Public transport should be judged on whether it is usable by someone with a pram, a suitcase and a bad knee — not on its top speed. Every network that passes that test turns out to be pleasant for everyone else too, and almost every network that fails it was designed around a commuter who is twenty-eight and carrying a laptop.

Mental health language has become too loose to be useful.

I have changed my mind about anonymity online, and I want to set out why, because I argued the other side for years. The case I used to make was straightforward. Anonymity protects the vulnerable — whistleblowers, people in hostile countries, anyone whose opinion could cost them a job. Real-name policies were introduced by companies with a commercial interest in identity, and they were sold with a safety argument that the evidence never really supported. All of that is still true and I have not stopped believing any of it. What changed is that I stopped treating anonymity as one thing. There is anonymity from the state, anonymity from your employer, anonymity from other users, and anonymity from the platform itself. These are four different properties. A system can give you the first three and none of the fourth, and for almost everyone that combination is what they actually want. The mistake I was making was arguing about a slider when the real question was who each end of it protects you from. Once I separated them, most of the disagreements I had been having turned out to be people defending different columns of the same table.

F1 drivers are athletes in the same sense footballers are.

Cities keep building cycle lanes that stop. Just end, mid-road, and you are in traffic. What is the point of ninety percent of a cycle lane?

Inheritance does more to determine outcomes than education.

How people look after their own health is nobody else's business.

Rules that make no sense should still be followed.

Passwords will still be normal in ten years.

Small talk is underrated.

Most advice on how to argue better assumes both people want to find out what is true, and in most real arguments at least one person is defending a position they have already told other people they hold.

Test cricket is the only sport where the boring bit is the point and I will not be taking questions.

Open-plan schools, hospital targets and the gig economy will look like the same idea wearing three hats — measure the throughput, ignore the thing being thrown through.

Calling it phone addiction misses it. Most people are bored at work, and the phone is the only thing that isn't.