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Brightoniana: Embassy Court

I love a nosey behind closed doors and I was interested to take a tour around Embassy Court on Saturday. It's a fascinating and beautiful building from the 1930s. More Miami Beach than West Pier, and certainly a Brighton icon. Tales of Embassy Court's heydey before the war, replete with a martini bar and lifts reserved for servants, did make me wonder. The cost of keeping these flats was extraordinary. It was all about exclusive luxury. I can't imagine it was as respectable as our lovely tour guide suggested. I'm sure it was a hotbed of adultery, kept women, well respected men in the ... Read more »

Ada Lovelace Day: Meg Whitman

Ada Lovelace Day: Meg Whitman

Meg Whitman was the CEO and President of eBay from 1998 to 2008 and is now pursuing a bid for the Governorship of California. She led one of the biggest technology-based companies in the world, taking it from start-up to global dominance. In many ways she was the most powerful woman in Silicon ... Read more »
UKYP: must it be 'adversarial'?

UKYP: must it be ‘adversarial’?

I'm loving Twitter at the moment. I got an @wilsondan from the great Sir Stephen Fry over the weekend and today, the Member for Twitter, responded too. Huzzah. Tom Harris is the Labour MP for Glasgow South and he was responding to my tweet re the UK Youth Parliament's (UKYP) hopes to hold ... Read more »
To Let in Brighton

To Let in Brighton

One 'amended' To Let sign is unfortunate. Two looks like carelessness. Snapped tonight, these two are back-to-back for the same big old Victorian house recently turned into studio ... Read more »
Reading List

Reading List

This is a bit of an aide memoire for me and a solicitation for suggestions. Are there any books I should be reading? Fiction preferred this week, I think. Here are some suggestions I've received recently: I'm a little ashamed to admit that I've never read anything by the brilliant Terry ... Read more »
My Suggested New Tory Logo Straplines

My Suggested New Tory Logo Straplines

Seeing as some Conservative goon rather foolishly gave the whole interwebs the opportunity to customise the Tory logo with new straplines, I rather thought it would be rude not to take up that opportunity. Yes. All a bit childish and partisan. But really. It amused me. For way too ... Read more »
Scot Wingo on the future of eBay

Scot Wingo on the future of eBay

Anyone with an interest in eBay could do worse than make some time to work through Scot Wingo's post on what he terms 'eBay 2.0': a future, flourishing eBay. Scot is the CEO of ChannelAdvisor and an all round ecommerce sage. His thoughtful post on a possible path for eBay is the most comprehensive ... Read more »
Estate Agents: hope springs eternal.

Estate Agents: hope springs eternal.

Do you remember the hyperbole that estate agents used to pop through the door? Times have changed. This amused. Translate as: "People keep saying the housing market has collapsed. It's not true, we've actually sold a flat on your ... Read more »
iPod Accessory for the Ladies

iPod Accessory for the Ladies

I spotted this in a Brighton gig guide. It's an intersting little iPod accessory. Just plug it in and, well, just plug it in. It's all reasonably ... Read more »
eBay Classifieds: Commerce needs community

eBay Classifieds: Commerce needs community

eBay really ought to understand classifieds by now. It has (at least) two phenomenal businesses in the portfolio that are exemplary playbooks to emulate: Gumtree in the UK and Marktplaats in Holland. So why is eBay fannying about with eBay branded launches and seemingly half-ditching the Kijiji ... Read more »
The Great Escape Online Ticket Rip-off!

The Great Escape Online Ticket Rip-off!

Just went to bag my ticket online for the Great Escape festival in Brighton in May. It was great fun last year and the 2009 line-up is shaping up nicely. But I was astonished by the additional charges being applied to fans buying tickets online. £9.95 in postage and processing fees. It's ... Read more »
University Challenge: Rematch!

University Challenge: Rematch!

I love the BBC. It can't flagellate itself enough. See the Gaza DEC appeal fiasco or Ross/Brand. They take the hit, refer it to the BBC Trust and weeks later they take the hit all over again. And yet, when a gift horse arrives, they look it in the mouth. Surely, in the face of 'Google' Trimble's ... Read more »
Ryanair: cheap flights and cheap jibes

Ryanair: cheap flights and cheap jibes

All it needed was a cheery 'thanks very much, we'll look into it' and all would have been well but that easy-going Irish humour was lacking recently when several Ryanair staff decided having a pop at a blogger making some quite minor but nonetheless constructive, critical points about the online ... Read more »
Southern Railway Passenger Playlist

Southern Railway Passenger Playlist

Southern Railways usually do a pretty good job of running trains to and from London and Brighton. But the past few weeks have been horrendous. I'll forgive snow disruption reluctantly (although not the website being down due to demand as people were desperate to get info) but signal failures, ... Read more »
Apes, Recruitment Consultants and Metaphors.

Apes, Recruitment Consultants and Metaphors.

I had two conversations with recruitment consultants the day before yesterday. One chinwag was engaging, challenging and positive (Do I get extra points in the 'buzzword bingo?'). The other was like discussing nuclear physics with a chimpanzee. There's never much point, especially when the other ... Read more »