There’s a really useful rule in psephology which my colleague Stephen Bush likes to remind us of. It’s called Twyman’s law, and it goes: “if a poll is interesting, it’s probably wrong“. As it becomes increasingly clear that Scotland has voted No, it’s worth bearing Twyman’s law in mind. Because there was a really interesting…
Good night to bury bad news? As Scottish count continues, Lib Dems quietly announce that Mike Hancock has quit
Hat-tip to the Mirror’s Martin Belam here. At 11.41pm on Thursday night – with the Scottish referendum count in full swing, and with the broadcasters talking about nothing else, and all the newspapers’ main editions long since gone to bed – the Liberal Democrats have put a story out (I originally wrote that it was…
Without exit polls, what is the BBC meant to talk about for the next four hours?
I’m going to be up all night for this Scottish referendum business. Over the last five years or so, I’ve done a few of these all-nighter things. The 2010 general election; Obama-Romney. Three Academy Awards ceremonies, for some reason. And, bizarrely, the Eastleigh by-election in March last year (we all got incredibly excited about that…
Be grateful for the Met Office. It basically gets stuff right
It’s actually very easy to predict the weather. You can look out of the window, see what the weather is doing, and say “tomorrow will be like today”. In much of the world – southern California, the Mediterranean – that will be pretty reliable. It’s called the “persistence method” and works fairly well in places…
Why diamonds will always be everyone’s best friend
Nearly three years ago, I got down on one knee on a beach in Gaansbai, South Africa, and proposed to the woman who is now my wife. Owing to a retrospectively hilarious series of cock-ups, I had failed to bring my late grandmother’s ring with me; I’d only found some bizarre brassy thing with huge…
Naming the hostage: how should we cover the Isil murders?
Steven Sotloff, a second American hostage of the sorry fantasists of Isil, has been murdered, we read this morning. And a third man, a Briton, is currently held and will, we are warned, be the next to die. The question of how to report these disgusting acts of propaganda is a difficult one for news…
Save us from the office that follows you home
There is a certain kind of person for whom the phrase “work-life balance” is meaningless, because work is life, and life is work. The body may be home with the dog and the Great British Bake Off, but the mind is still a whirr of stock options and invoices and client meetings; the clock may…
The threat to Britain from terrorism is about the same as the threat from social insects. I demand a War on Wasps
David Cameron, the Prime Minister, has written a piece for The Sunday Telegraph about how Britain should respond to the “Islamic State” which has taken control of parts of Iraq and Syria. It’s perfectly sensible, in the main, and most people probably agree that it’s in our national interests to take steps to overcome the…
The day the internet broke
This week a technical hitch caused websites to wobble worldwide. Tom Chivers discovers the net is held together with chewing gum and string On Tuesday, at 8.48am British Summer Time, Verizon, a major US internet service provider (ISP), did something relatively mundane and technical: it took some big groups of IP addresses, which we can…
Fifteen things I love about Scotland, in a hopefully non-patronising way
A disclaimer: I know there’s nothing worse than English people patronisingly telling Scotland how much they love whisky and haggis, so let’s stay together guys. I know English lists of what they love about Scotland are always “oh they’re so friendly” and “I love the seafood” and “aww, Highland cows look like teddy bears”. But…
A robot that’s smarter than us? There’s one big problem with that…
[ooyala id=”Y1cmhjMjogL5tMsqt4VkddB7rgzUu_fa” ] The day I realised that machines were going to take over the world was March 29 2011, when I saw a YouTube video of two quadcopter drones playing ping-pong. Yes, I know, ping-pong is an unlikely choice of combat technique. But it was creepy. They were obviously tracking the movement of the…
Please shut up and stop telling rape victims what kind of rape is the worst
“Dawkins is right. He just is. Getting raped in an alleyway while having a knife held to your throat is worse than being taken advantage of while inebriated at the end of a date.” So says my colleague Brendan O’Neill, in response to Richard Dawkins’s characteristically unhelpful comments about rape. I know it is ridiculous…
Tom Chivers 