Fredkin's; the best paradox

Here's an explanation for why nothing gets done: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fredkin%27s_paradox

Thank your authors

I've had a couple of really nice notes in the last couple of months. People getting in touch to say they liked something I'd written. This is an incredibly pleasant feeling and it doesn't happen very often. And every time it happens I'

Make more slides

I did a presentation for the good people of GDS the other week. I really enjoyed it. The presenting and the questions and all that but also, just the craft and the opportunity to think about an argument and to make some new slides. Neil is right. I want to

The London Review of TikToks 5th July 2026

Let me get the three piece and a biscuit @gracespelman the songs aren’t ranked except for #1 which is ABSOLUTELY MY FAVORITE #musicdiscovery #musicrecommendations #playlist ♬ original sound - grace 🎧 | music discovery @nationofartisans How did Kaymet, a WWII-era sheet metal workshop on the Old Kent Road making chassis for radar,

One weird trick

A story I've told a thousand times, but still useful, I suspect.

More Do

I had a phase of making little videos about the things in the Do book, and then I forgot. So here we go again:

What are you working on?

Notes and links - 28th June 2026

"Consulting giant Accenture is trying to figure out how to stop non-technical workers from blowing through companies’ AI token budget on trivial tasks like converting PDFs to presentation slides" The Tokenpocalypse Is Here: Companies Are Scrambling To Stop Spending So Much on AILeaked audio from Accenture says

Walking Slow

I've embarked on another pointless, slow and unmonetisable project. I call it Walking Slow although that is a bad name. I always find that the most poignant things on YouTube are those street scenes from 50 years ago, 30 years ago, 20 years ago, NOT THAT LONG ago.

For 41256/41233/4764 fans

Findings (may not work)

I posted to TikTok every day for a year and I learned nothing

Actually, that's not true. This is what I actually learned: 1. Find a topic, 'a niche', you'll probably have to experiment a lot to find the one that works. Then - only post about that topic. Experiment a lot to find the style/tone/approach

Notes and links - 21st June 2026

"On the pitch, much was amateurish: penalty spots were painted in the wrong place, some games finished ahead of time, and the identity of some of the goalscorers remains unknown. Argentina’s captain, Manuel Ferreira, left halfway through to sit his law exams, and the US midfielder Andy Auld

PowerPoint is people

I try to keep my eye out for examples of the general absorption of 'presentations' into culture. PowerPoint parties were my previous favourite example. This is now the best one: Date My MateThe global movement bringing real-life connection back to dating. Friends pitch their single friends using

Inching towards a breakfast show

I've been experimenting with early morning streaming on YouTube. Just a camera pointing at my desk and a soundtrack of 6am appropriate tunes. At some point I'll work out how to integrate a microphone and then I'll also annoy you with news and sport.

Notes and links - 14th June 2026

Is this true?: "attention-harvesting advertising is the only software business model that works at scale for consumer services" From: "This reality about the consumer market is a lesson that Silicon Valley has to re-learn every decade or so. Consider Dropbox, whose founder, Drew Houston, is

The London Review of TikToks - 13th June 2026

@beachboyz2men The incredible photo archive that was nearly sent to a landfill. Special thanks to Gary Leonard for access and help digitizing the slides, and to the Huntington Library for assistance with research. ♬ original sound - beachboyz2men Constraints! @bifa_film Low budget, big ideas. Peter Capaldi talks creativity and constraint on

Hello subscribers

This is my blog. It sits on a platform called Ghost and, in my head, you're all reading it via RSS, in your newsreaders, and it's the early 2010s. This, of course, is wrong. In fact many of you are reading it via email, especially since

Three tips to get you going

I was asked for some tips on how to start a marketing/advertising project. Here are three: Don't say brand The first problem you'll find is that marketing is full of impenetrable jargon. That's not a bad thing in itself, jargon can be a

An early morning mix with Poem/1

Tides of Sound

Fantastic 30 mins from Radio 3 "At the crest of Japan's economic bubble, in the spring of 1991, a radio station unlike any other began broadcasting from satellite into homes across the country. St.GIGA carried no news, no commercials, no DJs. Instead, it offered an unbroken