It is with profound regret that we report the final sad demise of Artisan, a noun recently pressed into service well beyond its capabilities. As a young person, Artisan was to be seen practising its trade, making a variety of products in limited quantities, often using methods learned from its forbears Craftsperson and Handworker. More recently, alas, Artisan succumbed to blandishments of the men in shiny suits and lent its imprimatur to several tawdry enterprises as far flung as mousepads and kitchen mixers.

Artisan, absorbed in hookers and blow, was at no time aware of how its hard-won reputation as a mark of singular quality had been undermined by its unthinking endorsement of these activities. Even at the end, it was to be heard defending the right of all products everywhere to consider themselves handmade, no matter how unlikely that was. Individuality, Artisan was heard to mutter in its cups, was no great shakes anyway.

The end, when it came, came with a whimper: the simple phrase "artisan baked bread" attached to a sandwich package that very obviously contained nothing of the sort.

Artisan is survived -- barely -- by heirloom, homemade and authentic.

There is, apparently, a huge difference between pizza made in New York and pizza made elsewhere. So I learned on a podcast I listen ed to this morning, and I confess, I've heard the same said of New York bagels. The folk belief is that it must be something in the water. The podcast went on to explain in loving detail how someone conducted a trial of different waters, decanting store-bought waters into plain bottles, numbering the bottles and having his wife switch the numbers. Oooh, double-blind. Science! Then schlepping the whole lot off to a great pizza restaurant to conduct the tasting. And you know what:

As far as pizza goes, use whatever water you want. ... Clearly, the small differences that arise naturally in the course of making a good pizza by hand far outweigh the minor differences that water could make.

I was in Stockholm for the first time a week or so ago, attending a huge meeting to record material for a client's podcast. That went well enough, but the truly nice thing was what a wonderful, liveable place Stockhom seems to be. Admittedly we enjoyed better weather than they've had for months, b...

When it comes to publishing stuff online, especially when you're not doing it for money, some people seem to think that you should create only the things you want to create, that the work you do you do for yourself. And while that's true, at least to some extent, if it were entirely true, why publish at all? Why not just keep it to yourself, and please only yourself? Because having other people enjoy what you have made, and have it sufficiently valuable to devote some attention to it, is immensely rewarding and validating.

Measuring agricultural productivity is easy, right? Kilogrammes per hectare and you're done. But that's almost the least interesting thing the land is producing, or so I thought. Then a tweet passed my way yesterday.

Calories per acre - the new metric to follow.

I saw that because someone I...