Oman when the…
What the media is doing to our politics
An American academic told me that during the 2016 presidential election nobody in academia believed there was the faintest chance…
The allure of ‘delight qualities’
If you were to ask which single business concept deserves to be more widely known, I would be hard-pressed to…
The case for ‘premium economy’ train carriages
A few years ago I wrote here about the unexpected symbiosis between economy passengers and business travellers on commercial flights.…
