The Beatles
I’ve not been online much over the last 48 hours, but it appears the people in charge of the Beatles back catalog have. Their music has appeared on all of th...
Posts from 2015
Everything Changes
I’m moving my blog to jonbeckett.comif you wish to continue reading my adventures, feel free to bookmark it.
The Millenium Falcon
For our last hurrah of the year, we took the children to Legoland todaywe are fortunate that we live about half an hour away from the UK park, and they are o...
Slowing Down
The children have finishedschool, I have finished work, and we are finally slowing down. The groceries arrived today. The presents are bought (but not all wr...
The Force Awakens
After48 hours avoiding social media, newspapers, and magazine reviews, we finally got to the cinema last night to watch “Star Wars Episode VII : The Force Aw...
Five Trains In Five Hours
I’m finally home from the last trip away of the year. After suffering from headaches all week, I finally jumped in a taxi to the railway station mid-afternoo...
One Day Left
On the occasion of spending my last evening away for the year, I went out for a meal at the pub next door to the hotel. The following is more-or-less a direc...
Eating Alone
This evening you find me sitting alone in my hotel room, surrounded by the leftovers of a rather ramshackle dinner. Seeing as I have very little else to do t...
Awkward
I just finished watching the first season of the TV show “Awkward”. I downloaded it onto the Kindle Fire the morning I left. I wrote yesterday that I liked t...
On The Road Again
We pulled out of Euston 1 minute early (that’s never happened before). Currently hurtling across North London, watching the grey skies, industrial units and ...
More Thoughts About The Death Of Tumblr
Late last week an acquiantance in the US attended a marketing conference, where one of the panels featured a staffer from Tumblrthe minimalist blogging platf...
Mobile Blogging Solution
I’ve had a Kindle Fire tablet for the last few yearsit was originally bought for the children, but then got “handed down” to me when they moved on to bigger ...
Preparing To Travel
I’m not quite sure how this works, but I always end up travelling to the other end of the country in the final week before Christmas. This year I will spend ...
Peter Pan
This evening we took the children to see the pantomime performance of “Peter Pan” at the local theatre. After talking to a friend elsewhere in the world earl...
Back To Basics
Every so often I realise I’m trying too hard at this blogging larkpre filtering everything I might write, instead of just emptying my head into the keyboardr...
The Day Tumblr Died
Perhaps I’m being a little dramatic. Today at a marketing conference, Tumblr staffers on a panel confirmed while answering a question about the potential ret...
Infested With Viruses
We have two desktop computers at homeone that we affectionately refer to as “Trigger’s Broom”, and the other that was given to us by my Dad when he became a ...
A Difference Of Opinion
My brother in law invited me to accompany him to the local brewery last night. Every so often they open their doors to “club members” (there is a yearly cost...
Dawn Of Justice
Late last night I was doing the rounds of the social networks before turning in for the night, when I happened upon the latest trailer for the upcoming Super...
Open Heart Surgery
I’m running around the house doing imaginary high fives. I just took the back off one of the ACER laptops we have hanging around the house, and soldered a wi...
Revisiting The Reasons I Write A Blog
Revisiting the reasons I write a blogsounds like it might be interesting. I can’t think that I’ve really changed over the last twelveyears or so, but then I’...
Revisiting An Old Story
Before starting out on this, it’s worth pointing out that the people I’m about to write about bear no resemblance to the people in the photo accompanying thi...
Resurfacing
I’m back at work today. Back for the first time since leaving abruptly on Monday afternoon. It’s been an interesting weekthe kind that the parenting instruct...
Falling Into Shadow
For the past several weeks I have been carrying a burden of sortsoneI’m not willing to share just yetbut one that is neverthelesshaving an effect on the word...
Every Ending Heralds A New Beginning
The last 12 hours have been interesting. What started as a single post to Tumblr inviting people to try out WordPress turned into a quiet murmurof sortspeopl...
The Arrival Of The Scout Elf
Something rather strange happened at home this weekend. As always when post arrives, the children heard the rat-tat-tat of the postbox, and ran to the front ...
Inciting A Tumblr Exodus
I posted to Tumblr earlier this evening, inviting people toswitch to WordPress. There has been a significant amount of discontent among the small community o...
The One Where I Fell Over
Ifellover on my way home from the dinner with friends on Friday night. We were turning a corner in the dark on an unfamiliar road, and I walked out onto a gr...
Friday Five
It’s been a while since I’ve done a post like this. I’m actually sitting at work, trying to kill the last half an hour while waiting for a server to sort it’...
My Doctor
While reading an interview with Steven Moffaton the Radio Times website about the writing and production of the 50th anniversary episode of Doctor Who, “The ...
The Absence Of Time
I have half an hour until I leave work for the day. Half an hour until I pull on my coat, bike helmet, and gloves, and do battle with the evening traffic in ...
Blue Origin
It seems to have escaped the main-stream news because it’s obviously far more important for every news organisation on the planet to cover doom and gloom sto...
Annual Appraisal
I had my “Annual Appraisal” at work today. It didn’t get off to the best of starts -I had been fire-fighting a server in a distant server-farm throughout the...
Moleskine
The level of attachment I experience to such a seemingly trivial thing is a surpriseI can now understand why people become obsessive over notebooks, diaries,...
Filofax
For longer than I can remember, I have carried a Filofax personal organiseraround with me. Back in the late 1980s they were quite the fashion accessorytoday ...
The Great Tumblr Exodus Is Gathering Momentum
Ever since Tumblr appeared on the web back in 2007, people have wondered what to do with it. For many it was a life-streaming scrapbook of sortsa place to qu...
Chasing The High
It’s happened twice in my life so farthe high. The first time I still lived with my parents.It all started on the floor of the lounge one eveningI was about ...
Returning To Wordpress
After something of an adventure duringthe past few months, I find myself back at WordPressfinally putting some foundations in place. Making an investment in ...
My Life In Their Hands
I really need a camera on my bike helmet. Some of the things I see on the road every day beggar belief. This morning I was in a queue of cars approaching a t...
Ever So Slightly Tired
My other half returned home after her week away yesterday eveningjust in time to immediately change clothes, and head out to the local community radio statio...
Friday Afternoon
I’m having a break in-between other things to write a quick blog post. It’s been quite a week. For those that haven’t been reading, I’ve been single handed t...
Single Handed
Two days down. Three days to go. My other half is at the other end of the country until Saturday. In the meantime I am doing the job she usually does when I ...
Thoughts About Writing An Online Journal
It doesn’t really matter if you call it “writing a blog”, “posting to a social network”, “publishing a diary”, or whatever else you might want to call itthey...
Missing A Day
I didn’t post anything here yesterday. This almost certainly means the world is going to end. Either that, or some kind of horrific fate is going to befall i...
Budget Computer Games
When I was 11 years old, I subsisted on “pocket money”. From when I had been old enough to go into town on my own, I had been given money each week on a Satu...
Pulling Out Of Nanowrimo Yet Again
You could say I was a fool for even thinking about having a go at it. At least the reasons for not pursuing it are simple enough thoughI need to spend the ti...
Falling Over
I’ve had an interesting evening. Just after departing Paddington Station, for the final hour of my journey home from the north of England, I was about to tex...
Gcse Computer Studies
The following is an excerpt from this year’s attempt at NaNoWriMothe quest to write a 50,000 word book during November. I am writing a memoir of my history w...
Travelling North Again
It’s Tuesday night, and I’m sitting in a hotel in the north of England once again, 300 miles from home. I’ve already bought “dinner” from the local supermark...
Christmas 1983
The Sony MSX came with a thick book filled with Manga illustrations of some children, and a robot. Apart from my brief foray into programming the decrepit bu...
The First 1000Ish Words
It all began with the unwrapping of a medium to large box on Christmas morning in 1983.
Walking To Town In The Dark
I wandered into the living room a little earlier this evening, and found my better half sitting alone half watching NCIS. The kids had gone to bed an hour be...
Thursday Morning Haircut Club
I split the skin on my right thumb a few days ago, under the edge of the nail. Whenever I put pressure on my thumb, it hurts. I press the spacebar on the key...
Random Utterances
The last few days have seemed like I’m a part of a big machinea machine that has some impenetrably mysterious reason for being. I get up, have a shower, get ...
Learning To Log Out
It’s already 11pm, and I’ve re-written this opening sentence 4 times. The netbook I just re-installed Windows 10 onto is refusing to play ballI wanted to hav...
Stopping At Two Glasses
After getting in from work and eating dinner I asked the kids if they might like to wash upseeing as they had been home all day (it’s half term), and I had b...
Distance Matters
I sometimes wish I knew more people on the internet that at least live in the same timezone as mehell, the same side of the planet would be better than the l...
Half An Hour
Half an hour. That’s how much of Sunday is my own, so I’m spending it emptying my head into the keyboard once again. There are probably more productive thing...
Waiting For The Cooker
I have 45 minutes to write something while waiting for the cooker to do it’s thing. My eldest daughter and I have shepherds pie for dinner (minced beef and g...
Two Fish Become Four
I had the day off work today. A normal person would have awoken late, got up sensibly late, and had a relaxed breakfast. I’m not sensible. I got up at the no...
Mayhem Central
It’s 10:30pm and this is the first time I have had a chance to really sit down today and do anything of consequence. Work was disrupted mid-day by a visit to...
Tiredness Abounds
After being parachuted into yet another project at work today with no prior knowledge, I left early to attend our middle daughter’s first parents evening at ...
The Great Swirling Tuesday Vortex
I got parachuted into somebody else’s project today. I was supposed to “make changes”, but ended up re-writing the whole damn thing in order to get a handle ...
Here We Go Again
I switched back to Blogger. In the last couple of months my blog has moved from Blogger, through WordPress, to Squarespace, to Ghost, and back to Blogger aga...
Jumpers For Goal Posts
All is not well in the local kids football team. I got our youngest up and out of bed at 7:45 this morning, giving us an hour before we needed to leave the h...
An Adventure In London
I scraped myself out of bed at 7am this morning - a Saturday no less - and woke our youngest. An hour later - after having a wash, throwing clothes on, and t...
Because We Have A Brain
A couple of weeks ago my other half asked if I knew any scientists or engineers - the local Brownie pack were doing their science and engineering badge, and ...
The One Where I Saved A Dog
I cycle to work on a mountain bike each day. The first half of the journey takes me through the centre of the town - doing battle with the school run traffic...
Working On My Own
I’ve been working on a sizeable software development project over the last few days in the office, and after reading some of the conversations on the #develo...
Monday Monday
Do you ever wonder what on earth you’re doing with your life? I sometimes do. It often feels like I’m on some kind of gigantic treadmill, churning out the st...
Leaving Evernote
I’ve been trying to figure out a good way of exporting my notes away from Evernote this evening, and am slowly coming to terms with the fact that there is no...
Windows 10 On A Sunday Morning
Since scraping myself out of bed at 8am, I’ve been caught up in an endless round of “stuff”. I just sat down for the first time with a cup of tea, and it’s s...
Ranking Bloggers At Livejournal
For the past few months I’ve been playing with LiveJournal - cross posting stuff into it, and doing my best to read and comment on a few other people’s stuff...
Paying Code Tax
A couple of weeks ago I began working on a somewhat sizeable software development project. It started out as a proof of concept - a one file program to see i...
Unexpected Discoveries
Quite some time ago I talked to a good friend who is a teacher about Kerbal Space Program, and how it might make a great activity day at school during their ...
The Hundred Foot Journey
After getting the children into bed, clearing the kitchen, and finally sitting down yesterday evening, we discovered there was nothing on the television, so ...
The End Of Most Things
Until very recently I posted regularly to both Tumblr, and WordPress. I have been a member of Tumblr on-and-off since launch in 2007, and of WordPress on-and...
Weekends Football Rugby And Spitfires
People always comment that they are having “one of those days” when they are running here, there, and everywhereholding onto life by their fingertips while t...
Strange Dreams
It’s unusual that I remember dreams for more than a few moments after I wake upbut this morning the bizarre story concocted by my unsupervised mind was perha...
One Morning Two Exams
An email arrived in my work email box just before I left yesterday afternoon, announcing that one of the technologies I am a so-called “expert” at now had ce...
The Kerbal Legacy
Whenever I get the chance at lunchtime in the office, I stop any virtual machines running on my laptop, close down the email, and go looking for a folder on ...
Tomorrowland
We watched the movie “Tomorrowland” late last night - or rather, we watched the second half of it - such is the chaos in our lives at the moment, the concept...
The One Where I Didnt Take Photos Of The Moon
After the mayhem abated last night, I got into bed and fell asleep - waking this morning at 7am when the radio alarm clock erupted into the local radio break...
That Thing That You Do
Several people have asked what I do for a living recently, and it occurred to me that I very rarely give much away on the social interwebs any moreso I guess...
Not So Great
Do you ever have weekends where they days merge into each other? I do. I’m going to invent a new day of the week - called “Satunday” - where you don’t go to ...
Remembering The First Nablopomo
About a year ago I stumbled upon a photo of a friend that died several years previously. She was driving early in the morning with her son in the back of the...
Inventing Internet Spaghetti
If this works, I will high five myself to celebrate my own stupidity. I have wired WordPress, Tumblr, Blogger, Instagram, Flickr, and Twitter together with “...
Nanowriblopomo
It just occurred to me that if I do NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) by writing 1600 words a day through November, that also qualifies me for NaBloPo...
Back To Work
I’m back in the office today, and trying to keep out of mischief. My task list had two things on it - both of which were complete before lunchtime. Now I’m t...
The One Where The Universe Gets Its Own Back On Me
And so begins day two of my self imposed incarceration. The cough/cold type thing is not getting any better - it’s worse if anything, which made the decision...
Paul And Thoughts About Horseshit
We watched the movie “Paul” last night on DVD. I had forgotten how good it was. We spent much of the movie looking out for the Easter Eggs - the numerous ref...
Busy Going Nowhere
After an epic five hour journey home last night, where two trains ran late, connections were missed, and the penultimate train broke down, I walked in the do...
Morning In Leeds
It’s heading towards 9:30am, and I’m sitting in a new coffee shop in Leeds called “Caffeine & Co” - it’s setup for local businesses to hold meetings - I’...
Parties Sightseeing And Tantrums
The weekend I had been dreading is almost over. I’m writing from a hotel in Leeds, after leaving my family at Marylebone station, in Central London. As ever,...
Rugby Returns
For the past four years Sunday mornings throughout the autumn, winter and spring have not been filled with late breakfasts, endless cups of tea, and catching...
Stop The World
You know the well worn phrase “stop the world, I want to get off” ? I’m starting to wonder if there’s an alternate phrase more along the lines of “don’t wait...
Nothing To Report
Life has been surprisingly quiet this week, while also remaining unendlingly busy, mundane, tiring, and aggravating. There has been no one big thing that has...
14 Years
14 years ago this morning I would have been running around Steventon House near Oxford, pulling on my morning suit jacket, adjusting my pinhole flower, and p...
Thoughts About Friendship And The Internet
I have noticed a growing divide between those who’s relationships with others predominantly exist among friends, family, and associates they meet in every da...
Freedom Has Conditions
The main problem that manifests on any social platform that gains traction is people. Pure and simple.
The King Of Retro
When people find out I am a “professional software and web developer”, I have no doubt that they anticipate my house being filled with the latest technology ...
And Exhale
I have nothing of consequence to share with the internet this fine Friday evening, but I’m not going to let that stop me writingsomethingat least. Once upon ...
The Asshat Hipster
I thought I might have nothing to write about on the way home this evening, but then the Universe stepped in and may as well have said “we can’t have that, l...
Wednesday Night Hotel Club
It’s remarkably difficult to write about anything when you’re sitting in a hotel room for the third night in a row, and you chose not to drag yourself to the...
Eating Alone
After work this evening I walked the tremendous distance - about 100 yards - to the pub adjoining the hotel for something hot to eat. I wondered in, walked s...
Heading North Again
I’m sitting on the train to Glasgow, which is presently sitting in the depths of Euston Station, London. I’m not going to Glasgow - the train is - I’m leavin...
Marilyn Monroe
My other half arrived home from her Mum’s late last night with a bag of things that had belonged to her Dad that she thought I might be interested in. Among ...
You Are The Night Sky
I have the strangest thoughts while catching up on blog posts. I’ve followed the majority of the people I follow for long enough that I might claim to”know” ...
What Kind Of Nerd Still Has A Filofax
I updated the calendar section in my Filofax today - I should really have done it at the start of August (mid year diaries run August to July), but because w...
The One Where The Nice Lady Cut My Hair Off Again
In recent days my hair had crossed the line from being half-way manageable, to slightly deranged. I tend to make the judgement as I pass the mirror in the ha...
I Want To Believe
Anybody who watched the X-Files back in the day will remember this poster on Mulder’s office wall. When I was a teenager I wanted to believe too. Then you ge...
Back To School
After a few days going through endless lists, and making seemingly endless trips to stationers, school clothes suppliers, sporting goods stores and so on, th...
Returning To Work
The radio alarm clock burst into song at 7am this morning, and got switched off perhaps one bar into a forgettable pop music track who’s name escapes me now....
The Journey To Ireland
Rather than tell the entire Ireland story in one go, I’m going to break it up into several smaller posts - otherwise it could stretch on for several thousand...
Preparing For Ireland
Wehead out of England to the coast on Wales on Friday night, and then catch the first ferry to Ireland on Saturday morning. We have rented a cottage in Count...
Perseids
We just spent the last hour on a blanket in the garden at midnight, gazing up at the night sky, trying to catch a few Perseid meteors. We saw quite a few. We...
A Day Away And A Journey Home
I woke up yesterday morning in yet another hotel bed, several hundred miles from home. I only took a change of shirt and underwear with me, so getting up, sh...
Thoughts About Blogging
I began blogging before the word had become part of the common vernacular. In the early days, people wrote about their daytheir life. Online journals formed ...
Monday Night Hotel Club
So, here we are again. Two hundred miles from home, holed up in a hotel for the night, ahead of a day sitting in an office pretending to be clever once more.
Sleeping Under The Stars
Our younger children slept out under the stars last night (my idea). I checked the weather forecast and suggested it. I think the deciding factor was the sug...
Change Is Good
It feels like we’ve been here before. Several times. I guess at least this time there is a reason for the scorched earth goings on, and the migration between...
The Endless Limbo Continues
Kicking my heels at home again. I was supposed to be working from home today, but one of our children was spectacularly poorly last night. My other half had ...
In Limbo
It’s the day after breaking the news of my father-in-law’s death. I’m in a curious kind of limbo - making breakfasts, packed lunches, doing chores around the...
Rest In Peace
My father-in-law passed away last night. We knew it was coming, but it didn’t make it any easier. The first warning came while at a friend’s barbecue the nig...
An Piano A Drink And A Bad Memory
We were invited to a barbecue at a friends house last night, and after eating too much, and drinking too much, I spied an old upright piano in their lounge. ...
Windows 10 Arrives
This marks something of a departure. This blog is usually filled with nonsensical posts about daily life. Today I’m going to talk about Windows 10. Unless yo...
Home
Three weeks. Three weeks travelling the length of the country to work on a distant client site. Three weeks living in a hotel room. I guess three weeks isn’t...
Everyone Thinks They Are Normal
I had no clue what I was going to write about this evening, but then read a stream of comments on Tumblr about choices of pizza, and start writing this nonse...
Escaping In Plain Sight
When I started out on this journey, I wrote things like “first day done”, “second day done”, and so on. I’m just trying to figure out which day this is - eig...
The One Where The Horrible Lady Snored
Once again, I find myself sitting in a hotel room on the outskirts of Preston, Lancashire to work at a nearby office throughout the week. Once again I have s...
The Day The Internet Died
While trudging back towards the washing machine to put the fifty thousandth load in the machine yesterday afternoon I noticed our eldest daughter stood in th...
Listening To Mr Mister
The title of this post could be a tongue twister, couldn’t it. In reality I’m listening to a play-list on Spotify called “Great Tunes” that I started compili...
Friday Night And Saturday Morning
It’s heading towards 1am as I sit at the computer. It has rained all day here - from the moment I arrived in the office this morning. It is still raining now...
Elvis Has Left The Building
Another Thursday, and another journey across the country aboard a long distance train. I now know that the 4pm train out of Preston is the “fast one” - cover...
Its Not About Who You Are
While holed up in a hotel with work over the last few days I have been afforded the chance to read a lot of the publications and websites that I normally wou...
Isaac Newton Donald Trump And Beef Pie
I left the hotel this evening with all the intentions in the world of crossing the road to theother pub - the one I have seen from a distance throughout my s...
Dinner With Grandpa Potts
After work this evening I decided it was time tovisit the local public house for dinner once again - to have a hot meal if nothing else. The arduous journey ...
Not Going Out
This evening you find me sitting in a hotel hundreds of miles from home, actively using the internet to escape my temporary confinement. I could have wandere...
Another Monday Another Journey
You would think - given the frequency I travel up and down the country that I would be used to the various coincidental adventures that creep up on me. Nope....
Single Handed Again
I’m surprised the washing machine didn’t spontaneously combust yesterday - apart from a pause when I took our middle girl into town with her friend for lunch...
One Week Down
The first week of my cross-country adventures is done. Wrapped. In the can. I checked out of the hotel yesterday morning and said goodbye to the predictably ...
Not Really Byron At All
Well that’s the end of that then. I paid the princely sum of 5 last night for high speed internet access in my hotel room, and the 24 hours just ran out. The...
Two Days Down
After the long and arduous journey from the office back to my hotel - all 100 yards of it, I decided to brave the recent unpredictability of my body, and act...
One Day Down
Ok. That’s the first day of this trip ticked off the list. Working with wonderful people in a wonderful office. The work part of this journey was never going...
Three Trains And A Cab Ride
I left the house a little after 3pm with the children in tow to deliver them to friend’s houses before heading to the railway station. Our youngest was “book...
Packing For Departure
I’m packing my bags today to travel with work - a five hour journey across the country this evening to Preston in Lancashire - the north west. Just to make t...
Rebellion Brewery Open Weekend
This weekend marked the bi-annual open-weekend of our local brewery, the Rebellion Beer company. About a week ago an email did the rounds asking who was goin...
On The Train
Well this is novel… I’m sitting on the train, travelling from Wycombe to Warwick, typing this from the bluetooth keyboard into the Evernote app on the Kindle...
Carrying Miss 10 Home
I picked our younger two daughters up from their dance class yesterday evening while my other half went to the “new starter” evening at the local “big” schoo...
The Reluctant Traveller
On Sunday night I have to get on a train to begin a five hour journey to the other end of the country with work. I will stay in a hotel for 4 nights, a short...
Returning To A Real Camera
While sorting through photographs the other evening to upload to our Amazon Fire TV (which provides a wonderful photographic slide-show screen-saver on the t...
Drawing Boobs Is Hard
While wandering around town yesterday, I bought a sketchbook for myself. I haven’t drawn athingin about ten years - which is a shame, seeing that I sat throu...
On The Subject Of Heroes
This morning I wandered up to the middle school summer fete, arriving in time to see our younger children take part in a dance performance. After making conv...
A First Year Of Football Comes To A Close
After finishing work this evening I cycled home from the office, and stopped off along the way to pick up dinner for our eldest daughter and myself. The rest...
The Wheels On The Bus
While sitting at my desk this morning, waiting for my computer to lurch ponderously into life, I started to drift off. The morning had been an endless rush f...
Tiredness Abounds
I’m not entirely sure how I’m still awake. At 3am this morning one of our daughters called out quietly from her bedroom doorway, and woke me instantly in the...
The Ello Bill Of Rights
Who remembers “Ello”? They were the anti-facebook that appeared on the internet about 12 months ago, and became the darling of the tech journalists for a few...
The Tuesday Morning Story
My body woke me this morning moments before the radio alarm clock burst into life - perhaps in a show of superiority - “He doesn’t need an alarm clock - he c...
The Creeping Gentrification Of Everything
Some of my friends went to the Glastonbury music festival this year, or just “Glastonbury” as it now seems to be called. Years ago it was a music festival fo...
A Wanderer Returns
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve walked away from WordPress, only to return a few months later. I do it at least once a year on average. This time...
Jurassic World
I took our eldest daughter to see “Jurassic World” at the cinema this morning (ok, I’ll admit - I wanted to see it, and she tagged along with me). Just warni...
Lumia 640
I finally got the chance this afternoon to switch my phone handset. I traded in the LG G3 that I’ve been using for the last six months or so, and replaced it...
Dropping Google Mail
I moved away from Google Mail last night. I had been using Inbox (Google’s whizzy new mail app) in both the browser, and on my mobile phone. If you didn’t kn...
Organising The Mayhem
I have decided to try and do something about improving my natural propensity to continue putting one foot in front of the other - after much thought and deli...
The One Where I Didnt Get A New Mobile Phone
In-between running errands this morning I realised I would only be a few minutes late for work if I dropped into our local mobile phone store to grab the Win...
Rebooting My Mobile Universe Again
About 18 months ago I was carrying a Samsung S3 mobile phone around in my pocket, and struggling to get it to last through the day. Although I “say” it was a...
First Residential Trip For Our Youngest
Our youngest daughter arrived in our bedroom doorway fully dressed, teeth brushed, and hair combed at 7am sharp this morning. She had obviously been standing...
Womens Tour Of Britain
There have been advance road closure signs around town for several weeksthe event they advertised finally happened this morning. My home townMarlow, in Bucki...
Remembering Jabber Irc And Usenet
I really miss the days before mobile phones and social networks took overfor three reasons :Instant Messaging applications, Chat Rooms, and Newsgroups. Yes, ...
Pain Lots Of Pain
While standing between the lounge and the kitchen drying up a mug, having a conversation with my other halflast night, I twisted to say something, and someth...
We Choose To Go To The Moon
Whenever I play Kerbal Space Program at lunchtime, I can’t help but think of the John F Kennedy speech in the early 1960sexcept I change the words somewhat.”...
One Developer Many Hats
While working on a project this week, it occurred to me how many different skills you need these days as a commercial software developer. I guess if you work...
Running
My eldest daughter has asked if I will go running with her. To be honest, it’s the perfect excuse to force me back into running again. Before we had children...
The Unclematter Engine
While trawling the internet a few weeks ago I came across the beginning ofa story I wrote in January of 2003 for a writing website called “ThoughtCafe”. I th...
Scriveners Second Chance
I woke this morning to the relentless pitter-patter of rain on the bedroom window, and squinted across at my better half, peeking from a gap in the duvet tow...
A Party With Friends
We escaped the house for a few hours last night to attend the birthday party of a friend. Part of the hard-wiring of my brain (lets call it “up-bringing” dem...
Tempting Fate
An hour after writing a post listing the various stuff that usually resides in my bag last night, my other half’s laptop finally decided to reach the technol...
Contents Of The Bag Of Holding
Over the years I’ve written out a list of the things I tend to carry around a few timesI thought it might be interesting to re-visit the theme, and take a lo...
Recommitting To Unblogging
Wow, the title of this post has lots of double letters in it. It sounded better in my head than it does written down. Anyway. Some time ago I wrote a post ca...
Eating Lunch Early
After finishing dealing with some work this morning (read: headbutting my desk repeatedly and swearing profusely under my breath), I suddenly realised that i...
Medium Publication And Letters
A few days ago I wrote about the decision to stop the cross-posting madness, and concentrate on writing in one place (here). I confidently predicted at the t...
Livejournal Endures
Over the past couple of weeks I have reverted my “username” on all of the big social internet platforms to my real name. I had experimented with a pseudonym ...
Turning A Corner
Those of you that have followed our story over the last decade will know all about our children, the start they had in life, and the struggles they continue ...
Who What When Where Why
If you arrived at my blog looking for the technical posts about all sorts of stuff, you’ll perhaps have been surprised to find that all manner of idiotic ram...
Apple Re Invents Music Not
I just sat through the last 25 minutes of the Apple Worldwide Developer Conference keynote, where a number of people who used to be influential music label f...
Unexpected Acts Of Kindness
I lifted my online world in the air yesterday afternoon and discarded huge chunks of it. I said goodbye to accounts at Blogger, WordPress, and LiveJournal. I...
The Maelstrom Abates
This week has flown past in the way that immovable objects don’t tend to - which sounds like a Douglas Adams line until you rewind back to my view of the wee...
Still Too Many Pies
I still haven’t pushed the plunger on Blogger, Tumblr, or LiveJournal. Just to add to the maelstrom, I moved my real/nerd blog to the Ghost blogging platform...
559Am
I just got back from the school, after dropping Miss 11 off. She is headed to France today on a school trip - travelling on the channel tunnel on the way, an...
Vague Post Is Vague
While not becoming intensely annoyed with a co-worker for wasting hours tinkering with something I built that worked perfectly until he tinkered with it toda...
Too Many Pies
I know I go back over this again, and again. I’m wondering about choosing one place to blog again. Don’t take any notice of this post - it’s just me “thinkin...
Listen To Me
Listen to me, Stan Lee - urr… umm… or me. I just checked the LiveJournal public profile listings thing, and realised I am only two places behind Stan Lee. Qu...
Slow Sunday
It’s just gone 4pm on Sunday afternoon. I’m holed up in the study with a glass of wine. I got up fairly early this morning - kicking around the house, tidyin...
Nymphomaniac
I downloaded the “directors cut” of Nymphomaniac this morning - the controversial Lars von Trier movie - to see what all the fuss was about. I’m kind of a fa...
Not A Secret
In the space of 1 month I went from being a nobody on LiveJournal to being 250th in the WORLD. Granted, I have no idea how they measure it, and I wasn’t even...
The One Where I Witnessed A Parenting Failure
After dropping our youngest at football training this morning, I realised I was the only parent at the side of the pitch, and thought “this is ridiculous”, s...
Tiredness Overwhelms
It’s 2:30pm on Friday afternoon. I have just come home from work early. My body is still running at a ridiculous temperature. It made no sense to sit at my d...
Losing Interest In A Book
For my birthday this year my family bought me a new Kindle. I had forgotten all about putting it on my Amazon wish-list, so the surprise was wonderful when t...
Here All Week
I discovered today that I will be in London all week. All I have seen so far is an email notification from a project plan update. I’m not really expecting an...
Bank Holiday Monday
Today didn’t really happen. Well… of course it did, but it doesn’t feel like it happened. I feel like I haven’t achieved anything of consequence.
Four Year Old House Guests
We are looking after a little man for a friend this weekend. He arrived in a blizzard of bags, clothes, sticky-up hair, and jumbled converstion yesterday mor...
Sunsetting The Prototype Social Blogging Network
Funding runs out today for the hosting on the prototype social blogging network I built a couple of years ago. It ran under the name “We The Users” for a whi...
Into The Woods
After a pretty ridiculous working week that saw me leaving the house early in the morning, spending hours on trains rumbling towards London and back, standin...
In The Audience For A Change
Normally when I set an alarm on the Kindle tablet, I wake up a few minutes it before it. This morning it was set to go off at 5:30am. I woke up at 4:30, 4:45...
One More Day In London
My three day stint as a teacher is over for this week. That doesn’t mean the early starts have quite finished though - I’ll be returning to London once more ...
The One Where There Were No Train Tickets
I arrived at the train station at 7:10am, a few minutes before the train departed towards London, in plenty of time to purchase a train ticket. A large, port...
Returning To London
I’ve written about the morning routine when working in London so many times in the past, I can’t imagine it is interesting to anybody any more. I’ll give it ...
The Morning After The Day Before
It’s just past 11am at the time of writing. I’ve been up since 8:30am - the kids got up about an hour later - after I had already had a shower, washed up, ti...
Rock The Moor
It’s just gone midnight, and I’m sitting in the study at home in the dark with a cup of tea. My entire body aches. I’m not sick. Just very, very tired after ...
Nerdy Post Is Nerdy
Well this is interesting. I’m writing this post on the Macbook - it’s the first time I had had it out for months. It’s been sitting on the floor of the junkr...
The One Where I Rescued A Puppy
After leaving the office this evening, while fiddling with the strap on my helmet, adjusting my backpack, and fastening my gloves, a black labrador puppy cam...
And Then They Were Gone
Over the years that I’ve made friends with people around the world via the internet, there’s one thing that I’ve seen again and again that has perplexed me. ...
Moving The Motherlode
This is going to be a very nerdy post. Just warning you in advance.
Meow Meow Beenz
Ever since discovering the “profile rating” number in the profiles at LiveJournal, I’ve been quietly charting my daily worth as calculated by the secret algo...
Nothing To Report
I woke with a start at 5:30am this morning. After blinking a few times, and opening my eyes wide, I rolled over and reached for the mobile phone. Any message...
Football And Dance Shows
After dragging myself out of bed this morning at 7am, I wandered into the kids room, opened the curtains, and started shouting the usual roll-call. On any we...
Busy Idiot
I should have known how today was going to play out as soon as I got up this morning.
Head Down
Today flew by. I spent the majority of it up to my ears in source code - in case you missed the tagline, I’m a software and web developer in the daytime.
Nuclear Meltdowns
It all began yesterday evening, when I offered Miss 14 half a glass of cider with her dinner. She had been really great for the previous few days, I was pour...
Tiredness Abounds
After fitful sleep last night I finally woke with the radio alarm clock at 7, and blearily checked my phone. Looking for emails, or messages as soon as I wak...
Walking The Woods Of Endor
While catching up with the various social networks this morning I was reminded that today is May 4th - “Star Wars Day” - so thought I might tell you a little...
The Weirdest Dream
I woke early this morning when our middle daughter thumped across the landing, creaked open our bedroom door, and asked if we were going to the French Market...
Tiredness Becomes Me
I woke a little after 5am, groped around at the foot of the bed for the headphones I had attached to the Kindle Fire last night, and blinked my eyes into foc...
Unexpectedly Ascending The Nerd Ranks
I’m not sure if this is anything to crow about, but a new follower at LiveJournal informed me that they found me via the “User Ratings”. I’ll admit that I ha...
Contemplating An All Nighter
I’m wondering if I can be bothered to set the alarm for 4am GMT to listen to the boxing match between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather. I will almost cert...
The One Where My Weekend Vanished
Our youngest daughter is playing in the local football tournament at the weekend. The head coach sent out a plea for helpers yesterday (because as per normal...
Back In The Office
I’m back in the office today. Staring out of the window at the blue sky and cotton wool clouds floating past, wishing I wasn’t here. All I seem to have achie...
People Watching
At home the evening is pretty much mapped out from the moment I walk in the door - clear the kitchen ready to make dinner, sometimes make dinner, set the tab...
You Cant Make This Crap Up
I came home from work early today, to pack my bag ready to travel this evening. After doing so, our eldest daughter arrived home, and wondered out-loud who w...
Pretending To Be A Teacher Again
I’m putting on my pretend teacher hat once again over the next few days, in an attempt to educate and inspire a room full of business people in the use of so...
An Unexpected Adventure
After saying goodbye to my family late this afternoon, I set off for the train station with just the backpack on my back. I’m only away for two nights, so on...
The Spring Fling
Last night we combed our hair, put on smart clothes, and wandered down to the local primary school for the annual “Spring Fling” fundraising evening. The eve...
Running Ragged
Today didn’t really happen.
Far Too Early
I woke up at 6:30am, and instead of rolling over and falling back asleep, stared at the ceiling for a while. That’s what you get for going to bed at a sensib...
Its Been A Long Week
Super tired. Heading to bed in a few minutes unless the internet materialises a rabbit hole in front of me, and I look up and discover it’s 2am. I’ve done th...
A Difficult Day
We had some difficult news last night about a family member. It wasn’t completely unexpected, but still - it was difficult to hear, and to accept. I had to w...
Late Lunch Break
The project I have been working on for the last few weeks came screeching to a halt this morning because it became obvious that the client is working to a ve...
The One Where The Blonde Lady Chopped My Hair Off
Over the last few days my hair had crossed the line from “vaguely presentable” to “that man looks a bit weird”, so I drew a rectangle between 9 and 10am on t...
Some People
It’s very rare that I become annoyed with anybody online, but it happened today - not because of anything they did directly - but by their behaviour, denial,...
Blue Skies
It’s gorgeous outside this morning - blue skies as far as the eye can see. In the distance you can see the A380s and 747s in the pattern on approach to Londo...
The Kindness Of Aquaintances
Today a girl I vaguely know on the other side of the world bought me a “paid” LiveJournal account for a couple of months, and I’m kind of speechless. Of cour...
Disconnected
Somebody has disconnected the virtual machine I use to work on a remote client system, meaning I’m pretty much dead in the water for the next phase of some p...
Keeping Facebook At Arms Length
Over the last few weeks something has become more clear to me - that I need to keep Facebook at arms length. I don’t think I need to deactivate (it’s too use...
Goodbye Weekend
I survived the weekend. My other half arrived home about an hour ago (mid-way through the Grand Prix, which I saw no more of), and said a simple “thankyou” w...
In Search Of Life
In the same way many people watch television, movies, or read books, I head towards the internet when I have free time. I search out people sharing a little ...
The Second Teaser Trailer
I cannot remember having such a strong reaction to a teaser trailer. You know what I’m talking about, right? The second Star Wars Episode VII teaser trailer?...
People Who Know Everything
I keep seeing blog posts on the internet explaining everything about every single aspect of life - things nobody has probably ever thought about, and perhaps...
A Rare Evening Out
After arriving home from work this evening, and sitting down with a cold drink to recover from the bike ride home, I checked my phone for email.
First Coffee Of The Day
It’s nearly 10am, and I just made my first coffee of the day. I could do with another one.
Surrounded By Idiots Again
On my route to work on the mountain bike each morning I travel along a number of old Victorian roads - narrow roads, lined on each side by terraced houses. N...
Endless Amusement
The office where I work is nestled in the bottom of a quiet country estate - the final mile of my cycle to work each day is through leafy tree lined roads, a...
Aligning The Planets
A couple of weeks ago I announced to the world (or rather, announced to a random passer-by) that I was shuttering my public blog. Within hours I had of cours...
Tired And Annoyed
I got in from work at 6pm. Our eldest daughter was home, but the rest of the family were still presumably en-route home from the studio tour at Warner Brothe...
On The Occasion Of Becoming Miss 10
Our house transformed itself today into a small version of Hogwarts School of Witching and Wizardry to help celebrate the birthday of our youngest daughter. ...
Saturday Morning
I’m sitting in the middle of the lounge, which was tidy yesterday until my other half started “making stuff” for our youngest daughter’s birthday party. Tidy...
I Need To Stop Switching Platforms
It’s pretty miraculous that I have managed to hang on to the majority of my blog posts. I’ve switched from Blogger to WordPress, Tumblr, LiveJournal, Postero...
Going Nowhere
It’s Friday morning, and I’m sitting in the study at home, watching the world go by. I’m not going into work today - still suffering with the after-effects o...
I Have Nothing To Do
I still feel like crap - just in case you haven’t been reading, I’ve had the flu for the last week - and am about to go home a little early. I’m half watchin...
Going Against The Flow
A little while ago, while wandering the world wide web late one evening, I struck up conversation with an old friend. She commented that it often feels like ...
Buying My Own Coffee
After being pretty sick throughout Easter, I went back into the office yesterday morning - and lasted an hour. Trying to work with a head full of ibuprofen, ...
The Nature Of The Beast
I have begun writing this post five times so far. Sometimes I completed the first sentence, and sometimes I only got a few words in before hitting the backsp...
An Afternoon With Anna And Elsa
I considered titling this post “An Afternoon with Anna, Elsa, and a Thousand Screaming Children”, but it seemed a little long. Accurate, but long.
A Life Online
Over the years I have been on-line - and it’s more years than I care to remember - unlikely friendships have sprung up like weeds in the desert. Sometimes th...
Consistent Speed
After leaving the supermarket laden with grocery bags yesterday morning, I stood patiently at a road crossing, waiting for the lights to change. As they chan...
An Internet Theorem Resurfaces
I signed up for LiveJournal a few days ago. It’s not the first time I have been a member - in the days before Facebook, Twitter, WordPress and Tumblr swept a...
Slowly Seduced By Comic Book Art
Although I can remember reading comic books as a child, they tended to be the throw-away cheap comics sold at the newsagent in the UK alongside the daily new...
Jonathan Doesnt Live Here Any More
I finally pulled the trigger on a new home for my ramblings, and a massive simplification of my online life. I will now have one blog - one place to write - ...
Considering Armageddon
I have too many fingers in too many on-line pies. It’s getting ridiculous, and I’m wondering about taking the “new broom” approach to sorting everything out ...
Avoiding Temptation
I’m sitting on my hands today - avoiding the temptation to “build a better homepage” on the internet. I own my own name as a .com URL, and have a freebie sit...
Routine And The Order Of Things
When I arrived home from Scotland, I found myself at the kitchen sink within half an hour - washing up cups, plates, and cutlery, and putting things away in ...
Revisiting Livejournal
I revisited a old internet haunt this weekend, and signed up for an account.I had an account a LiveJournal “back in the day” - when blogging was in it’s infa...
Oh Freddy Im Doomed
Today started well. The children were up first, and after a quick shower, were discovered watching cartoons in the living room. A thirty minute warning was i...
From Selkirk To Euston
I woke ridiculously early this morning. The phone alarm clock went off, and woke me from the most ridiculous dream I had in quite some time.
Unexpected Kindness Surrounds Me
And low, he did mark the passing of his 42nd tour of a fairly typical main sequence star by sitting in his hotel room alone, drinking forgettable instant cof...
Selkirk Melrose And The Eildon Hills
Ever since I knew I was coming to Scotland with work for two weeks, I knew I wouldn’t be going home on the middle weekend, because the travel time required w...
My Perfect Hotel Room
While staying in a hotel this week with work, I’ve started to realise the things that really count in a hotel roomfor me. I was going to title this post “The...
Last Man Standing
While walking through Selkirk this morning in the bright sunshine, I passed an imposing statue and stopped to take a photo with my phone. While framing the s...
One Day Down
I woke up at something like 6am this morning, and considered getting up straight away - but knowing breakfasts in the hotel are not surved until 7:30, it see...
The Journey To Scotland
After getting up, making breakfasts and lunches, and hugging goodbye this morning as each of the children left the house for school, I zipped up my bag, and ...
Bang Goes Sunday
I had booked two days off work to spend time with the children ahead of the weekend, and then the trip to Scotland with work. We are into Sunday - the fourth...
Spotify On Saturday Evening
I just finished washing up after dinner - it feels like the day has been an endless sprint from start to finish, and the race hasn’t finished yet. I’m growin...
The One Where Friday Didnt Happen
I’m sitting in the study, half listening to the “Favourite Coffee House” mix on Spotify, and half wondering what I’m going to do with the rest of the day. I ...
High Speed Clothes Shopping
It’s been a year or so since I bought any new clothes for myself. Actually, when I say it has been a year, it’s probably been two or three years. When you’re...
Counting Down The Hours
It’s lunchtime on Wednesday morning. Just a few hours until the end of the working day, then I have a couple of days off work before the journey to Scotland ...
The One Where The Nice Lady Stole My Hair Again
In the absence of anything interesting or remarkable to impart this fine Tuesday lunchtime, perhaps a mugshot of what’s left of my hair will suffice. My hair...
A Day At The British And Science Museums
Our youngest is doing the “Ancient Egypt” project at school this term - and will be spending half term creating a “project board” - essentially a board fille...
Valentines Day
You all know that Valentines Day was hijacked (as with just about any other significant date in the calendar) by the Christian Church, right?
The One Where I Got Lost On The Underground
While travelling home from a distant work location last night, I had to traverse London via the vast network of underground trains. I’ve done it countless ti...
A Moment From The Journey Home
While travelling home on the train last night, I found myself sitting adjacent to two gentlemen of a certain age - perhaps 60 - dressed in suits, and sensibl...
Tuesday Night Hotel Club
I arrived back from the client site about half an hour ago. After skipping lunch I’m just about ready to eat my own arms, but have learned from last night - ...
Preparing For Departure
I’m having a dilemma. This afternoon I will be travelling north for a few days - staying in the Holiday Inn near a client site for two nights. I’m wondering ...
Another Week Another Hotel
Another week, another hotel. This week I’m in the Holiday Inn, a couple of hundred miles from home for a couple of nights. I can’t help humming the Elton Joh...
Something From Nothing
Another late night last night. Finally the thousands of lines of source code are beginning to conjure a website out of thin air. A website where parents can ...
Burning The Candle At Both Ends
For the last few years our children have taken part in a summer camp in town, that has steadily grown, year on year. I think last year they had in the region...
Nothing To See Here
While writing this, the time is marching inexorably towards 11pm. I have no idea where the evening went. Actually, that’s a lie. I know exactly where the eve...
The Starry Dynamo In The Machinery Of The Night
For the last year I had grown increasingly disillusioned with the social internet, and it’s much talked about power to make the world smaller - to connect pe...
Sunday Afternoon
It’s Sunday afternoon. The kids are playing with their friend in the park outside, the Kindle Fire is playing “Halt and Catch Fire” while propped against the...
Blogging 101 Ends
And so it was, while pretending to look like he knew what he was doing, he stumbled through January without falling over, and stayed the course. He followed ...
Rediscovering The Past
While digging through the long forgotten catacombs of the external network drive at home this evening, I came across a rather sizeable XML file with a crypti...
On The Occasion Of A 40Th Birthday
After work yesterday evening we broke all kinds of unwritten rules, and went out for a meal with friends at the pub -on a school night. Consequently this mor...
In Retrospect Our Adoption Journey
After resurrecting thousands of archived posts back into the blog earlier this evening, it occurred to me that I can finally re-tell our adoption journey onc...
Choosing A Writing Weapon Of Choice
While taking part in the Blogging101 course over the last month at WordPress, I have arm-twisted myself into writing more than in quite some time - which has...
The Journey Home
When I woke this morning a thought occurred to me - a rather important thought. Where and when was I supposed to be meeting with the client ? I slid out of t...
Trains Hotels Pizzas And Numpties
Everything was going so well. I got up, had a shower, made packed lunches, dropped the children off at school, went into the office for a few hours, came hom...
Has Anybody Seen The Weekend
I’ve been sitting on the couch with the netbook for the last hour, half watching the television, half wondering what to write about, and half watching the re...
Reinstalling Windows On The Netbook
Now and again I write a post that is so mundane, so boring, and so nerdy that those unfortunate enough to begin reading itconsider putting some kind of warni...
Express Yourself
For the past few weeks I have been taking part in the WordPress “Blogging 101” course, which I will freely admit I have used primarily to find new bloggers t...
Busy Going Nowhere
I’ve been twiddling my thumbs through much of this week - wondering what to do with myself. I over-estimated a piece of work that I’m scheduled on, so have h...
Recording The Mundane And The Minutiae
Today’s exercise for the Blogging 101 course at WordPress challenges us with the following; Build your storyteller’s toolbox by publishing a post in another ...
Nope Nope And Thrice Nope
I’m not doing the WordPress Blogging 101 exercise today, because it’s not really about writing - it’s about commenting - and commenting elsewhere isn’t about...
The Insanity Of The Social Internet
Returning to writing a personal blog on a regular basis this year has made me realise something - I live in too many places online. I’m tempted to use an ana...
Build A Better Blogroll
Today’s exercise for the WordPress Blogging 101 course asks us to share a few links to the sites we love. As is usual, I couldn’t bring myself to do the exer...
Serenity
No, this post is not about the space ship in the short-livedTV series “Firefly” - it is a response to WordPress “Daily Post” photoprompt”Serenity.”, and for ...
Books I Havent Read Yet
I thought about titling this post “the huge and growing mountain of books I still haven’t read, despite writing about this before, and despite still not doin...
The Life Of Pi
While our younger daughters had friends for sleepovers last night - yes, that’s right, two sleepovers, because we’re stupid - we let our eldest daughter stay...
Sunday Morning And Pancakes For Six
We had six children in the house last night - our three, and three friends. They roughly divided themselves into two groups - 10 and 11 year olds on the sofa...
The Calm Before The Storm
We have three girls coming to visit for a sleepover tonight. Add that to the three girls already in the house, and I can’t imagine us getting much sleep. It’...
Podcasts
I began listening to podcasts during the time I worked in London. I sat on trains for the best part of 4 hours each day, and discovered the various shows cre...
Nope
Today’s exercise for the WordPress “Blogging 101” course is titled “Spruce up your Sidebar”, and asks us to add a couple of widgets to the sidebar of our blo...
Be Inspired By The Neighbors And Moleskine Notebooks
I’ll forgive the intentional spelling mistake in the title, because I’m guessing the majority of the people who might stumble upon this blog post are America...
Organising The Chaos
Many years ago I wrote a post about the “Getting Things Done” methodology. At the time, the book by David Allen had just come out in paperback, and was being...
On Any Morning
The day began with a squint at the radio alarm clock next to the bed, which had begun filling the bedroom with the local radio station. Ispent a minute or tw...
Not Playing The Personalisation Game
Today’s assignment for the Blogging 101 course asks us to create and upload a simple header, and/or background, and to try a custom widget. I’m not doing it,...
Down The Internet Rabbit Hole
I just registered this blog at Bloglovin. I’m still undecided if I have placed one foot on a polished slide that heads straight to the depths of blogging hel...
People Watching
Some time ago I wrote a post about the pretty lady that rents out the house opposite the office where I work - about our chance encounters on mornings and ev...
Making The About Page Irresistable
This feels like cheating. It’s half past midnight, so technically Monday morning, but still Sunday night in my head. I was supposed to be heading off to bed,...
Cutting Another Parental String
Our eldest daughter has gone shopping on her own in a nearby town for the first time today. I will admit to being ever so slightly nervous. I’m not really wa...
Green Lantern
Prior to this evening, my only knowledge of the “Green Lantern” was that he was a comic book character, and that Doctor Sheldon Cooper in The Big Bang Theory...
The Week The World Got Bigger
I started the WordPress Blogging 101 course last weekend without any great aspirations, or aims - I just wanted to take part in something that hopefully kick...
Love Your Theme
Today’s exercise for the WordPress Blogging 101 course is called “Love Your Theme”, challenging you to try out different themes. I don’t really need to do th...
Celebrity Big Brother
We have a television hanging from a bracket in the corner of the kitchen, intended to provide distraction while cooking, washing up, or ironing. While ironin...
A Letter To My Younger Self
Today’s exercise for the WordPress Blogging 101 course is to write a post for a dream reader - real or imaginary. I have decided to write a letter to my youn...
Things I Carry
There is no end to the ideas I will come up with for blog posts when I have better things to be getting on with (like loading the washing machine, or tidying...
Saying Hello To The Neighbours
Rather than follow today’s instructions for the Blogging 101 course to the letter, I’m going to ramble on a bit about some of the people I have followed over...
Say Your Name
My blog wasn’t always called “Recursive Words”. It hasn’t always lived at WordPress either. Over the years I’ve probably written at just about every popular ...
Re Forming The Writing Habit
For the past few evenings I have been sitting the moleskine notebook in front of me on the desk in the study junk room, and trying to empty my head. It’s not...
Blogging 101 An Introduction Of Sorts
I’m taking part in the WordPress “Blogging 101” course this year. I saw it advertised on New Years Day, and thought it only really applied to those new to bl...
Maleficent
After gathered in the lounge this evening on the last night of the Christmas holiday, we picked the movie “Maleficent” to watch while eating pizza, and drink...
Its All About You
While reading various posts published from the bowels of WordPress over the last few days, I happened upon a list of tips for those starting out. I used to t...
Be The Change
In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Be the Change.” While exploring the “Daily Post” WordPress site this afternoon in search of some kind of “Ev...
The Long And Winding Road
We returned home from my parents on the south west coast this afternoon, and somehow survived the five hour journey without the children causing anybody to l...
Happy New Year
It’s January 1st, 2015. I’m sitting at the dining table in my parents house in Cornwall, accompanied by an empty coffee cup. The younger children are in the ...