Probably my favourite band over the last 30 years has been Crowded House. In lead singer and principal song writer Neil Finn, the Crowdies have a front man who at one turn can take you on a journey of emotional self discovery, and at another can simply extract the last possible ounce of pop from a (more...)

100 years ago the first fighter plane used by the new Royal Air Force was the legendary Sopwith Camel. It could climb at a rate of nearly six metres per second, was armed with machine guns and had a maximum speed of a little over 100mph. The Eurofighter Typhoon on the other hand, which is set to (more...)

It was Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, chief of staff with the Prussian army before World War 1, who said that no battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy. Today, for me, that mantra is as true for my DIY projects as it is for the theatre of war. No matter how well planned the project, there (more...)

Isambard Kingdom Brunel is possibly the most famous name in British engineering. Along with his innovations in construction and design, he also set new standards in branding. With his trademark stovepipe hat and cigar, Brunel knew the value of his image as an unspoken promise of expertise and (more...)

A man goes into a bar and orders a pint of beer, a large red wine, a brandy, a gin and tonic, a vodka and orange, and a whisky, which he then proceeds to drink. “Crikey,” says the barman, “that’s quite an order.” Another man comes up to the bar, and orders ten times (more...)

Back in 1984, we marvelled at the special effects that brought Arnold Schwarzenegger to the big screen in Terminator as a time travelling cyborg, out to kill Sarah Connor, future mother of the leader of the resistance (John Connor) against the machines in the future, before he could be conceived. (more...)

The first year of the Donald Trump presidency have seen ongoing concerns about his suspect judgement, planning, problem solving abilities and impulse control, culminating in a group of 70 mental health professionals sending a public letter to White House physicians urging them to evaluate his mental (more...)

The longstanding industrial practice of outsourcing manufacturing operations to low-cost parts of the world to keep manufacturing costs down has recently taken a dramatic turn. With rapidly rising labour costs in countries such a China, the financial advantages of manufacturing overseas are being (more...)

Being a food critic must surely be the best job in the world. You eat out constantly, feasting on the wares of the some of the nicest eateries in the country, washed down with the most pleasant wines. Restauranteurs welcome you with open arms, ready to present you with the best cuisine – (more...)

I had yet another fantastic money-making idea. Could have been an app, could have been a website, but people would have been queuing up to pay me money for the privilege of using/viewing my product. What could it be, you ask? My plan was to take a century’s-worth of maps showing the changing (more...)