A new edition of Confucius’ 論語, The Analects

  Our third random paperback is out: 論語 (The Analects), as recorded by the followers of Confucius. After this, we’re likely sticking with our usual Lucire and Autocade brands in our publishing business for the remainder of 2025. The decision to do The Analects came from inspiration from one of my closest friends in London, […]

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Kudos for Lucire; global trade sans the US; and our ads go tracker-free

Nice to see Lucire can still pick up kudos with Feedspot putting it into their top 100 fashion magazines, ranking it at 21st. Not bad after 27 years, and going on 28, with a fraction of the budget of the multinationals. We’re two behind Women’s Wear Daily, and three ahead of British Vogue. We do […]

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After warnings were ignored, we now arrive in the new tech mainstream

If you look back at all the tech companies I’ve called out, deep down I did so as a warning. If they show this contempt for the user, then it’s symptomatic of greater problems. Everything from Google switching your ad preferences’ opt-outs back to opt-ins and the stonewalling when it came to deleted blogs, to […]

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Wrapping up the year of disinformation?

I thought Emerald Sky Group had removed its disinformation post, falsely claiming to be working with me and having my endorsement. It’s a blatant attempt to trade off my reputation, even though I’ve spotted articles where their lads are bragging about how good they are. Well, you can’t be that good if you need to […]

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Luxury Facts on the Jaguar rebrand (featuring Cristián Saracco and me)

Jaguar Type 00 concept in purple, shown directly on the side.

A nice way to conclude 2024: my name in a real article by a real journalist with quotations attributed to me that are actually by me. I’m so grateful to Tejashee Kashyap and Luxury Facts for interviewing me and my friend Dr Cristián Saracco, and to our friend Philippe Mihailovich for connecting Tejashee and me […]

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Why don’t we just stop tracking?

Person peering through Venetian blinds. Photographed by Noëlle Grace.

Not only is Linkedin OK with disinformation, thereby making itself complicit to fraud, it turns out verification isn’t that simple. I’ve said many times that I think most “apps” are just web browsers limited to a single site, but, in the interests of greater visibility, I relented and downloaded the Linkedin app. Like most apps, […]

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You never know where your interests will take you

A seven-year-old needs to figure this out: what would the Ford Escort Popular Plus be priced at if were assembled in Aotearoa?   Amanda and I were chatting about prodigies. Some young people are amazing, doing uni classes at intermediate or high-school age, or playing piano like Mozart, and while not all of us have […]

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A tribute to Richard Roundtree

With the passing of Richard Roundtree, I feel it only appropriate to repost photos of my childhood Shaft’s Big Score pencil case. My original post where these were featured is here, and today’s Mastodon post here.     I know Richard was also in Roots (remembered it, but way too young to have understood it […]

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A second excellent piece by Eda Tang: where New Zealand Chinese Language Week gets its money

  Eda Tang’s excellent piece revealing that New Zealand Chinese Language Week receives hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Chinese Communist Party came out last week, but unfortunately illness kept me from blogging about it properly. It was to have been my final post for September. Many of us suspected this from the start, […]

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A celebration of Chinese languages by The Post

  I take my hat off to Eda Tang of The Post (formerly The Dominion Post) for highlighting six Chinese New Zealanders and our reo tūpuna (ancestral languages). As many of us said last year (and for many years prior) during “Chinese Language Week” (NZCLW), it’s not all about Mandarin, a relatively new tongue that […]

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