But it’s not Unix!
A friend recently posted on Facebook this video in which tech columnist Matt Weinberger explains, in a minute and a half or so, why he switched to a Surface Book laptop running Windows 10...
Author: Matthew Smith
Nothing ‘neutral’ about the hijab ban
Last week, the European Court of Justice ruled that workplaces in Europe could ban workers from wearing "any political, philosophical or religious sign" if a company has a policy requiring "neutral" dress, a judgement...
Should we ban harmful bequests?
This week, a woman who had been cut out of her late mother's will in favour of three animal welfare charities lost her legal battle to claim a large share of the estate. The...
If in doubt, blame Corbyn
The other day I saw an exchange on Twitter between some Labour activists in which Jeremy Corbyn got the blame for Theresa May's announcement that the ban on new grammar schools was to be...
Melanie Phillips has her history wrong
There is an article in the Times today (paywalled) in which Melanie Phillips proclaims that the Scots and Northern Irish have no right to secede at the expense of the "authentic", "ancient" British nation...
Why should disabled people work for peanuts?
Last week Rosa Monckton, wife of Dominic Lawson (son of Nigel and former editor of the Sunday Telegraph when it emitted four of Will Cummins's Islamophobic rants in as many editions — and before...
Big hospital or small unit, bad care is bad care
On Wednesday night, Channel 4 aired a Dispatches special, Under Lock and Key, which exposed the abuse and neglect of patients at St Andrew's hospital in Northampton, an enormous campus which started out as...
Short memories
One of the signs that you're getting older is that you start to become aware that there are adults who weren't even born when you became an adult, or at least don't remember the...
Milo is just a professional jerk
Last week Milo Yiannopoulos (AKA Milo Andreas Wagner), once the darling of the "alt-right" and of a sizeable chunk of the American Right, suddenly fell from grace as a result of someone drawing attention...
Foreign criminal scum!
The Sun are OUTRAGED this morning because an “American strangler”, as they call him, has been deported from the USA to this country after serving nearly 40 years in a New York state prison...
Time for a rethink on third rail?
Last Thursday a major (for this country) storm brought strong winds and rain, bringing down trees and power cables across coastal areas and central and eastern England and Scotland. Virtually all the major railway...
Review: Has Political Correctness Gone Mad?
Has Political Correctness Gone Mad? at Channel 4 Last night Trevor Phillips, the Daily Mail's regular Token Black Man who has had two similar documentaries on Channel 4 in the past few years, had...
Why is age discrimination in housing allowed?
This blog entry is by a friend of mine who is being evicted from her father's flat where she has been living for some time. She has long-running mental health problems and is a...
Blair not the man to lead Brexit fightback
The former British prime minister, Tony Blair, today gave a speech in the City of London in which he declared that Brexit could be defeated if the people who opposed it "rise up" (the...
On the “Muslim Luther” fallacy that won’t die
Last night on BBC's Newsnight, there was a two-minute slot by a Canadian journalist called Graeme Wood, who claimed that the rise of the "Islamic State" was equivalent to the Christian Reformation spearheaded by...
How prevalent is FGM in the UK really?
Last Monday was apparently FGM Awareness Day, and that means there were a lot of FGM stories in the media with vain attempts to interpret figures in a new way to make a story...
Who are ‘Liberty GB’ anyway?
Yesterday Channel 4 News broadcast a conversation involving Jack Buckby, the "outreach officer" and former parliamentary candidate for 'Liberty GB', and Barbara Ntumy, deputy president of the London Metropolitan University students' union and a...
Citizenship is not just a visa
Today three members of the notorious 'grooming gangs' who raped and sexually abused girls in the Rochdale area lost an appeal against deportation to Pakistan. Two of the men, who were jailed in 2012,...
Trump has no business in any parliament
The speaker of the Commons, John Bercow, has made himself unpopular (again) with a number of Tory MPs for announcing that he will not allow Donald Trump to address the Commons if and when...
Trump’s election is no ‘rejection of elites’
In yesterday's Observer, there is a piece by one John Daniel Davidson, identified as "a senior correspondent for the Federalist" who lives in Austin, Texas, defending Donald Trump from claims that he is a...