Trips A trip back to 1938 It's time for that short period, where a year ago today we were doing the last "normal" things without realising it. In 1938, Neville Chamberlain was the Prime Minister, people in the UK were issued with gas masks and The Beano first went on sale. Meanwhile, that same year new
Politics Did I have a good Brexit? Four years ago, Brexit was quite a fresh word and I found myself wondering Can I have a good Brexit?. I think it was part of a theme at the time of 'making the best of it' being peddled by the polticians who at the time were very much cake-ist.
Goals Setting goals for 2021 New Years Resolutions generally don't work, but I'm a goal-driven guy so since 2018 or so I've been setting myself a yearly theme backed up with some objectives. After 2020 (the year of fewer - who knew what it'd be fewer of!), I've set 2021 the slightly depressing(?) theme 'make
Goals šRead 13 books... These are the books I plan to read (or have read) this year. Ā It's a bit of a catch up year, because while I didn't read much at all in 2020 - I did keep buying books. Check my progress in my 2021 Targets shelf on GoodReads. Good Services: How
Goals Reflecting on 2020 From the perspective of December, I feel slightly less than unique in describing 2020 as an 'unusual' year - but I knew it was going to be an odd one for me Ā before anyone had even heard of that coronavirus. 2020 is the first year for a while where I've
General musings from the past Reflections on water bills... No, really. Iām dubiously assured by the clever scales at the gym that I am around 64% water, which according to a quick Google search is either 4% too much or 6% too little but, by any way of reckoning, itās significant proportion. Water is essential to us being alive.
Projects There was a pandemic, so I made a podcast Making a podcast is easier than it has ever been, thatās for sure. For a start, thereās plenty of help out there for the budding podcaster, and lots of people have gone before ā so the mistakes are well documented. It is no longer necessary to make your own
General musings from the past What is success for me? I pulled this question out of my new āwordsmithā deck of writing prompts. I thought I should write and post something and so here I am with a coffee and an iPad. I feel like ādefine successā in various iterations, is one of those things youāre supposed to be
General musings from the past Oh, someone else will sort it Coffee shops are fascinating from every perspective. I think so anyway. Firstly, I reckon the shop someone plumps for when faced with a choice between all of the āchainsā and an independent (or more) says as much about their personality as their star sign of MBTI ever could. But inside
Goals My books of 2018 Each year I set myself a goal of reading 12 or so books, and then at the end of the year I try to come here and review them. Itās a silly idea, because I can barely remember what I thought at the time when it comes to doing
Nicipedia You'll never guess what Monarch's planes are doing now ⦠Broadly speaking, they're flying about. So probably not that surprising.
Goals ā Reading challenge For another year in a row, Iāve achieved my goal of books ā one a month during 2017 was a follow on from 1 a month plus 1 in 2016, a step down in number but a step up in difficulty. I only just achieved it, the final tick by
Politics I'm still OK with charging graduates more In 2015, I said that I am pretty fast at coming to an opinion over things and usually equally quick at changing my mind, but on tuition fees it seems I am pretty committed to my view. I wonāt pretend that each month, when I look at my payslip
General musings from the past Do you really need to know I've read it? For as long as I can remember now, the people who message me have been able to see that Iāve read them. Back in the first few minutes of using iMessage there was a pop up which asked for permission to send them and, hhaving come from a BlackBerry
Life of Comms Why everyone should do media training Iāve been meaning to write this post for a while, but wouldnāt the world be a better place if everyone had done media training? You may have to bear with, or perhaps Iām stating the obvious, but media training and the skills that it teaches are, I
Politics Can I have a good Brexit? Normally I come here to talk to you about how, if I ran the world, everything would be so much better. In reality, if I was left in charge of the world then thereād probably be major issues in most areas. The trains would work well (but close when
Goals The books of 2016 For the first time ever, I achieved my Goodreads target for the year in 2016. Itās only the second year I have done the challenge, but nonetheless itās an achievement and I want to celebrate. I read 12 books. I am pretty certain in fact I read many
Nicipedia Libraries of Hampshire, I believe in you Yesterday I dispatched a missive on this very blog about how I, if someone were to have accidentally left me in charge, would run Hampshireās libraries to increase their usage ā not manage their decline. I did conclude, though, that it wasnāt all the councilās fault. Despite being
General musings from the past Libraries of Hampshire: believe in yourself I took part in Hampshire County Councilās consultation over the future of its libraries a few weeks ago. The consultation itself has been rather controversial with many anti-cuts groups saying the exercise, which does suggest some closures, is āphoneyā and uses fancy words to obscure plans for closures. The
Work Can I work from home? How do you deal with the question ācan I work from home?ā and do it well? I think itās a difficult one to get right, whether the person asking the question is a known and trusted colleague or someone new, asking in the middle of an interview. The company
Nicipedia 39 dwellings Update at 4pmSince I published this at 4am last night Iāve found out some new stuff. Firstly that the Telegraph also wrote about this picture , secondly that my guess that the flooding wasnāt actually quite reaching the part where development permission had been given might not be wrong
General musings from the past Why that's the worst illustration of cycling infrastructure ever Iāve seen this image pop up on Twitter a couple of times today and each time itās had a tweet something along the lines of ābest illustration of cycling infrastructure everā attached to it, but I donāt really think it is. In the image we have to
General musings from the past A week with Apple Pay After a week or so of using Apple Pay almost exclusively, I'm convinced it's the future. For as long as I can remember, I've been carrying around some kind of payment or loyalty card on my phone. It started out with an unofficial app for my Tesco Clubcard and it's
General musings from the past A week with Apple Music It's been a little more than a week with Apple Music now, but today I reinstalled Spotify and walked away - but I didn't want to.
General musings from the past Don't talk to me about card clash For what seems like forever now, London has been living in terror of card clash and the consequences it might bring.