innovation

Nothing beats a 1980s brick phone

3 August 2024 9:00 am

In the late 1980s, a story entered advertising folklore. A group from an ad agency had boarded an evening train…

Light bulb moment: the flaw in the petrol car ban

15 July 2023 9:00 am

This week, writing in the Daily Mail, Matt Ridley produced a devastating takedown of the government’s 2030 ban on the…

Alive with innovation: British art between the world wars

4 June 2022 9:00 am

When I mentioned the subject of this book to someone reasonably well-informed about 20th-century British art, the response was: ‘Isn’t…

Sense and sensibility: Steven Pinker and Rory Sutherland on reason vs instinct

18 December 2021 9:00 am

Steven Pinker and Rory Sutherland on reason vs instinct

Here’s a clue: we should all be doing cryptic crosswords

13 March 2021 9:00 am

I was once asked by a previous editor of the Timeshow to increase sales of the paper. I was slightly…

The 31 inventions that Britain really needs

27 February 2021 9:00 am

‘Get Brexit done, then Arpa’ read Dominic Cummings’s WhatsApp profile. Arpa was what’s now the American Defense Advanced Research Projects…

The Egyptians knew the value of accidental discoveries

27 February 2021 9:00 am

The government has plans to fund a new research agency to back ‘cutting-edge science’. Ptolemaios (Ptolemy) I (367-282 bc), the…

Is it time to reopen technology’s cold cases?

19 December 2020 9:00 am

One of the staples of crime drama is the ‘cold-case squad’. This allows programme-makers to add period detail to the…

Why I won’t patent my brilliant idea

25 July 2020 9:00 am

In the past 30 years, I have driven about 8,000 miles in France in right-hand-drive cars. And I would be…

The other side to the division of labour: the concentration of attention

5 December 2015 9:00 am

Adam Smith’s theory on the division of labour first appeared in 1776 in The Wealth of Nations. The idea was…

The most important test that HS2 doesn’t pass

21 November 2015 9:00 am

Despite my opposition to High Speed 2, I am quite a big fan of HS1, the line which runs from…