Rory Sutherland

Why am I typing this article rather than dictating it via some wonderful voice recognition software? It’s a question worth asking. Twenty years ago, all Spectator writers would have written every article by hand (only two or three still do). In my office in the 1980s, it was frowned on to type your own letters, since typing was seen as secretarial work. Are we due another revolution in how our thoughts are transmitted from brain to machine? Science fiction has always assumed that computers will converse — HAL-9000, C-3PO, Marvin the Paranoid Android and Thermostellar Bomb #20 (from the 1974 comedy Dark Star) have provided some of the most memorable dialogue in film.

A few years ago in Malaysia I found myself reading the national paper, the New Straits Times. There was a headline on the front page that caught my eye. It read something like ‘New road to the airport will make it easier to get to the airport’. I’m sure those weren’t the exact words, but that was pretty much the import of the thing. I read the whole of the ensuing article, which effectively confirmed at length what I already had been led to believe — that the new road to the airport would indeed make it much, much easier to get to the airport. I read it again. Something seemed wrong, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. It felt altogether different from any newspaper article I had come across before. And then I spotted what was odd.

If you are a Spectator subscriber, the plastic wrapper in which your magazine arrived this morning is probably already in the bin in the kitchen. By now it has been joined by two sodden teabags, four strips of bacon rind and a couple of eggshells. Try to steel yourself now, pull on a pair of Marigolds and retrieve it. Because printed above your name and address on the slip of paper inside is something called your subscriber number. Write this down on a piece of paper and keep it somewhere safe. In the next few weeks, after many months of development, the Spectator launches its iPad and iPhone application, use of which is completely free to Spectator subscribers.

I came face to face with the real banking problem a month ago when speaking in Oxford to an audience of undergraduates. ‘Well, I suppose one good thing about the last three years is that you won’t now all be applying to work in banks,’ I joked. It seems I was wrong. At these words, about half the people in the audience stared sheepishly into their laps. I can’t say I blame them. Of my own college contemporaries, leaving aside one or two barristers and a brilliant technology entrepreneur, I think it would be accurate to say that every single person who went to work in banking wound up earning more than every single person who did not. This can’t be good.

True or not, there is a persistent story about a former Duke of Devonshire who, seeing some silver napkin rings in Asprey’s, asked his companion what they were for. ‘Your grace, in some households they roll napkins inside these rings so that they can be used for a subsequent meal, rather than being laundered every time.’ ‘Good heavens. I never knew such poverty existed in England.’ Later, when the duke decided to board a bus for the first time in his life, it is claimed he beckoned to the conductor: ‘27 Eaton Square, please.’ Not such a ridiculous request, in fact. In many countries you will find ‘jitney’ services halfway between buses and taxis.

A friend of mine once spent a week on a vast luxury yacht cruising the Mediterranean. It was all jolly pleasant, he remembered, except for a strange thing: throughout the entire trip, the only time the shipboard party had experienced what you might call ‘fun’ was when somebody discovered in a locker some kind of giant inflatable banana which could be towed behind the ship’s speedboat while everyone clung on. The yacht was OK, but the inflatable banana was utterly brilliant. It confirmed a suspicion I have always had about yachts — that there is more joy to be had pootling around a harbour in the tender than there is to be had from crossing an ocean in the ship itself. Self-aggrandisement aside, small boats seem a lot more fun than big ones.

How can something as complicated as a human eye possibly arise through a process of natural selection — through trial and error? Most people will have asked themselves this question at some point in their lives, but without bothering to find out the answer. A pity, since the stage-by-stage explanation of how the eye might have evolved is fascinating. The story begins when organisms develop cells that are sensitive to sunlight. In time, these may develop to a level of sensitivity where they can detect movement. The next stage is for these cells to form themselves into a convex or concave shape to add an extra degree of directional information (with sensors arrayed in a bowl or on a mound, you can better detect in which direction any movement is happening).

Two interesting news items coincided the other week Two interesting news items coincided the other week. The growing debate about the relatively light tax burden shouldered by the massively rich and the partial retirement of Steve Jobs. One dog failed to bark in the night. No one, as far as I can see, dared name Mr Jobs as one of the people who should pay more tax. In fact, for a billionaire head of a vast, powerful US multinational, Jobs has enjoyed a special indulgence: to some people his is almost the only acceptable face of capitalism. Will Wilkinson, blogging for the Economist, suggests people are dazzled by the beauty he has created. An urban liberal consensus has no trouble loving an egotistical, wholly unphilanthropic billionaire capitalist, provided he has great design sense.

It was the biggest technological story of the month and I missed it. Instead it was my much cooler friend, Jonathan Akwue, who first mentioned Blackberry Messenger and its possible connection with the riots (at urbanmashup.wordpress.com). He spent the next two weeks fielding inquiries from the media. Blackberry Messenger (or BBM, as its users call it) is an application unique to Blackberry handsets, which allows users to message each other in a way similar to text messaging, yet to larger groups and at lower cost. On its own, it has earned the Blackberry, once exclusively a businessman’s handset, a huge following among the young. (Blackberry has in the process become one of those interesting brands with two entirely disparate groups of customers, like Burberry a few years ago.

A fortnight ago, I wrote about the arbitrary metrics applied to train travel — and how a trivial reduction in journey time, a measure with little relationship to human pleasure or productivity, has been used to justify the insane cost of a new rail link to Birmingham A fortnight ago, I wrote about the arbitrary metrics applied to train travel — and how a trivial reduction in journey time, a measure with little relationship to human pleasure or productivity, has been used to justify the insane cost of a new rail link to Birmingham. In the interests of balance, I should point out that our decision-making involving cars may be little better than with rail.

I recently stumbled on a Wikipedia page on American diner lingo: ‘sunny side up’, ‘pigs in a blanket’, ‘peel it off the wall’ and so on. I recently stumbled on a Wikipedia page on American diner lingo: ‘sunny side up’, ‘pigs in a blanket’, ‘peel it off the wall’ and so on. Whether or not these phrases were all commonly used (did anyone really ask for ‘shit on a shingle’ when requesting minced beef with gravy on toast?), the list’s length hints at the remarkable breadth of 1930s American street food. Then McDonald’s came along.

The phone-hacking scandal may bring restraint to Britain’s redtop journalists and relief to a few thousand minor celebrities but, for the country’s 59.99 million unfamous people, it will merely make technology a little more irritating. The phone-hacking scandal may bring restraint to Britain’s redtop journalists and relief to a few thousand minor celebrities but, for the country’s 59.99 million unfamous people, it will merely make technology a little more irritating. Setting the default password for your mobile voicemail as either 0000 or 1234 wasn’t particularly secure, I know, but for the 99.99 per cent of us not being tailed by stalkers or tabloid journalists, it was at least easy to remember.

I would have more sympathy for criticism of consumer culture were it not for the people who voice it — usually the type who owns a second home in Tuscany but is horrified that their cleaner has two televisions. I would have more sympathy for criticism of consumer culture were it not for the people who voice it — usually the type who owns a second home in Tuscany but is horrified that their cleaner has two televisions. As for the anti-materialist stance of Lord Layard, who believes your iPad creates unhappiness in those who cannot afford one, this may be true. But then the same logic must also apply to owning a peerage, which may arouse feelings of inadequacy in humbler social scientists styled ‘Professor’ or ‘Dr’.

This is from a 2007 blog, listing the Chinese politburo: Hu Jintao, 62, President of the People’s Republic of China, graduate of Tsinghua University, Beijing, Department of Water Conservancy Engineering. This is from a 2007 blog, listing the Chinese politburo: Hu Jintao, 62, President of the People’s Republic of China, graduate of Tsinghua University, Beijing, Department of Water Conservancy Engineering. Huang Ju, 66, graduate of Tsinghua University, Department of Electrical Engineering. Jia Qinglin, 65, graduate of Hebei Engineering College, Department of Electric Power. Li Changchun, 61, graduate of Harbin Institute of Technology, Department of Electric Machinery. Luo Gan, 69, graduate of Freiberg University of Mining and Technology, Germany.

I won’t write about Twitter or superinjunctions this week except to say that no broadsheet newspaper could have given such prominence to a story of a footballer’s grubby affair had it not been able to do so under the pretence of discussing the ‘profound legal implications’. I won’t write about Twitter or superinjunctions this week except to say that no broadsheet newspaper could have given such prominence to a story of a footballer’s grubby affair had it not been able to do so under the pretence of discussing the ‘profound legal implications’. My advice to footballers is to avoid lawyers, but instead to marry people with spectacularly high-minded journalistic tastes.

Judging by the television channels in international hotels, Europeans must think Anglo-Saxons are the most boring people in the world. While Italian, French or German stations show a mixture of soap operas, game shows and other cheerful nonsense, English-language channels are confined to news bulletins and the kind of rolling financial programming once parodied by The Day Today. This means I am often reduced to watching foreign television simply to relieve the monotony. A rare high point was when I beat both contestants on Des Chiffres et Des Lettres, the French precursor to Countdown, with an eight-letter word, though admittedly the word was ‘minigolf’.

I am writing this in the brown-carpeted lounge of Phoenix Sky Harbor, which claims to be America’s friendliest airport — and indeed that may well be so. I am writing this in the brown-carpeted lounge of Phoenix Sky Harbor, which claims to be America’s friendliest airport — and indeed that may well be so. Enough to make David Cameron gag with envy are the people of retirement age helpfully wandering about wearing badges which declare them to be unpaid airport volunteers, in which role they offer assistance to bemused travellers. You don’t get that at Heathrow Terminal 2, as far as I can remember.

I’m off to California next week to visit relatives in Los Angeles, but we are flying into Phoenix first. I’m off to California next week to visit relatives in Los Angeles, but we are flying into Phoenix first. I love Phoenix for quite a few reasons, not least the Botanical Gardens and the Frank Lloyd Wright home at Taliesin West. But best of all is the sneaky right-wing thrill you get from driving into Scottsdale along a handsome road called Goldwater Boulevard, named after the libertarian Arizona senator and presidential candidate Barry. If you have libertarian inclinations (and I do), you’ll find yourself in good company online.