Too Many Thoughts
For the last couple of days I have been wondering about writing something big, important, and soul searching to mark the end of the year, but there are just ...
Posts from 2014
Catching Fire
We finally watched the second Hunger Games movie last night. I haven’t read the books yet (despite repeated requests that I do so from a good friend). I’m no...
The Morning After Dinner With Friends
Yesterday evening we invited good friends over for dinner. It was hard work, and the washing up was kind of like climbing Annapurna (which in reality I have ...
Boxing Day
I had visions of spending the greater part of Boxing Day playing board games with the children, and watching rubbish television shows.
Christmas Morning
We woke with the alarm clock at 7am, when we would normally fall out of bed to begin the weekday routine of getting the children ready for school, making bre...
The Relentless Run In To Christmas
I’m not quite sure why or how, but the run-in to Christmas this year has seemed relentless. I had visions of finishing work last Friday, and having a few qui...
Dick Whittington
One of my favourite Christmas traditions in the UK is Pantomimewhere famous actors take part inproductions at the theatre riddled with jokes, musical numbers...
Billy Bullshit
For our honeymoon (many years ago now) we went on a cruise, and sat at a large dinner table every evening. We made instant friends with everybody, and had a ...
An Unexpected Evening Out
My other half announced this morning that we were heading out into town tonight as a familya Christmas surprise from her to all of us. We were allowed to kno...
The One Where I Upgraded My Phone
I went Christmas shopping this morning in a nearby townand immediately after getting off the bus, walked straight to the mobile phone store, and started look...
An Alternative Christmas Message
Let me preface this by saying I am not religious (implying a belief in some kind of creatorwho’s existence cannot be proven), and I am not atheist either (im...
The Instagram Purge
It was like a million teenagers voices screamed out, and were suddenly silenced. Please excuse me for quoting Obiwan Kenobi, but this has to be the most ente...
One More Day
I have one more day left at work before two weeks of leave for Christmas. I will arrive at 9am, work diligently through until 5:30pm, and then exit the build...
Office Christmas Lunch
In half an hour or so we are all heading out for the annual office Christmas lunch. The office seems to be filled with people we haven’t seen in agesmany of ...
The Spirit Of Christmas Present
While cycling to work through the frost laden air this morning, I couldn’t help but be reminded of perhaps my favorite book at this time of year”A Christmas ...
On Friendship
Through many times in my life I have struggled to find the place where being a good person ends, and friendship begins - and where friendship ends and love b...
Cold And Frosty
Flying in the face of the long, wordy posts I have shared recently, I thought it might make a change to share a photo taken during my journey to work. I ride...
Choosing A New Mobile Phone
My mobile phone contract comes up on 19th December, meaning I get to upgrade my phone handset. I have no idea which way I’m going to go at the moment. I gues...
The One Where We Bought Three Laptops
We have been agonising over the decision to buy our children laptops for Christmas for the last week. We talked about it over the weekend, and pretty much de...
Professional Procrastinator
If there is ever an olympic event for getting nothing done, I’m pretty sure I could be a contender. It’s not that I don’t want to get something doneit’s just...
Frozen Rugby Christmas Shopping And Car Park Stalkers
When we left the house at 9:30 this morning, the frost was thick on the ground, and the car kept flashing “RISK OF ICE” messages on the dashboard. It was -3C...
Living It Up On Friday Night Not
In television shows people always seem to have time to meet-up with friends at a local bar on their way home from work on a Friday night, catch up with each ...
Three Children Three Laptops
We are currently wrestling with the idea of buying three laptops for Christmas for our children. It sounds insane, and it sounds expensive, but there is SOME...
The Twenty Fifteen Theme
Last night I noticed a post from WordPress in the dashboard that scrolls towards oblivion (and causes me to get nothing done)a post announcing the availabili...
The One Where I Swore At Somebody In The Middle Of The Road
Cycling to and from work through commuter traffic over the years seemed to have blunted my perception of “what might be considered idiotic, or dangerous”or s...
I Am The Weird Dream World Champion
I had a dream last night, and in the dream I recalled living somewhere previously. Here’s the weird thingI dreamed about living there before. A long time ago...
Late Night Shopping And Exploding Minecraft Livestock
I learned something new tonight. I learned that you really shouldn’t laugh when your other half opens a kitchen cupboard door above a mixing bowl full of coc...
An Unexpected Day Off
Our eldest daughter went nuclear again this morning (on top of being sick)the end result of which was me calling in to work, and staying home for the day wit...
Resurrecting The Netbook
I have had an ASUS netbook sat in the bottom of my messenger bag for the last year. I think it’s been powered up once, and because it booted into a Windows p...
Jumpers For Goalposts
Our youngest took part in her second ever competitive football match this morning. We knew late last week that she had been picked to play, but it didn’t mak...
Protests Public Nudity Breast Feeding And Prudishness
I’ve been reading blog posts and news stories about the breast-feeding protest taking place outside Claridges in London today, and wondering what on earth ha...
Down Down Deep Underground
Just when you think you’ve found a blogger that appears to write thoughtful posts you can relate to, he goes and writes a post about Minecraft. This blog is ...
The One Where The Lovely Lady Stole My Hair
Today got off to a fantastic start. It transpires that if you don’t help your 14 year old daughter sort her hair out at the exact moment she wants you to, th...
Domain Names And Paranoia
Over the last few days I’ve been finding it somewhat easier to write regularlyI suspect fueled by participation in NaBloPoMo, which I guess has forced the fo...
Behind The Magic Mugshot Curtain
I took a photo for the “Freyeday” meme on Tumblr this afternoon, and it got an instant reaction from a few friends. I knew it was going to get an instant rea...
In Love With The Freshly Written Word
There’s something about blogging. When I say that, I’m not talking about the niche lunatics recycling content through their fashion, food, or travel blogsI’m...
100 Followers
The little dashboard widget thing in the corner of WordPress informed me the other day that I had crossed the “100 follower” mark in my non-existent quest fo...
The Journey Home
After leaving the client site this afternoon I walked the all-too familiar route to the railway station, asked the information kiosk which platform my train ...
Is Everything Okay For You
After work this evening I wandered down to the hotel lobby and bought a drinkhalf celebrating a successful day (for a change). I figured sitting on my own in...
Life Isnt Like The Movies
This evening finds me holed up in the Holiday Inn Express once againseveral hundred miles from home for a couple of nights. During the daytime I will be wres...
Here There And Everywhere
We went out for dinner with friends last nightthe first time we have been out in several weeks, and the first time being “out out” for months. You’re probabl...
Were Going Out Out Stunned Silence
For the first time in what feels like a very long time (but is in reality only three weeks) we are off out for a drink and something to eat with friends this...
The One Where We Found The Twiglets
In the UK there is this mysterious snack called “Twiglets”. The only way I can describe it is “Marmite sticks”but then of course hardly anybody outside of th...
The Flash
Over the last month or so I have been downloading a television show from the internet for our children to watch called “The Flash”. I say “for our children”,...
Like A Rolling Stone
The Blogger experiment is over. I’m back at WordPress again. I’m not going to explain why, because anybody that knows me with stop listening (I move blog pla...
On The Road Again
I woke up five minutes before the alarm went off this morning, leaned across the bedside table, and switched it off. 5:25am. I then fell back asleep, and had...
Surviving The Webinar
Today was the day. The day of the webinar. The day where I stayed homefor the half-decent internet connectiondonned a ridiculous looking headset with microph...
Second Childhood
I never really read any comic books when I was young. I’m not sure why. I remember seeing them around, but they were never a “big thing”. I read the odd copy...
Hiding In The Junk Room
I used to call this place the “study”, but in reality it’s “the junk room”. A leftover room in the house where we used to put things “out of the way”. Since ...
Friday Lunchtime Brain Dump
I’m in the middle of preparing for a “webinar” on Monday - presenting clever stuff to people all over the place to do with my work. I would like to say there...
Sliding Further Under The Radar
I created a new email address today, and re-wired everything vaguely related to “Recursive Words” to it. Yahoo, Google, Twitter, Tumblr, Blogger, Pinterest, ...
Intentionally Polluting The Twittersphere
I’ve finally done something I should have done a very long time ago. I’m also writing a very long lead in to this post in the same way that people often anno...
One Of Those Days
You know those days where you do everything you know to make something better for somebody, and they keep coming back with problem, after problem, after prob...
The One Where We Visited A School
I wasn’t going to write anything about this, but as the day has gone on I realised it might be useful both for us to look back on our thoughts, and for other...
Sunday Morning
It’s heading towards 11am. The younger children have gone to a rugby tournament. I am staying home to keep an eye on Miss 14, who went spectacularly nuclear ...
Still Looking For The Weekend
Got up before everybody else this morning, made everybody else breakfast, washed up, took youngest to football practice, wandered home, made everybody lunch,...
Wild Goose Chase
While cycling home from work this evening I listened to “The Ihnatko Almanac”, a podcast on the 5by5 network, featuring Andy Ihnatko - the tech columnist for...
Cutting Up
On the way to work this morning a 44 that had been stuck behind me on the mountain bike for all of five seconds came thundering past, obviously in a hurry to...
Forced From The Road
My journey to work on the mountain bike takes me through perhaps the oldest part of town - narrow victorian streets, with narrow footpaths on either side. Th...
15 Things I Love
Tagged by Lacey over at Tumblr. I have no idea how I’m going to come up with 15 things, but I’ll have a go. These are in no particular order, just in case yo...
Second Cup Of Coffee
My word - this blog is just stunningly interesting this week. I literally have nothingto write about. Actually, that’s a lie - I do have something to write a...
Raspberry Pi
I just ordered a Raspberry Pi model B+ from Amazon, for delivery to work later in the week. I have no idea why I have ordered it. I have no real use for it, ...
One Foot In Front Of The Other
Every day at the moment seems like a struggle just to get to the next day - an endless round of washing up, tidying up, settling arguments, and so on. It som...
Three Glasses Hemingway
After collapsing on the couch late this evening, and sharing a few glasses of leftover wine from the Halloween party with my better half (a wonderful bottle ...
Short Post Is Short
We are heading out to a friends for dinner in a few minutes. I’ll probably be back before midnight, but just in case (and in order to keep up the NaBloPoMo t...
Were Going To Need A Bigger Monitor
I ordered a new monitor for the computer today. For the last couple of years I’ve put up with the one I bought with the computer that’s stuffed under the des...
15 Minutes
Today was an adventure. So much so that I find myself with 15 minutes to scrape inside the daily deadline for the lunatic writing journey I’m on. How much ca...
Amazon Fire Tv
We finally plugged in the Amazon Fire TV this evening, and decommissioned the XBox 360 from the lounge. Of course now I have nothing to plug the X-Box into, ...
A Picture Paints A Thousand Words
I’ve been wondering about including photos in my written posts. I swore them off for some time, because once you start including photos in posts, it sets a p...
Embarking On A Journey Of Blog Discovery
This evening I am heading out across the vast stretches of the internet in search of bloggers taking part in NaBloPoMo. I will follow a collection of them vi...
Back In The Office
I’m back in the office today after a few days off. I won’t lie - I was dreading coming in this morning for all sorts of reasons. Of course it turns out that ...
The Trouble With Tumblr
I tried to take part in a social “meme” on Tumblr today. At 11am I posted a video exported from iMovie (I won’t bore you with details - lets just say it was ...
Ten Minutes To Myself
It’s Sunday morning, our youngest is at church, and I have just dropped our middle girl off at a birthday party. I have about three quarters of an hour until...
The Day After Halloween
I fell out of bed a little after 9 this morning, and discovered the younger children camped out in the lounge watching cartoons, surrounded by wrappers, deep...
Halloween
Yesterday was Halloween. I’m writing this at 1am the next morning, so it really wasn’t very long ago. I guess it would still be correct to write “tonight was...
November Nablopomo
“National Blog Posting Month” was invented by Eden Kennedy in 2006 for those of us that were never going to have a chance at “National Novel Writing Month” (...
Importasaurus Rex
I just pulled the last 2 years worth of personal blog posts back into here. Yes, I know I said I wasn’t going to, but there’s something strangely comforting ...
Contemplating A Second String
A few minutes before leaving the office this evening I was invited for a chat on the floor below. Without getting into too much detail, an offer was made to ...
Bioshock
After the children had gone to bed last night, I started playing Bioshock on the XBox 360. It’s the first time I have played any kind of story based video ga...
An Hour For Free
After waking up this morning, and wondering why the alarm hadn’t gone off on my phone (I set it as an insurance policy to deliver Miss 10 to rugby practice o...
Old Video Games
I took the kids to the used video game store today, and we went a bit mad. I say “a bit mad”, but in reality we spent the approximate cost of one next gen ga...
Heres The Thing About Tumblr
You scroll through the feed, thousands of miles away from hundreds of people you will never meet, and see people you might become friends with - but they are...
Single Handed For The Weekend
I got home from work this evening, and while dealing with the firstsink full of washing up, beforedinner, my other half informed me that she’s off to the coa...
A Smile From A Stranger
The office where I work is in the depths of a country estate - the building is “The Old Estate Office” - and my journey to work on the mountain bike takes me...
Weird Dreams
I had the by far the strangest dream in quite some time last night - and it’s content was controversial enough that I can’t easily share any of it. Let’s jus...
The One Where Dinner Descended Into Yet Another Fight
Everything was going so well - I got home after a ridiculous day at work that I can’t write anything about, got the first round of washing up out of the way,...
Remembering When Things Were A Thing
One of the main reasons I moved this blog to Blogger is because I’m less likely to tinker with it. Less likely to dick around with the mechanics of it. Less ...
From There To Here A Personal Blogging Journey
For me it all began in the late 1980s, with the explosion of Compuserve and AOL, and the lowering of the bar to a point where everybody could understand how ...
15 Minutes
I have 15 minutes until a conference call starts. I can’t really do anything productive in those 15 minutes, so guess what - you’re going to get a high speed...
Why Is It Called Recursive Words
While cycling home from work, I began thinking about all sorts of random crap - as you do - and while waiting for a line of cars at a junction to attempt to ...
The Wordpress Spam Nightmare
I decided to move my blog back to WordPress at lunchtime, and unwittingly came across the spam bug in WordPresswhen you re-publish a post that has previously...
Security Through Obscurity
One of my oldest and closest friends on the internet commented on a recent post that all we invariably share via public blog posts is a “highlight reel” of o...
And The Pretty People Smiled
While leaving the supermarket yesterday afternoon, attempting to push a metric ton of groceries towards the car-park while flanked by my other half and sever...
The One Where My Little Corner Of The Internet Came Screeching To Ajuddering Halt
While browsing the internet this afternoon I tripped over a Tumblr post from a distant friend that brought the world to a screeching halt. I’m not going to n...
The Weekend Arrives
Another week has passed. Another week just like the week before. The weekend ahead is just like last weekend. I may as well re-title my life “Groundhog” some...
Without Touching The Ground
I’m aware that I haven’t written anything for a few days, and I’m not entirely sure I have anything worth sharingI’m not about to let that stop me. I’m a bit...
Remembering The First Nablopomo
At lunchtime today I stumbled upon a photo of a friend that died several years ago. She was driving early in the morning with her son in the back of the car,...
The One Where They Didnt Have Any Cheese
Last week we got caught in the classic parent trap, where we ran out of arms, legs, and time. While I finished my work in the study (working from home that d...
Where Did This Week Go
I seem to remember stopping at some point towards the tail end of last week, and wondering where on earth the week had gone. It’s happening again. It’s only ...
Waiting And Watching
I’m waiting for a server at the other end of the country to finish churning through data, and spit out an “I’m finished” message without barfing it’s guts up...
The Genesis And Evolution Of Social Platforms
The birth of new social platforms on the internet is interesting. Where the natural world stumbled upon the seemingly miraculous mix of ingredients and proce...
Sunday Happened
I’m trying hard to write more regularly at the momentto get back to the person that used to write such inventive rubbish a few years ago. I look back at thos...
Saturday Morning Rain
There is a mist fallingit was forecast, and is no doubt doing it’s best to destroy our lofty plans to take the telescope out tonight to look at the moon with...
Morning In London
After falling out of bed, having a shower, and making breakfasts and lunches for the children yesterday morning, I slipped my suit on, and jumped on a train ...
Grid Autosport On Xbox Live
I played Grid Autosport (car racing game on the XBox 360) online for the first time last night.I hardly ever play games onlineor games at all, really. Earlie...
Exploring Ello
At some point last week a new social network appeared on the internet called Ello. I learned about it after digging aninvite from my junk mailwhich caused im...
A Grown Up Night Out
Last night we escaped from the house for a few hours to attend the local radio station’s awards eveninga ball held at the big hotel on the edge of town. I wo...
Publishing A Half Serious Blog
It’s been a while since I unleashed the nerdy side of my brain on this blog.
Thursday Morning Brain Dump
I know I was buried under a mountain of workearlier in the week, but how on earth is it Thursday already ? Did the first part of the week happen at all ?For ...
Out Of The Woods
After a seemingly endless struggle over the last few days, I can finally see the top of the mountain I’ve been climbing. I can finally begin to relax. While ...
Days Without End
Each day seems to be running into the next at the moment. While occasionally I have long train journey adventures to recount, or distant hotels to document l...
Escaping The Slings And Arrows
Today was a day to forget. A day where you run like mad, and get nowhere. A day where you turn every corner, chase down every dark alleyand you always end up...
The Writing Corollary
Something occurred to me earlier. When you’re young, you want to write something, but have no life experience to communicate. When you’re older, you finally ...
The Perks Of Being A Wallflower
Coming up with unique or original titles for posts is really hard. I’ve taken today’s title from the book I bought a copy of while queueing in HMV to buy in-...
Recursion
I’m not sure if anybody noticed (I know at least one person did), but I closed this blog down for about a weekset it to private, and wandered away. I had all...
Friday Afternoon
I didn’t really take a lunch break earlier, so I’m taking a late break and emptying my head into the keyboard. I’m trying out a text editor thing called “Dra...
From Android To Windows Phone
After watching the battery on my Samsung Galaxy S3 run down to perhaps 20% by late evening without actively using itto do anything a few days ago, I finally ...
Hitting Rock Bottom
The title of this post is a little disingenuous reallybecause in this case “Rock Bottom” was the title ofa music festival happening in a neighbouring village...
Quiet Friday
It’s the final day off for meif the kids sort themselves out (get dressed, wash their faces, brush their teeth, brush their hair), we might head on the bikes...
The Third Place
I created a “kind of professional” blog to go alongside this one, which kind of results in having three blogs now (this, Tumblr, and the new one). Yes, I am ...
Recounting The Week After The Worlds End
I keep falling into the trap of only writing when I have “something to say” worth sharing. The problem is the “worth sharing” bitbecause it’s based on what I...
A Personal History Of Video Games
Listed below are the video games I have owned over the years. Feel free to join in and list the ones you have had, and your memories of them.Atari 2600My bro...
Strange Dreams
I was in a field similar to the playing fields of the primary school I went to, and people were kicking footballs aroundkicking them high in the air. I remem...
Why I Wont Be Doing The Als Ice Bucket Challenge
Lots of high profile celebrities have done it. Lots of Z-list celebrities have done it. Lots of my friends have done it. I won’t be doing it, and here’s why;...
Rainy Days And Other Peoples Children
Today is a bank holiday in the UK, so I have the day offwhich is a good job, because it’s tipping down with rain, and I feel dreadful. Just to add to the che...
Writing The Anti Blog
Blogging used to be about sharing your thoughts, the story of your day, your hopes, your dreams, and so on. If you pay any attention to the “professional blo...
Back To Basics
It’s been several days since I last wrote anything here, and I think I know whyI’m trying too hard. Rather than just empty my head into here at the end of ea...
Whos Madonna
One of Miss 14’s friends stayed for dinner this evening, and we somehow ended up talking about the media, celebrities, and music. A derogatory comment was ma...
Halt And Catch Fire
I heard about “Halt and Catch Fire” while walking to work a couple of months ago. The crank decided to snap on my mountain bike, and the 3 mile walk each way...
Betas
I finally finished watching the first season of the Amazon funded TV show “Betas” this evening. As the titles rolled I headed to the web on my phone, to find...
Remind Me What Normal Feels Like
The various things going wrong with me have started to get me down. I’ve now had the chest infection for three weeks, and a cold for a week. The stiff neck i...
Taking A Break From Microsoft Malware Hell
Yesterday morning I made a coffee and ambled into the study (read: junk room) to catch up on the social networks, and noticed an icon had changed in the star...
Tumblr
I was shocked, stunned and amazed to discover this morning that a fellow blogger had no idea what Tumblr is (actually, I’m using a fair amount of unwarranted...
Remembering Robin Williams
I’m going to fly in the face of the countless blogs, editorials, think pieces, and soapbox psychologists. Rather than climb on their bandwagon and preach all...
Most Software Developers Are Rubbish
Before anybody throws their hands in the air and starts ranting, I’m going to include myself in the rubbish pile, and I’m also going to make the whole title ...
The Truth About Kickstarter
Some time ago I created a social blogging platform on the internetmore as an experiment than anything elseto see how well a mashup of Twitter, Tumblr, LiveJo...
Alone In An Infinite Crowd
One of the most difficult things about becoming friends with people on the internet is that you only really know them through the photos and words they share...
Broken Bones Chest Infections And Distractions
The broken toe is slowly getting better. It’s taped to the toe next to it at the moment, and while it’s not doing the “stabbing pain” thing that it delighted...
Threading The Vacation Through The Eye Of A Broken Needle
Yes, the title is crypticbut all will become clear if you continue to read. I thought about distilling our adventures down to a list of bullets, but then rea...
The Social Internet Isnt Social
I started writing a regular blog perhaps 12 years ago. Back when I started the only real option was to publish it yourselfeither as static HTML pages, or wit...
From Kerbal To The Mun
This is the last post about Kerbal Space Program, honest.Today I spent my lunchbreak illustrating a mission to the “Mun” (the moon) from the home planet “Ker...
One More Day
Tomorrow will be my last day in the office for a week or so. I’m burning through the remains of this year’s holiday allocation in one go (our holidays reset ...
Last Day Of School
Our eldest daughter went to the end of year school party last night. She doesn’t typically “do” parties, and had a pretty comical anxiety attack before leavi...
The One Where A Kerbal Rescue Mission Takes Half The Night
You know I wrote yesterday about a life eatinggame called “Kerbal Space Program”, and it’s ability to deprive you of sleep? I had three hours sleep last nigh...
Orbital Rendezvous
About a month ago I downloaded a “casual” game onto my computer to play at lunchtimes called “Kerbal Space Program”. In the game you take charge of the space...
Waking Up Before The Alarm Clock
I had to go on a long railway journey across the country today, which meant getting up at 5am this morning. I had all the intentions in the world of having a...
Unfriended
After clicking send on the tenth email of Monday morning I had a swig of coffee, opened a new tab in the browser, and jumped down the Tumblr rat hole for a f...
Recursive Words
Having nothing to do on a Sunday morning is dangerous. You get up, have a wash, make breakfast for the kids, and then set about dismantling your online exist...
Five Little Ladies
When I left work yesterday evening a memory flashed through my mind about our middle girl inviting two friends for a sleepover. I guess somewhere in a forgot...
An Elegant Weapon For A More Civilised Age
This blog post isn’t going to be about what you think. Sorry to ruin your journey here if you were hoping for some kind of Star Wars rat hole blog post obses...
All Quiet On The Western Front
I woke up at 7am this morning, and discovered that the bed was strangely empty. Slowly the truly bizarre dream I had been having about trying to clean up an ...
Nanowrimo Nablopomo Old Friends And Responsibility
Back in 2006 Eden Kennedy started “National Blog Posting Month”a lesser version of “National Novel Writing Month”. While “NaNoWriMo” challenged participants ...
Whats That Whistling Sound
Oh, I know. That sound is another week whistling past. I can’t believe it’s Wednesday already.
Returning To Tumbling Waters
While quietly raging against the world and it’s dog a few weeks ago I walked away from Tumblr (again). I’ve been a member on-and-off since the beginning in 2...
Boys Night Out
A few weeks ago I received an invitation from a good friend on Facebook to do exactly what my other half has been suggesting for some timehave a “boys night ...
Unshakeable Belief In The Tooth Fairy
I drew the “tuck the children into bed” straw this evening. After finding the antibiotics and nurofen for Miss 10, who has been very ill indeed since the wee...
Sick Child Day Off Internet
We spent an hour or so last night trying to bring the temperature of our middle girl down to avoid her spontaneously combusting. After taking antibiotics, si...
A Robotic Future
Over the years I have owned and used just about every major mobile phone operating systemvarious versions of Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, and Windows Phone. ...
One Sided
I had an interestingand very shortconversation with somebody online this evening that I had considered a friend over the last year. The conversation more or ...
Single Handed
I was going to write a rather dull post titled “Nothing to Report”, and drone on endlessly about the mundanity (is that a real word?) of my life at the momen...
Frustrations
A pattern from my personal life seems to be repeating itself in my professional life at the moment, and I’m incredibly annoyed about it.
Obstacles And Opportunities
It occurred to me this evening that the frustrations I often faceboth professionally, and personally, are really frustrations with those who see obstacles, r...
Next Steps
Following on with the plan to turn my involvement in “the social internet” around, and to post when I have something to say, rather than to say something, I ...
Departing Tumblr
After joining Tumblr a few months after their inception in 2007, I finally decided to shutter the account today. After spending the last 7 years posting thou...
The Remains Of The Day
After the children had gone to bed last night, I sat in the garden with my other half, enjoying a few minutes peace and quiet with a bottle of wine and our t...
50 Likes 50 Followers
I must be doing something right with this whole blogging escapadealthough that being said, I have no excuses; I have been writing online since the idea of “b...
Scrivener
I caved this evening and bought Scrivener for the Macbook. I’ve heard about it for years on the internetAndy Ihnatko has mentioned it on various podcastsand ...
Inset Days Ftw
While writing the title of this post, it occurred to me that I used to have real trouble assigning words to the letters “FTW”probably because the acronym is ...
Amazon And The Publishers
While walking in to work this week, I listened to “This Week in Tech”, and rather than bang on about the various net neutrality issues that will likely kill ...
Growing More Distant From The Social Internet
Over the past few weeks I have sensed an ever increasing gulf between myself and the “open social internet”by that, I mean the public posts on Facebook, Tumb...
Three Days In Norwich
For the past week I have been working on-site, “teaching” professionals to do clever stuff. I’m being deliberately vague, because I can’t imagine you’rereall...
Non Contributors
I’ve noticed something that is becoming more prevalent on the internet, and I’m finally writing about it.
The One Where I Fell Through The Cracks
For the past several days all I seem to have done is “exist”doing chores around the house in the absence of the rest of the household (save for our eldest da...
Journey To Norwich
After walking three miles to work, spending two hours there, and walking three miles home (not the best bit of planning I’ve ever done), I gathered my variou...
In Search Of Volunteers
I have been tinkering withwetheusers.netover the last few daysfixing bugs, and polishing rough edges. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, “We The Use...
10 Minutes
I have 10 minutes left of the day before I head off towards home. 10 minutes to empty my head. Here goes.
Elsewhere
Do you ever have days when you get up, go through the motions of going to work, but your entire head is elsewhere?This morning I made bacon rolls for everybo...
The One Where Eurovision Turned Into A Farce
We got in from the girls dance show late on Saturday night, and sat down with a huge proportion of the rest of the nation to join in the annual idiotic spect...
The Darkest Timeline
After spending months chasing my own tale, this weekend I had the chance to kick back and catch up with the internetand was dismayed (although not surprised)...
Olaf And The Girl Who Couldnt Skip
For the past several weeks we have had the soundtrack to the movie “Frozen” pretty much on repeat in our houseand the reason presented itself on stage this e...
Broken Bikes Podcasts And Dance Shows
Nothing of consequence seems to have happened over the last few daysbut I’m not about to let that stop me from writing endlessly about it.
Reticulating Splines
It’s lunchtime right now, so I guess I can arguably spend some time “watching the world go by”but seeing as I’m on the first floor, looking out of the window...
The Loneliness Of The Internetwork
While catching up with the rag-tag band of people I follow on Tumblr earlier this evening, I was struck by their apparent loneliness, and couldn’t help wonde...
The Cookie Choice Corollary
I just walked into the office and interrupted a ridiculous converstion where two of my co-workers were trying to decide which cookies to buy from town. I cau...
Lunchtime
It’s lunchtime in the officegiven that I have nothing better to do, I could get on with my work, but messages to the contrary seem to be plastered all over t...
Parents Versus Children
While the rest of the household scraped themselves out of bed this morning, I headed for the local rugby club with our middle girl for her final training ses...
Walking To Work
For the past several days I have been walking to work, on account of snapping the crank on my bike in half. I would like to think my undiscovered superpowers...
The Liebster Award
Having resurrected this blog from the halls of anonymity at the weekend, I was shocked, stunned and amazed to discover that somebodyobviously of wonderful ju...
Triggers Toothbrush
I just had perhaps the most bizarre conversation with our eldest daughter in quite some time. We will try to ignore that I met her at the foot of the stairs ...
Stopping And Starting
Following months of travelling to distant destinations with work this year, and scrambled days at home washing clothes and re-packing cases, I began to quest...
It Feels Really Strange
I have been back in the office this weekwellsince Wednesday, when I returned after having time off at Easter. Even being back here a few days feels really, r...
The One Where Miss 9 Finally Learned To Swim
Today will go down on the record as the day Miss Nine finally conquered swimming. She has been swimming (head down, torpedo like) since last summer, but has ...
The One Where The Children Filled The Bath With Green Goo
I interrupted a game of Mario Party on the Wii this morning to ask our younger children (who are on their last day off school) to get dressed. After a few mi...
Disappearing
For the past several days a little thought has niggled at the back of my brain, labelled “should write a blog post at some point”. I used to write nearly eve...
Easter Sunday Morning
We have been up since 7am, when our younger children awoke. The next ten minutes were spent running around the garden like idiots following a treasure trail ...
An Evening With Friends
We spent the evening eating pizza, drinking wine, and catching up with good friends that live across the way. The children played video and board games toget...
When Winning Is Losing
I gather from one of the posts I just saw onTumblr recentlythat somebody had either won a lottery, or landed a huge contract at work. It brought to mind some...
Sunday At Legoland
We tipped outselves out of bed early on Sunday morning, packed our bags with all manner of snacks, and set out for Legoland to celebrate the new “9 year old”...
Final Night At The Holiday Inn
Tonight is my the final night at the Holiday Inn Expressperhaps for some time. After returning from the office this evening I got changed, packed clothes int...
Unable To Switch Off
I walked into the office at 8:45 this morning, and basically didn’t leave my seat again until 7pm this evening. Building software and configuring systems in ...
Sunday Night In Leeds
It’s late on Sunday night, and I find myself in Leeds once more. In months past I would have described the journey herethrough London, and northwardas some k...
Brain Dump
It’s Friday evening, and the weekend is upon us. The kids are watching a movie in the lounge on “Amazon Prime Instant”, whatever the hell that isI just downl...
The Holiday Mirrors Reality
While flicking through the channels late last night, I discovered “The Holiday” was on, and given that I’ll watch anything with Kate Winslet in, that this is...
The One Where I Fought Imaginary Fires For 12 Hours
In a somewhat fortuitous turn of events I chose to work from home today. Fortune favoured me not because I had the motive, and opportunity to purchase and co...
The Best Of Times The Worst Of Times
The saga that this weekend became began late on Friday night when I arrived home from a 5 hour train journey to find the kitchen trashed, and almost every ro...
The One Where The Nasty Lady Got Payback
My most recent journey from one end of the country to the other last night via the nation’s railway network went almost entirely without incident. I say “alm...
The London Adventure Comes To An End For Now
I think the universe realised that the London public transport infrastructure had given me far too easy a ride for the last few months, and spun the bottle t...
One More Day In London
I have one more day remaining in London. One day left of the current contract. In a bizarre twist of fate, the person I have been both working with, and ment...
Being There Without Being There
Our eldest (Miss 13) has gone on a school trip to an amusement park today. I got her up, organised, made sure she had everything she needed, and walked to th...
The One Where I Grew Sick And Tired Of Commuting
You would think, after spending the best part of two years working in London through 2007 and 2008, that I would fit back into the world of the commutera wor...
Software Development Prejudice And Sexism
I happened to read the story at TechCrunch last night about Julie Ann Horvath leaving GitHub amid a (media inflated) storm of controversy. Lots of potentiall...
There And Back
Another Monday, and another journey into London before most people have scraped themselves out of bed. I’m not entirely sure how I made it through today with...
Emptying My Head
I need to get back into the habit of writing posts where I just empty my head into the keyboard. I used to do it as naturally as breathing, but as the years ...
The Importance Of Prime Numbers
I completely forgot about “Pi Day”. It’s all a load of numerology rubbish anywaythe date coincided with the sequence of numbers in the decimal presentation o...
Another Four Day Stretch In London
Before I get started on yet another head emptying episode, I would just like to comment that tea is rubbish as a stimulant. After charging home from London t...
Tumbling Down The Rabbit Hole
It all started innocently enough. Given that the guy I have been working with in London was working from home, there was no reason for me to make the journey...
From Ubuntu To Debian And Back Again
I’m sure the title of this post on it’s own will dissuade most people from immediately skipping past it (sarcasm fully intended)and given the stupendous numb...
Another Week Another City
At the time of writing, the clock is rapidly heading towards 11pm, and I’m sitting in the study at home with an empty wine glass, knowing I should probably b...
Bringing My Life Back Online
I arrived home at about 8:30pm last night after another five hours aboard a succession of trains. While we all like to complain about the smallest of interru...
Last Night In Leeds
The last few days have turned into a blur of complexity, frustration, elation, and software development done in full view of a room full of clients.
Crossing Paths
After a long day spent untangling requirements, building workflows, and bashing my head against a boardroom desk, this evening broke the monotony somewhata c...
Laughing Uproariously With The Most Annoying Man In The World
I’m sitting in the lobby of the hotel with a glass of cider. The same pretty businesswoman is holding court in the center of the lobby with her co-workers as...
Dinner For One
Spending your birthday on your own, with nobody else knowing is a very strange experienceperhaps more so if your normal world is a family home, full of chaos...
Five Hours And Five Days
I’m sitting on board the 6:18 departure from Kings Cross to Leeds. I think this train arrives in Leeds at about 9pmI’m not checking because that will drain t...
The One Where The Weekend Never Happened
Before I drift into a nonsensical discussion about reality, causality, parallel universes, and all sorts of other clap-trap, ofcourse the weekend happened. I...
Unblogging
I’m going to start a new movement on the internet. It’s not going to be anything big, grand, or visionary. It’s going to be about not doing thingsnot trying ...
Surrounded By Tea Snobs
I like a cup of tea as much as the next personand it turns out that’s quite a lot more than most, given that I’m English, and was brought up with the cultura...
Everything Is Awesome And Nobody Is Happy
I showed my co-workers the Louis C K clip on YouTube the other day, where he berates the current generation for expecting everything to be handed to them on ...
Ubuntu Linux
Given that I work for a Microsoft partner in the daytime, immersed in the worlds of Windows 8, .
Preparing To Head North Again
On Sunday evening I will make the all-too-familiar journey to the train station, and purchase a return ticket to Leeds. The hotel is already booked, and I’ll...
Switching Off
After spending all day with my head buried in hilariously complex programming to force computers to do something dreamed up by managers at some far flung com...
Returning To Stormwind
I must be mad. While writing this, the installer for World of Warcraft is quietly ticking over in the backgroundconstructing a portal to potentially the bigg...
Abstraction Breeds Complexity
I have been working on some code today to essentially mirror the contents of a database into a number of lists in SharePoint. Normally this wouldn’t be that ...
Sunday Morning
It’s Sunday Morning, and I’m wondering what the day will bring. Our middle girl has gone to a rugby match, and our youngest is barraging me with requests to ...
The Windows Phone Surprise
After making our eldest daughter put up with a “Samsung Galaxy Y” smartphone for the last 18 months, I finally made good on a recent promise, and replaced it...
That Thing That You Do
Although not technically the “first” post here, I thought it might be interesting for others (oka very few others) to go into a little more depth than I have...
An Introduction Of Sorts
It would seem appropriate to tell new readers a bit about myself. Of course this is easier to say than do (you suddenly become very introspective, and start ...
Hello World
Starting a new blog or website places a certain amount of pressure on the author to provide some kind of spectacularly worthy, interesting, or thought provok...
The Long Road
The endless travelling has come to an end for a few days. I’ve been wondering how best to organise the avalanche of stories, thoughts, and recollections abou...
The Story Of Us
Today is Valentines Day. Given that everybody gets a free pass to be as sentimental as they want today, I thought I might share how I met my other half.
Stopping For Breath
Another week has passed. Another week without writing. Another week filled with trains, crowds, cities, code, computers, stress, and unimaginable tiredness.
One Day Only
I have been back in the office today for the first time in weeks. Waking up at 7am this morning was really rather wonderful. You quickly forget that the morn...
Death Of A Friend
While reading through the recent posts of friends on the internet a little earlier today, I tripped over a cryptic reference to somebody I knew, and began a ...
Stop The World
At some point over the next few weeks I’m almost certainly going to meet myself travelling in the opposite direction somewhere. Before you start, I know it w...
Falling Off The Radar Between London And Leeds
The weeks are slowly turning into a blur at the momentand given that I’m still suffering with the remnants of tonsilitis, the continual travelling and hotel ...
To The North
After dosing myself up with all manner of medication over the last few days, I had to make a decision on travelling for work this morning. Going against the ...
An Adventure At The British Museum
Yesterday morning I dragged our middle daughter out of bed, had a quick breakfast, got wrapped up in warm clothes, and set out towards London together to vis...
Reflections On The City
It’s funny how you set out on a journey with all sorts of plans, and then realise after a little while that those plans have somehow been torn up, burned, an...
One Day Down
My phone erupted into life at 6am, and was met by an incredibly badly coordinated hand. After a few minutes of watching the seconds tick by and thinking abou...
The Victorian Adventure Begins
Tomorrow morning I will fall out of bed at 6am, get dressed, have a wash, and wander back along the same paths I walked for two years to the train station, h...
Back To Work And Thoughts About London
Given that today was the first day back in the office after a couple of weeks away to gorge on food, and drink ourselves into oblivion, it hasn’t been too ba...
Random Five For Friday
It’s been a while since I did a “random thought” post, so this seems like as good a chance as any.
Time To Fly Time To Fight
I have no idea what quality of writing might leave my fingers this evening. My head is stuffed with ibuprofen, and I’ve eaten an entire packet of cough lozen...
New Years Day
At some point yesterday eveningin spite of feeling like hell, and dosing myself up on ibuprofen every few hoursI decided “what the hell”, had a wash, got cha...