I don’t consider myself good at DIY or house things in general, but in clearing out the loft tonight (part two of a very long series) I discovered my predecessors were even worse. Among the bizarre (three ballcocks) and the puzzling (a broken door that doesn’t fit through the hatch, so how did it get [...]

Apologies for very long pause in posting, but enough of that… We spent the weekend in the west, and Saturday at the Bromyard Folk Festival. Lots of fiddles, lots of sing-a-longs, and lots of mud. The big discoveries for me were Mike & Ali Vass, and Bob Fox. There are (geotagged!) photos over at Flickr, [...]

Simon’s had a new iPhone for few days, and articulates something that I’ve suspected for a while: without doubt it is the App Store that elevates this from a cool phone to a product in a category all of its own. But then goes on to say: If anything, it now feels like the direct [...]

I return to this periodically, continually trying to make make sense of a nonsensical world. My aged Palm Vx works wonderfully, and allows me to organise my life very efficiently and effectively. (How I execute my life is another matter.) But it’s about eight years old now and will break down soon and I’ll need [...]

You’d think we spend our life in the Lord Stanley, the number of photos that I take there. But in fact it’s just a nice place with what photographers call “good light” (which is something I rather doubt exists, but who am I to say?). Anyway, here’s a photo of Hilke. In the Lord Stanley. [...]

Never mind that we are entering a global food crisis because we are feeding the machines before we feed other people. Nor that the price of farm land is increasing because it’s being bought by metropolitan weekenders rather than, er, farmers who might use it for farming. Nor (bringing it right back home) that Anna [...]

“Come in and sit down, my dear”, ushered Holmes to the young lady, as Mrs Hudson withdrew to attend her other duties, “it’s a long walk from Tufnell Park, and if you want to talk to me about a financial matter then I expect you’ll need to compose yourself.” “Why yes, Mr Holmes,” she stammered, [...]

Top scientists have just discovered the following amazing facts… Even four or so months after launch, the Nokia N810 really is not a PDA. The applications just aren’t there yet. A WiMax-enabled N830 might be round the corner, perhaps announced at the start of April. Maybe that will be an organiser. The cold, hard facts [...]

I’m currently going through the most exciting and frustrating phase of another purchase cycle: the research period. This is the time when I obsess over candidate products, do loads research and cross-referencing, create spreadsheets, and generally work myself into a tizz about something almost no-one else would give a second thought to. This time it’s [...]

My old university is cranking up the pressure and professionalism in its Alumni Department. And it shows. It began when my mother mentioned casually that they’d rung to speak to me (they still had my old contact details, and I’d never been particularly interested in updating them to allow them to follow me) following a [...]