The Tepid Take

I have a peculiar history when it comes to being a ‘road user’. I actually had my first go in the drivers’ seat of my mum’s Smart 4x4 before I learnt to ride a bike: aged 16, an embarrassing race against time in preparation for a school trip to Rendlesham Forest. The go in the car happened just a few months prior, in a field just opposite where I learnt to cycle. Of course, I got the hang of the bike a bit quicker than the car; I would be 19 before I could drive with a full license. But then cycling was metaphorically resigned to the back seat, to cycle hire romps and Santander Cycles. Meanwhile, I drove up the various arterial spines of the UK and, clips in multi-story car parks aside, it was all very comfortable. I took up cycling again last summer as a distraction, and, finally riding on routes I’d rode to death in the car, I realised the difference. For the first time in years, I was afraid to use the road. Why? Cycling has been, for the best part of the last century , a ni...

This piece was originally published in CityMetric in 2018. King’s Cross Central is one of the larger re-development projects currently underway in in central London. A decade in, the area now plays host to the Guardian’s London offices, the Central St. Martin’s art school and an obnoxiously large branch of Waitrose. Only last month, indeed, King’s Cross Central played host to the greatest share of events for the Lumiere light festival. All very prestigious – enough, indeed, to earn the area a shiny new postcode, N1C. What it hasn’t earned it is a new tube station. Okay, there’s King’s Cross St. Pancras itself, at the area’s southern tip, but the northern end of the development zone is as much as 1km from there. And the rebranding of Nine Elms and Battersea to house the new American Embassy , remember, merited the development of two additional stops and an entirely new branch of the Northern Line. The partnership behind King’s Cross Central presumably thought that the existing – admit...

The Guardian changed its print edition to a tabloid format last month. Incidentally, I was on a placement there the very day the change came into effect. That meant navigating through a packed office, an extensive re-orientation for staff, and, pleasingly, free on-brand souvenirs. Beyond the Who Moved My Cheese -esque atmosphere, I wanted to know what exactly this change meant for the Guardian, why it had to be taken (although I think we all had an inkling) and how on earth journalism seems to remain so inelastic in the face of so many challenges. I suppose the long and short of it is that, well, it doesn’t. Running a newspaper, like running any other company, necessitates making a profit – at least in the long run. How can an organisation that holds itself to such (supposedly) high ethical and moral standards succeed in this sort of environment? Let’s find out. Guardian News and Media, abbreviated to GNM, the company responsible not only for the Guardian but the Observer, Guardi...

This piece was originally published in CityMetric in 2018. In Berlin, tourists from London, Paris, Madrid, or even Moscow may be surprised to find that upon leaving Schönefeld Airport, there are no ticket barriers greeting them at the nearby S-Bahn stop. Instead, all passengers are kindly reminded that before boarding their train, they should “validate” their travel with a stamp from one of the nearby machines. Anybody who forgets to do so is met with the less friendly reminder that the penalty fare for such an act is 60 euros. And I should know, because I’ve paid that very price. So why employ such a system? Although disconcerting at first, relying on ticket validation does make rather a lot of sense. Passengers can purchase as many tickets as they want, whenever they want, and simply stamp one every time they take a ride on the public transport network – be this by bus, tram, U-Bahn or S-Bahn. Day tickets are stamped when travellers take their first journey of the day, and are valid...

     Earlier this week, Carillion collapsed in a sea of fire and envy, and I should know, because, absurdly, you can find my name at the end of a by-line about it for the Guardian. What’s important for us today, however, isn’t the Carillion liquidation per se, but how Jeremy Corbyn can capitalise on it, something that’s already been reported on by PSA Journalist of the Year, Stephen Bush. Stephen quite rightly points out that the collapse of a major government contractor is a good time for the opposition to hold the government to account and then pummel it into the ground; however, there’s some doubt over whether Corbyn is the best instigator of this scrutiny given the party’s previous inaction on the May Ministry’s problems, most notably the Junior Doctors scandal. However, the background to the Carillion mess is largely unlike that of Hunt’s NHS, and it actually has far more in common with another scandal we all remember: Grenfell Tower. The most notable similarity...

     The other day, I found myself re-reading the affable graphic guide, Marx For Beginners. It’s a good book, if a little biased towards the man, and I’d recommend it if not for the fact that it was published when Germany was still two countries and the jury was still sort of out on the whole USSR thing, at least amongst Marxist circles. However, what's relevant for today is the book’s mentioning of Marx’s early foray into investigative journalism. While interesting, this is wholly unremarkable. Many latter-day social activists are writers and journalists as well as thinkers. However, at the time, Marx was remarkable for his desire to not just consider philosophy, but argue for it too, which is sort of what Dialectical Materialism was getting at (nowadays such a notion appears to be just a jumble full of words, untangled to suggest a polemic about real-world goings on; that is, what we’d consider modern day economic and political philosophy). Anyway, this whole investig...

The history of the “British Institution” is a fuzzy one. Some of the things we consider most British, of course, hold their roots in faraway lands, such as fish and chips or curry culture. Only once we take things down a notch and start laying claim to more banal inventions such as the sandwich do we find our place; inventions we pioneered, only to lose their legacy as other great powers laid their claims. While the Earl of Sandwich remains a memorable innovator, the humble notion of putting some meat in some bread was preceded by the kebab and superceded by the hamburger. Only in its most banal form does the British sandwich maintain its esteem , in giant factories, at the hands of companies constantly trying to find new ways to keep salad leaves fresh and tomatoes from going soggy.  It is in this banality, tied into an oft unexpected ingenuity, that the British Institution often sits. The telephone box, now a hotspot for free Wi-Fi . Doctor Who, now a harbinger for social cha...