Riding in the back of a taxi to my suburban home. On Melody FM they are playing Phil Collins; ‘In the Air Tonight’. It’s late, I’m tired. The motion of the cab is hypnotising. The song seems to slow down.

You know that Phillpe Stark lemon squeezer, a fixture on any Yuppy wedding list from the mid eighties. Even all these years later, the Juicy Salif remains a really strange object. A high water mark of unrestrained design. It placed

The first time I saw them was in the Duty Free shop at Brussels Airport: A display of kitch mini-buildings set against a backdrop of Belgian chocolate and cigars. They are the visual equivalent of eating, drinking and smoking the

Did you see the Queens Golden Jubilee last summer? The thing which began with Brian May astride the palace roof playing God Save the Queen. A lightweight alloy of rooftop Beatles, good natured bolshevik, arch-royalist Scarlet Pimpernel and Woodstock Hendrix.

In 1937, Mies van der Rohe arrived in New York on his first journey to the US. He was the most enigmatic of all the European architects who were leaving Nazi Germany at that time – either because of persecution

Usually, a review of an operating system would tell you all kinds of technical qualifications, specifications, and a performance related run down. This one won’t. What it will tell you is something much less useful. The kind of things that

Everybody knows that design in Britain was invented by Terrance Conran and Robert Elms in a deserted warehouse on the southside of the Thames in 1980. Before that, Britain looked and dressed like an episode of Minder. It was ugly,

This is a designers story about non-design. The origins of the tarmac road are as clumsy as a smash at the crossroads of geology, chemistry, economics, and city planning. In fact, its origins are literally in an everyday low grade

Missys Crib in amazing Planometric Vision! Like Jackass’ “Human Omelette” – where Dave England munches, swallows and regurgitates the raw ingredients into a sizzlin’ pan – MTV is simultaneously the laziest and most creative channel on your digibox. Guilty after

Automated crossbow traps, giant balls of rock rolling down tunnels, statues with lasers for eyes: There are certain kinds of things that are only ever seen on the covers of sci-fi books, in the plastic models on shelves of fantasy

Itsa Kinda Magic. Or more likely, these days it’s not. Magic is back, but this time it’s different. Magic is no longer a lounge show. Satin top hats, frilly shirts, velvet jackets, red drapes, sequinned outfits, feathers, and big boobs

It ends with White Christmas, sung through a megaphone. It sounds a hundred years away, from the loneliest place on earth. It looks like a Muppet Velvet Underground singing the hits of Bing Crosby splattered with blood and punching the

Piccadilly Circus has had an upgrade. A giant, curved, superbright and supersmooth TV screen has just been turned on. Wider than widescreen, it curves around the Regency architecture and disappears up Shaftesbury Avenue. Its bright and it moves and its

Squeezed into the world a big purple lump of screaming, wet biology. Scooped up, weighed, hosed with oxygen. Then, a weird calm, blinking and breathing, fresh to the world. Tiny crumpled hands unfolding on the 510,072,200 sq. km of our

Earlier this year the UK government decided to ban tobacco advertisements. The impending ad ban precipitated a puff of self congratulatory farewells from the fat old ad men who had grown rich peddling ill health. My own brand, Silk Cut,

Driving west on my scooter through London’s evening traffic. Over my shoulder looms the outline of Harrods, picked out in bright dots like a department store shaped constellation against the dark Knightsbridge sky. Something solid turned to air. In front

A little after midday on 12 December 1901, three bursts of electromagnetic radiation travelled above the Atlantic ocean at 186,000 miles per second …beep beep beep, from Poldhu, in the South-western corner of England to Marconi’s cabin on top of

How Londoners can stay calm as the days Evening Standard begins to appear each day is a mystery. Who could ignore the thrill as a giant system swings into action: as the battle-worn orange and white chevroned vans begin circling

Amongst Marshal Mcluhans more stunning observations is that a light bulb is information. He said we don’t recognise it because its pure information. And its true, we don’t recognise it. But on the other hand, is it entirely pure?. A

Dirty dishes are like a hangover you can look at. A pile in the sink thats last night pleasure congealed into todays misery. Bythe morning its too much for the robot washer tucked under your worktop. A job that only

Carlton Terrace runs along the back of the Mall, and if you’re ever there on a weekend you might see actors dressed in 19th century costume looking bored and drinking Nescafe. That’s because if you stand in the right place,