In the evening I met David Cox at the great, grand Grosvenor Hotel near Victoria Station. David is a writer and former broadcast journalist whose work, oddly enough, I was recognizing just as he was being recommended to me; just the week before last, he wrote what seemed to be an insightful article about how …
It didn’t seem reasonable to go to London to write about CCTV, and not make a pilgrimage to quiet Islington in North London, where, at 27B Canonbury Square, George Orwell wrote 1984. Today, within 200 yards of the building, 32 CCTV cameras are in unblinking operation. The building, by the way, is for sale. I …
One of the side benefits of being the friend of Tim O’Toole, most especially when you are writing an article about CCTV, is that as Managing Director of the London Underground, Tim runs one the largest CCTV systems in the country. Presently he has nearly 10,000 cameras, and soon he will have 12,000. On Monday …
As luck would have it, my friend, college roommate and the best man at my wedding, Tim O’Toole, lives in London, and a more generous and better informed guide would be hard to imagine. On Sunday he and I visited the Tate Modern on the South Bank. Frankly, I was disappointed. I had heard that …
I went to London for the last week in January to report on the UK’s unbelievably extensive use of Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) to watch out for (or simply wach) its citizens. On the first day I visited the flat of a friend who lives on Palace Green, which is part of the Crown Estates …
I was recently interviewed by Dan Schawbel for his blog Personal Branding, and here it is. Jamie, how does one get a really cool job like being the managing editor of Playboy? In a specific way, I knew the right guy at the right time. Prior to being hired, I had contributed to Playboy for …
Today, as you prepare your enchiladas and brats, consider this: Super Bowl Sunday is really the last holiday in America’s prolonged interdenominational, generic Holiday Season. This season begins on Thanksgiving, and includes Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, that conjoined celebration of God and Mammon, Christmas, the Nobody Does Any Work in the Week After Christmas Week, New Year’s …
Following Tuesday’s Official Swearing-In and Wednesday’s Swearing-In Unplugged, the White House this morning announced the swearing-in schedule for the rest of the month. January 22nd: Swearing in En Espanol January 23rd: Swearing In: Dance Floor Mix January 24th: Backwards Day nI gniraewS January 25th: Swearing In All You Can Eat Breakfast Buffet January 26th: Swearing …
“America, in the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words; with hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come; let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested we refused to let …
Here’s Fareed Zakaria, writing in the Washington Post today about the line we keep hearing that “at least Bush kept us safe”: That has become the mantra to explain why George W. Bush — contrary to the view of the American public, people abroad and historians — is actually a great man. . . .And …