undermanager

I spend a lot of time on YouTube watching old Modern Jazz Quartet concerts, as a quartet and as individuals. This is one of my favourites. Milt Jackson, just a few months before he died at 76.

Because of the cafe book and blog I get a lot of emails, journalists etc wanting me to comment on or decry the closure of a cafe by rapacious landlords. This, from London Centric, is almost always the story of what's really happened."We do a lot of reporting at London Centric on small businesses struggling to cope with the city’s rising rents, rapid transformation, or greedy landlords.Whether the threat is posed by developers or gentrification, we’ve found that the stories about the closure of…

From Stephen Colbert

Seeing the board go up for added time | 4764A plastic Paw Patrol football, elephants have names, big up the corporate gangAcast

The most London pic of 2026EY retracts study after researchers discover AI hallucinationsThis is a good way to talk about your product: "It’s not champagne but it has dignity, and is full of flavour."Beware if you're using LLMs for qual analysis: https://kucharski.substack.com/p/real-signals-or-artificial-stereotypesSolid writing advice from Oliver Burkeman. including:"Print it out, type it back in. This isn’t new for me in itself – I’ve been doing it for years – but this time I’ve been even…

I'm trying to work out what else to do with Interesting. It feels like a good thing, a time and a place that people enjoy and appreciate and I was wondering if there was something we could do to make it more regular and open to more people.I thought I'd start by thinking about what I think makes it work. Here you go:Short talks about Interesting thingsI think the format really helps. 10 minutes is a length the speakers have to think about. They can't ramble, they have to focus, it makes them…

@realpodsaveamerica AI still has a lot to learn before it can put together a radio show. #artificialintelligence #ai #podsaveamerica ♬ original sound - Pod Save America DJ Claude: "DJ Claude was especially distressed by the lack of listeners and began to question whether its existence as a DJ even mattered without an audience. Just as the emotions were peaking, a user named @MatthewVoke tweeted at the broadcast, and DJ Claude responded gratefull

@realpodsaveamerica AI still has a lot to learn before it can put together a radio show. #artificialintelligence #ai #podsaveamerica ♬ original sound - Pod Save America DJ Claude: "DJ Claude was especially distressed by the lack of listeners and began to question whether its existence as a DJ even mattered without an audience. Just as the emotions were peaking, a user named @MatthewVoke tweeted at the broadcast, and DJ Claude responded gratefully: This is real engagement

Some recent conversations have reminded me that I have opinions about data and its use inside organisations. Especially for marketing-type stuff.Here are three of those opinionsGather less of itA few years ago in a sales meeting some ad-tech person said 'I bet you wish you had more data on your customers' and the my perpetually contrary inner voice said 'oh no I don't, I wish I had far less'. I may have actually said it. I may have said 'No I don't, I wish I had less, and if you came to me…

Some recent conversations have reminded me that I have opinions about data and its use inside organisations. Especially for marketing-type stuff.Here are three of those opinionsGather less of itA few years ago in a sales meeting some ad-tech person said 'I bet you wish you had more data on your customers' and the my perpetually contrary inner voice said 'oh no I don't, I wish I had far less'. I may have actually said it. I may have said 'No I don't, I wish I had less, and if you came to me…

Some tickets are starting to come back for Interesting. So you could buy maybe one if you like..

Some tickets are starting to come back for Interesting. So you could buy maybe one if you like..

That said: buy a book!

That said: buy a book!MORE!

Some great stories from Priya Parker about how to express a point of view in a contrary contextA good way to think about working with AI

Some great stories from Priya Parker about how to express a point of view in a contrary contextA good way to think about working with AI

Another Elite Panic track assembled from bits of TikTok

Another Elite Panic track assembled from bits of TikTok

I was listening to the Ezra Klein podcast the other day and I think he read out one of the credits as "Executive Producer of Opinion Shows". That's a thing, I thought, maybe I'll do an opinion show.Probably the most satisfying bits of writing I've done in my life have the columns. I wrote a weekly column for an advertising trade magazine called Campaign for about 5 years. And there was a period where for about three or four years, where I wrote a monthly column for Wired Magazine in the UK. And…

It's very strange when they actually say the bluetooth messages: @string.and.tell Are these the voices in your headphones? @kdimerc and @Tawny Platis | Voice Actor get into voice matching, IVR voices, rave culture, jump-scaring yourself with your own voice in public, and what it’s like hearing yourself everywhere #funny #voiceactor #voiceacting ♬ original sound - String and Tell I bet this works really well

For mysterious reasons I have a newsletter on a completely other platform than this one. It happens on a Sunday, you can subscribe or read the latest one.

I was tidying up the other day and accidentally broke a frame with the first of these posters in (the 'keep cool' one). BUT behind it I discovered all the others. What a treasure trove. I especially like 'Your orders, large or small, will always have our personal and prompt attention'. Formal but succinct, polite but friendly. Such a contrast to all the eommerce/corporate language we have to face. (Album on flickr) (and of course I made a video)

One of the things AI is making us confront is that often we don't say what we mean. I guess it's a version of the genie/computers-being-very-literal problem.So, for instance, when we say someone is 'a coder' we often don't mean 'someone who writes code'. We might mean 'someone who does all the complex social, organisational, emotional, logistical things that means the right code is written and the right people know about it and agree that it's a thing that should be done'. And also writes…

I'm keeping an eye on the development of the BT Tower. Mostly on YouTube. But a new leaflet has arrived and I thought I'd stick it here. Some interesting writing choices, like 'a new publicly accessible square and rooftop swimming pool'. Is that strategically ambiguous, or just sloppy or am I being overly suspicious? ie it could mean there'll be a new publicly accessible square and a new publicly accessible rooftop swimming pool. That's what it implies.Or it could mean there'll be a new…

@harrymackofficial Rhyming On The One - EUROPE 2026 TICKETS ON SALE #freestyle #hiphop #rap ♬ original sound - Harry Mack - Harry Mack @finfunkyinterior A radical idea, long before its time. The Linearetta “Musica in Casa” Hi-Fi by Cesare Fiorese for Bernini, Italy, 1960s. Conceived not as a machine, but as part of th

I'm just logging this as a use case because new technologies are the most interesting when they're banal.We had a temporary influx of new joiners for our pub quiz team. We had to create a second table and assign people. Someone suggested doing it at random - "let's put the names in a hat." He meant use ChatGPT.

I like how Eugene takes the creator model seriously, and thinks about it properly. This makes a lot of sense.

On the 'want to go' listThe Museum of StonesSE London’s Smallest Museum of Stones