Our Fantasy Dinner Party Guest List just grew

Canapes perennially at the ready for Dave (Trott), Rory (Sutherland) and Bob (Hoffman). Extra place setting now for Russell (Davies). He wrote this defence of powerpoint.

Rare, no?

And now for a short quiz:

  1. Your presentations always get remarked upon for their wit, style and creativeness.Yes – liar 😉
    No – have a read of this: how to do great presentations.

From an embittered, pretentious creative

Why creative people have lost their way.

Creativity in our [ad] industry is not dying because creative people are becoming less creative. It’s because they’re increasingly being asked to behave like business people and to put business interests ahead of creative work.

All knowing, all seeing, all confused

Now for AI.

Of course you know everything about it.

So do I.

Apart from perhaps everything I thought I knew…

“Stop pretending you really know what AI is, and read this instead”

Let’s consider for a second what we talk about when we talk about AI. Because I’m not sure many of us really know—or, at the very least, we’re not talking/arguing/worrying about the same things.

The Toilet Paper Principle

Staying on the tech theme, Tim Hartford writes about what we get wrong about technology – with a lovely Blade Runner allegory at the beginning.

Toilet paper seems a long way from the printing revolution. And it is easily overlooked — as we occasionally discover in moments of inconvenience. But many world-changing inventions hide in plain sight in much the same way — too cheap to remark on, even as they quietly reorder everything. We might call this the “toilet-paper principle”.

One for Obsessive Compulsive data nerds

How close can 2 houses be that have identical house numbers and street names? (And why are they all located in the north west of England?) Here’s a great tale about someone who obsessively sought out an answer. Funny.

The country that doesn’t exist

To finish, some lovely photos from Transnistria. You know the place. Famous for… oh you know.




From the archive

If you like The100, maybe even found it vaguely enjoyable (steady now),
you can have a ganders at our previous issues. Fill your boots.

Fran 31 October, 2025 The100

The100: Product failure rates debunked, storytelling frameworks, and elephants vs. pumpkins

Do 80% of new products really fail? The Ehrenberg Bass Institute has a track record of blowing up…

Fran 17 October, 2025 The100

The100: Peak social media, rebuilding attention and the most beautiful libraries in the world

Have we passed peak social media?... …The Financial Times thinks so ($). Their recent article…

Fran 03 October, 2025 The100

The100: American Eagle, perspective triangulation and gnome bones

“You are not the consumer” Remember the Sydney Sweeney and American Eagle kerfluffle? There was the…