Quiet Days
It feels like we are in a strange sort of limbo at the moment - not allowed to go anwhere, or visit anybody. We spend each day watching movies, playing board...
Posts from 2020
Chores Cats And Coffee
For the first several hours today I was the only person up and about - wandering from room to room, doing this and that. Completing some chores, starting oth...
What Day Is It
I just had to double check what day of the week it is. Apparently it’s Sunday. I imagine those reading this will divide into two camps - those that know what...
One Day More
No, this is not the beginning of a certain Broadway song involving all manner of catawailing (disclaimer - I love Les Miserables, before anybody starts on me...
The Santa Fun Run
After sliding out of bed a little after 7am this morning, I wandered downstairs and dressed myself as Santa. Father Christmas. Saint Nicholas. Only a very lo...
Running And Writing
I’m supposed to get up at 8am tomorrow morning and run around town in a Santa suit, accompanied by my younger daughters. I’m not quite sure how they’re going...
Making Christmas Magic
Yesterday morning I arrived quietly at the infant school in town, tip-toed into one of the staff rooms, and transformed myself into Father Christmas - comple...
An Unlikely Santa
I’m going to be Santa at the infant school on Friday morning. Can you imagine a less likely Santa?
One In The Morning
I think it’s fair to say that I’ve been “mailing it in” on the personal blog for the last few months - writing a little about this or that, without really wr...
I Ran This Morning
I ran this morning. After suggesting to Miss 16 that I could accompany her, I got up at 7am, pulled my shorts and shoes on, and was ready to go within minute...
Slowly And Quietly
I’m spending a very quiet Saturday hiding out at home, reading all the things, and emptying my head into the keyboard. It feels like the writing mania that o...
Midnight
When you look at the clock and it’s a few minutes until midnight, does midnight count as today, or tomorrow ? Asking for a friend.
Stealing Days
I still have a mountain of unused holiday days from my employer stacked in a heap in the corner. I’ve been chipping away at them now and again - taking the o...
An Unexpected Avalanche
You know how I wrote yesterday that a publication on Medium had syndicated a few of my posts ? After the initial surprise and excitement, reality kind of set...
Syndication
For the last few days I have been tidying up some old “think pieces”, and re-posting them to a shiny new blog at jonbeckett.com. I’m not posting them here, b...
Midnight
Each day seems to be falling into the next at the moment. I suppose it’s only natural when you work from home, and the projects you’re working on require any...
Choose Your Poison
A few nights ago I heard a mouse running around in our attic. I’m guessing it came in from the houses alongside, and I’m guessing it’s not alone.
Nowhere On Purpose
I’ve been sitting in front of the computer all afternoon, reading, tinkering, playing chess, and falling down internet rabbit holes. While sitting here, ther...
Rockstar Lifestyle
It’s 11pm on Friday night, and I’m the last person awake in the house. All I can hear is the blood pumping through my ears, and the rattle of the keyboard as...
Two Worlds
A few days ago I was approached at work - along with everybody else - about writing occasional blog posts for the company website. The posts will be shared w...
Running On My Own
At dinner yesterday evening, my middle daughter put all sorts of plans in place to go running several times a week before college. I suggested I could go wit...
The Day Alexa Landed In My Parents House
The day has been never ending. At one point I was on a conference call with work, the home phone rang, my mobile rang, somebody came to the door, and then my...
Running Chocolate Alcohol And Coffee
There is an X-Box 360 tucked away under the desk. It’s wired up, but nobody ever plays with it. I’ve just chanced upon the best life-hack ever with it though...
Second Coffee
It’s mid-morning on Friday, and I’m taking a break from everything for a few minutes. I’m about to go and put the kettle on in the kitchen, and make a second...
Every Other Day
I seem to have fallen into a pattern of sorts - posting every other day. I’m not quite sure how it happened - it certainly wasn’t intentional. Today’s post i...
Alone In The Dark
I’m sitting alone in the living room lit only by a lamp in the far corner, throwing long shadows across the room. A classical music radio station is quietly ...
Coffee And Spotify
It’s Sunday afternoon, and you find me tapping a few words into the blog, accompanied by a cup of coffee, and the Starbucks “Global” playlist on Spotify. I t...
Reinstalling
Deep breath. This is going to get very nerdy, very quickly. I’ll just get it over with, shall I?
Wednesday
I went for a run this morning. I would like to tell you that it was easy, and I felt great, and “go me!”. In reality it was hard work, I felt like crap, and ...
In Search Of Distraction
It’s been a strange sort of day - proof reading documents, checking, modifying, reading again. Hopefully I’m nearing the end of the journey I’ve been on in r...
A Whole New World
Perhaps it says something that even half a world away, I have been unable to distract myself from the United States election for the last several days. I hav...
Friday
I’m decompressing somewhat this evening, after spending the greater part of the week writing a lengthy technical document for work. I think it surprises my f...
Watching From Afar
I have been distracted throughout the day watching the American election results roll in. I tried to explain what was happening and why to my children earlie...
Randomly On Tuesday
My brain is slowly turning to mush. For the last several days I have been writing a technical document - a review of the system I have been designing for the...
Shrines And Scarecrows
I took the kids out for a walk today - over the hill to a nearby village, and on through the surrounding woods to a Buddhist shrine I heard about from a frie...
Saturday
Several years ago there was an award winning comedy on TV called “Community”. I discovered it late, and binge-watched four years of it in a matter of weeks. ...
Pizza Netflix And Self Isolation
Day two of the unplanned stay-cation.
Thursday
Day one of the mini-staycation has commenced. So far this morning I have had a shower, got dressed, made breakfast, put two loads of clothes through the wash...
Unexpected Time Off
After several weeks submerged in one of the most complex project design phases I have been involved in for quite some time, a window has opened up in my sche...
Strange And Mysterious
Here we are again - writing a blog post at half past midnight - wondering where the day (and the night) went. It’s becoming a habit. After several weeks grin...
Minecraft Wine And Cereals
My daughters are busy working in a mine this evening - in the “Minecraft” video game. After our middle girl asked about paying for a Minecraft server from he...
Junk Room Kingdom
The clock is ticking towards 1am, and I’ve just remembered about the blog. I suppose in some ways that reflects how much importance I find myself attaching t...
Saturday Morning
The clock is ticking towards 9am on Saturday morning. I’ve been up for an hour and a half already - chiefly to scrape our middle daughter out of bed. She’s p...
Thursday Night
It’s two minutes to midnight. I stopped work early this afternoon - I’ve been battling a cold I caught from the kids, and faced with writing a complicated do...
Cooking Cretins And Crew Cuts
Since beginning to work from home, I have started cooking on particular nights of the week. In past years I’ve been happy to wash up, and leave cooking to my...
Avoiding The Mainstream
I’m one episode away from the end of Westworld Season 3. I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do with my evenings after completing it. It’s been one hell of ...
Pizza Music And Tv
We look forward to the weekend throughout the week, and then when it comes we suddenly find ourselves deep into Sunday evening, wondering what happened - or ...
Experimentation
I think it was Fox Mulder that once said “nothing is ever really gone” - or words to that effect. Of course he was talking about the evidence of a crashed fl...
Connecting The Dots
I think it was Fox Mulder that once said “nothing is ever really gone” - or words to that effect. Of course he was talking about the evidence of a crashed fl...
Stir Crazy
Apart from the increasingly rare trips to the supermarket, and a walk to the park with my eldest daughter last weekend, I haven’t left the house for perhaps ...
Late Night Thoughts
After sitting in this chair for eight hours already today, wrestling with all manner of complex design problems for a system that only exists in schematics, ...
Sunday
The clock is ticking towards midnight on Sunday night. I’m trying to piece the day back together in my head - to recall where it went. Weekends seem to be a ...
Saturday
Today was a quiet day. A purposely quiet day. After the last few weeks working on complex projects I needed to give my brain a rest.
Negative
The COVID test result came in at 8:30pm this evening. Negative. A wave of relief swept through the house - prisoners no more. Within half an hour I was on my...
Self Isolating
Our entire household has to self isolate for the next day or so - for as long as it takes for my eldest daughter to get her COVID test result back. She has b...
People
I watched “As Good As It Gets” this evening - the movie with Jack Nicholson and Helen Hunt. I love stories about broken people - where being different isn’t ...
Pasta And Meatballs
I missed lunch again today. Actually - missed is a bit of an exaggeration. I was working on something more interesting than stopping and eating, so grabbed s...
Days Like These
I make promises to myself sometimes - simple things - easy promises to make. “I’ll start forcing myself to take lunchbreaks”, for example. And then I look up...
Strange Dreams
After falling into bed uncharacteristically early last night, I fell into a deep sleep and dreamed. It’s rare that I remember dreams - but one of last night’...
Doctor Who And Rainy Days
You know how when you meet acquaintances in passing, you ask each other “how are you?”, without really caring how each other really are? And how you typicall...
Not Playing The Game
After an email conversation with an old friend earlier today, I thought it might be worth expanding on the re-appearance of my writing at Substack, and it’s ...
Five More Kilometres
After staying up half the night to watch the morbidly hilarious US presidential debate take place in the US - mostly waiting for Biden to ask Trump to grow u...
Headaches
I was going to write a post this morning about mistakes - about how nobody is perfect, and about cancel culture. Then I thought better of it. Nobody wants to...
Five And A Half Kilometres
After waking with a start at my other half’s alarm clock this morning, I scraped myself out of bed, pulled some shorts on, and wandered downstairs in search ...
Daydreams
It’s Sunday evening. The end of four days respite from work, and a return to relative normality in the morning. I will admit to having looked in quite some d...
Nothing Days
I don’t really have anything to share today. I didn’t do, accomplish, watch, listen, or complete anything. I think sometimes we need nothing days - days when...
Many Sides To Every Story
For the last several years I’ve become increasingly frustrated with both journalism, and people in general. I think perhaps the root of it comes from publish...
So Called Day Off
After confirming the last few days of the week off work, I hit the ground running this morning at home - pushing two loads of washing through the machine (it...
Unexpected Staycation
I woke up with a blocked nose and a headache this morning, looked out of the window at a world filled with rain, and decided that running can wait. Running i...
Lunchtime Lunacy
After not getting up in time to go for a run this morning (actually there is more to the story - the kitchen was wrecked, so I spent the first hour of the da...
Midnight Messaging
I’m tired - properly tired - and it’s all my own fault.
Morning Run
The alarm clock went off at 6:45am, and a vague memory re-appeared in my head - something about waking up Miss 16, who had promised to go running with Miss 1...
The Anxiety Monster
It’s Sunday afternoon. I wonder at what point during the afternoon and evening it becomes the end of one week, and the beginning of another? Sensible people ...
Sushi
It’s our eldest daughter’s birthday today. Somehow she is 20 years old. I still think of her as the unsure 7 year old that walked through our door thirteen y...
More Running More Coffee
Some good friends came over last night and sat outside with us while I cooked food on the barbecue. I somehow managed to drink two thirds of a bottle of wine...
Nineteen Years
Almost exactly nineteen years ago, in about half an hour if memory serves, I stood at the business end of a church in Oxfordshire, waiting for the future Mrs...
Running And Coffee
I scraped myself out of bed before 7am this morning and went for a run. I must be mad. Or feeling guilty that I haven’t been running (or done any sort of phy...
Drama Queens
It’s Sunday afternoon, and the sun is shining. I expect the rest of the family will expect me to wander out into the back garden soon and start the barbecue....
Im Coming Too
I meant to write something late last night. I got as far as writing “it’s half past midnight”, but somehow didn’t get any further.
Thursday
The clock ticked past midnight forty five minutes ago.
People Ruin Everything
Slowly but surely, we’re headed back towards lockdown - because some people think they know better than everybody else. And yes, I’m absolutely talking about...
Priorities
I just got back from a walk through the warm evening air to the supermarket and back. It was intended as a mental health walk of sorts - I’ve been going incr...
Mostly Offline
I was going to to title this post “Working from Home”, but this is my life now - working from home.
Monday
I was going to to title this post “Working from Home”, but this is my life now - working from home.
One Less Pigeon
While making a cup of coffee earlier, my youngest daughter ran into the kitchen, pointing into the garden as she ran - our little black rescue-cat was stalki...
Minutes
One more day until the weekend. Twenty four hours. One thousand four hundred and forty minutes. Actually, that’s a bit of an exaggeration - it’s already head...
Tantrums
After a bank holiday weekend, I’m back at work. Back in the study. Back in front of my work laptop. For the first time in about five months, I’m wearing some...
Frustrated
I’m stepping away from the social internet for a while.
Friday
It’s Friday afternoon, with a bank holiday weekend stretched out ahead. I’m just taking a break from work for a few minutes to write this. It’s been a strang...
Thursday
It’s nearly 10am, and I’m sitting in the variously titled ‘study’ or ‘junk room’ at home, working. I’m a software developer. My job usually involves sitting ...
Legacy
I don’t think it’s any secret that I’ve been struggling to post anything worthwhile to the blog for the last six months or so. You might think after nearly e...
A Walk In The Park
We went for a walk this afternoon in Basildon Park - about an hour from home. Perhaps the highlight of the walk was a dragonfly deciding to land on my knee w...
Hitting It Out Of The Park
Miss 16 received her exam results yesterday morning - passing eight of the nine exams she took with flying colours. While it’s easy for me to write it, it wa...
Through Caverns Measureless To Man
The internet came of age when I was an impressionable teen. An infinite rabbit hole, filled with ideas, knowledge, thoughts, idiocy, adventure, and everythin...
Pretending To Fly
When I need to switch off after a week working on software development projects, the flight simulator has become something of a crutch. I suppose in many way...
A Small Cog In An Enormous Machine
I feel a bit like a small cog in an enormous machine at the moment - going round and round, slowly becoming worn, and not going anywhere. I’m sure that’s a m...
Heat Humidity And Lightning
I just looked on the weather app built into Windows 10 - because of course I can’t just look out the window. In the interests of accuracy, it’s 11pm and the ...
Comfortable In My Own Skin
I decided about an hour ago that it might be a good idea to update my profile photo everywhere - to better reflect what I have looked like for the last six m...
Monkeys And Music
I was going to go for a run this morning, but after realising the temperature was already nearly 30C at 8am, thought ‘maybe not’. Any thoughts of running thi...
Slogging
Today was difficult. The design of something I have been working through for the last few days got ripped out from under my feet, and changed - causing a lot...
Surviving The Day
I started the day with an empty page in my bullet journal, and filled it with tasks as the day went on - the kinds of things you would expect after being out...
Losing Myself In Music
It’s the final night of my staycation. I return to work in the morning - if you can call it returning. I’ll be sitting in the same chair I’m sitting in now, ...
Its A Serious Business
Somehow it’s already the first of August. How the hell did that happen? You know how you’re about to step in a huge dog turd, and you notice at the last mome...
Slowly
I started writing this post a little after 8am this morning, and then a world of chores, distractions, and errands took over. It’s Wednesday - half-way throu...
Not Feeling It
I got up this morning and went for a run, after not running for the last two days. I got up half an hour later than I should have, both my knees hurt when I ...
Ray And Marijne
I meant to write a blog post yesterday, but somehow the day got away from me. The days have been doing that a lot recently. I started writing, but got no fur...
The Loneliness Of The Short Distance Runner
I woke the first time with a start at 5am. I know this, because I looked at the clock before falling back asleep. I woke the second time at 8am, remembered I...
Fourteen Days
I have the next two weeks off work. Ten working days. Fourteen days in all. It all seems a bit giddy at the moment, although I’m mindful of a conversation wi...
Stupid Like That
After scraping myself out of bed this morning I knocked on Miss 15’s bedroom door, and quietly enquired if she might be running. No answer. I then wandered d...
Not Much Of Anything
You find me sitting in the dark of the junk room, trying to switch off at the end of the day. I’m listening to a Carly Simon album, and typing into a minimal...
Running Very Carefully
After a month keeping off a very broken toe, I finally got out running again this evening - although perhaps ‘running’ is an exaggeration - more of a gentle ...
Surprises On Sunday
It’s Sunday morning (or rather, what’s left of Sunday morning). We are heading out in an hour or so to a surprise destination with the kids. The local rugby ...
Ends And Beginnings
I visited the office yesterday - for the first time in four months. A flying visit to empty my desk, and collect a monitor and an office chair. The company I...
Lunchtime Thoughts
It’s Monday lunchtime, and you find me sitting in the junk room at home. I’ve been here on weekdays since the middle of March. Nearly four months now. The on...
Has It Really Been A Week
Has it really been a week since the last blog post? You would think the absence of pretty much anything from me over the last few days would mean an impendin...
Out Of The Loop
It’s Sunday afternoon, and you find me holed up in the junk room at home, forcing myself to empty my head into the keyboard. The broken toe is slowly healing...
Life Support
It’s nearly a week since my last blog post. In terms of ‘falling off the blogging horse’, this isn’t so much ‘fallen off the horse’, as ‘let the horse free, ...
Friday
For those that don’t know, I very rarely write blog posts straight into the Wordpress editor interface - I used to write everything in a text editor, save it...
Toes And Teeth
Somehow I have managed to break a toe, and a tooth. I know, it sounds ridiculous. On Tuesday morning the phone rang, and I ran through the house barefoot to ...
The Last Of Three Brothers
Our enormous ginger tom cat “George” is back in hospital tonight. After a major operation last week to save his life, complications arose over the weekend. W...
Virtual Flight
This “virtual flight” thing is addictive. While most people have been reading books, and watching TV shows during lockdown, I have been learning how to opera...
Friday
Yes, I’m still here. No, I haven’t shut the blog down (yet). If the last few years have taught me anything, it’s that I’ll always return. Eventually. I’m won...
Windows Doors And Motorbikes
The builders arrived at 8am this morning with a van full of windows and doors for our house. We have lived here for 20 years. The house is something like 80 ...
Rings Rabbits And Flying
I’m not entirely sure where this post is going to go. It’s three minutes until midnight on Sunday night, and you find me sitting in the dark of the junk room...
Heathrow To Bastia
After a few days preparation, I joined my Dad and his friends online last night for my first experience “flying” online. Twice a week the group meet up to fl...
Uncomplicated
A fellow blogger commented about the uncomplicated nature of my life today, and I couldn’t help smiling. My life appears uncomplicated, because that’s how I ...
Running Motorbikes And Pretend Plane Crashes
I’m at the stage of having fallen off the blogging horse where I’m starting to wander around looking for the horse, shouting it’s name from time to time - ho...
Saturday
Yesterday evening I posted something vaguely political on Facebook, and almost immediately regretted it - not because of the subject matter of my post - beca...
Humpday
It’s heading towards 1:30am, and somehow I’m still up - which is ridiculous, given that I’m supposed to be going running with my youngest daughter early tomo...
Pretending To Fly
I’m not sure that I have written so little for quite some time. Perhaps years. I haven’t so much fallen off the blogging horse, as taken the wheels off the w...
If Only We Had Some Cookies
My youngest daughter’s school has been taking part in a huge effort to rack up as many kilometres as possible in physical exercise while in lockdown - by eit...
Missing Days
I think it’s fair to say I’ve well and truly fallen off the blogging horse. After several years posting almost every day, I’ve dropped back to posting every ...
Monday Morning
The clock has just ticked past 9am on Monday morning, and you find me sitting at the dining table in the living room opposite my youngest daughter, who is st...
Friday Morning
It’s Friday, and you find me holed up in the junk room at home, putting together another quiz. This evening the company I work for are having a “virtual soci...
Almost Midnight
It’s been a day. Somehow it’s already heading towards midnight, and I’ve only just sat down to write something. I know, I know - I could scratch today, and w...
Unfollowing Drama Queens
I’m sitting at the dining table this morning, opposite our youngest daughter who is getting on with school work. My other half is in the junk room, working. ...
Running The Roads
Last autumn I took part in the “Couch to 5K” running programme at the local running club - to support my eldest daughter both with her fitness, and in her ba...
Jackanory
You find me sitting at the desk in the junk room - sipping coffee, looking back over the morning in my bullet journal, and half-watching the indicators at th...
Coffee Cake And Secrets
I’m sitting in the relative quiet of the junk room at home, listening to spotify, sipping coffee, and finishing off a piece of cinnamon swirl my other half m...
Slowing Down
While juggling various requests from my daughters, friends, emails, and instant messages today, I realised that I need to take a step back from everything fo...
Rambling On And On
Rather than talk to anybody in particular on the podcast this week, I’m talking to myself. I’m pretty sure this is a direct route to madness, but I’ll risk i...
Quiz City
This evening I performed the role of “Quiz Master” for a quiz with the staff and families of the school where my other half works. We used “Zoom”, and I crea...
Playing Games
I didn’t post to the blog yesterday, after a “run” of several weeks. I imagine the universe will now fall in on itself. I did begin wondering though - if the...
Hiding Out
I’m hiding out in the lounge. My other half has taken over the junk room (where the big computer lives), and is trying to cut together a video for the infant...
Relentless
The rest of the household have gone to bed, and I find myself alone for a little while. Alone in the dark with my thoughts. A little while to untangle and un...
Absolute Avoidance
I’ve been sitting in front of the laptop for the majority of the day, with a text editor open - ready to receive the usual stream of idiotic thoughts that in...
Sunday Morning
After waking up a little after 8am this morning I was very busy daydreaming when my other half rolled over, woken by the cat asking for his breakfast, and mu...
Its About Being There
I watched an old episode of “Halt and Catch Fire” this evening. If you’ve not seen it, the show ran for four seasons, and broadly told the story of the 1980s...
Its Life Jim
It’s been a day. After pulling the design together for a future project this morning, I wandered into the garden to find my other half sitting in a camping c...
Switching Off
After sliding out of bed at perhaps 7:30 this morning and fishing some running shorts from the long neglected ‘fitness’ drawer, I knocked on various daughter...
Crossing The Streams
I suppose the first few months of this year will go down as something on an experiment in my blogging history. I started the year off by walking away from Wo...
Homeschooling
I have the day off work today. Rather than sit in the study on my own all day, I’m at the dining table with my daughters, who are pretending to do school wor...
Catherine Sanderson Petite Anglaise
wp:jetpack/markdown {“source”:”We have a rather special guest on the podcast this week.\n\nShe is one of the luminaries that helped forge the idea of posting...
Keep On Running
I slid out of bed early this morning, pulled on some old shorts and running shoes, and looked in on the children. There had been plans at dinner last night f...
Behold The Podcast
In mid January this year I started recording a podcast - a podcast talking to bloggers around the internet about their blogs. This morning I started to take ...
A Retrospective
wp:jetpack/markdown {“source”:”This week on the podcast I look back at how the podcast is going so far - the challenges, the trials, the successes, and of co...
Running In The Morning
Late yesterday evening, after floating the idea that I might go for a run in the morning, my other half hijacked the idea, and invited my daughters to go wit...
Nothing To Report
Nothing spectacular happened today. The world turned once upon it’s axis, it didn’t rain, and I had cheese and pickle sandwiches for lunch.
One Step At A Time
I stayed up late last night and watched TV with my eldest daughter - we watched several episodes in a row of ‘Friday Night Dinner’, drank tea, and ate chocol...
Surrounded
After Miss 19 asked if I would be using the study/junk room to work in this week, I ran around the house like a madman this morning, making way to use the li...
Miss Fifteen
Today Miss Fourteen became Miss Fifteen. After wandering downstairs at about half past seven this morning, I found the younger children sitting on the couch,...
Everywhere
I suppose there’s quite a bit to unpack today - quite apart from it being ‘Easter Sunday’. As an aside, if you were wondering why I have referenced ‘Easter S...
Stacey The Sharess
wp:jetpack/markdown {“source”:”This week on the podcast I talk to Stacey about blogging, writing, diaries, life, adventures, disasters, and of course her blo...
Saturday Morning
I was going to title this post “Saturday Morning, 9am” - like the Simon and Garfunkel song - but that was already an hour and a half ago, so it seems a littl...
Falling Off The World
Two factors have contributed to my recent disappearance from the internet at large. The first was the rather foolish decision to celebrate the bank holiday w...
The Early Hours Of The Morning
It’s just gone 1am in the morning. I’m sitting in the junk room, and was about to go to bed, but then thought ‘I haven’t posted to the blog yet!’, so here ar...
The World Keeps Turning Probably
Why the ‘probably’ in the title? Because I haven’t stepped outside today. I’m pretty sure the world is still out there, getting on with what it does. I would...
Isolation
It’s starting to get interesting - this whole self isolation lark. While I seem to have taken to it like a duck to water, that can’t be said for everybody. I...
The Order Of Things
A friend tagged me in a Twitter meme of sorts yesterday evening - inviting me to post three random photos of bookshelves in my home, and to nominate three fu...
Nowhere Man
For the first four months of the year I continued writing almost daily blog posts, but I didn’t post them anywhere they might typically be found. I had grown...
No Hair Dont Care
The hair clippers turned up this afternoon. I put them on charge for a while - until my other half arrived home from school - and then we assembled outside f...
Logical Fallacies
I’ve buggered up posting every day this week, haven’t I. Technically it’s already Friday 3rd April, but until I fall asleep I’m going to count this still as ...
Katy Katyland
wp:jetpack/markdown {“source”:”This week on the podcast I talk to Katy about her blog at LiveJournal, long distance relationships, broadcasting on the radio,...
The Home Front
I woke up at 7am when the alarm went off, then fell asleep for another hour. It’s taken a few weeks to get used to not running around the kitchen like a madm...
Supermarket Adventure
After finishing work this evening we dared venture into town for the first time in two weeks. It felt strange - driving along almost deserted streets, but al...
Hair
I had a shave today. This might not sound like much of an accomplishment, but I was rapidly heading towards Grizzly Adams territory (anybody younger than 40 ...
An Unexpected Surprise
A few minutes ago our eldest daughter wandered in, and asked if it might be a good idea to do some online courses while stuck at home over the next weeks and...
Saturn 5
A couple of years ago the kids bought me a plastic model kit of the Saturn 5 moon rocket for my birthday. It sat on the shelf in it’s box for the better part...
Missed Vocations
I conducted something of an experiment today. While quietly getting on with work in the junk room, I left the children to their own devices - they know they ...
Lauren Back In Stilettos Again
wp:jetpack/markdown {“source”:”This week on the podcast I talk to Lauren about life in San Francisco, the modern dating landscape, and her unintentionally no...
Achievement Unlocked
At lunchtime today I volunteered for a desperate mission to the corner shop - armed with a hand-written list of groceries, and “lady things” (a term coined b...
Finding Inspiration
While scrolling Facebook over the last few days, the mysterious algorithm decided to start sharing the posts of an ex-colleague with me. He has been absent f...
Board Game City
A remarkably quiet day in the Beckett household. I was joined in the junk room by my other half, while the children sat at the dining table and got on with s...
Home Schooling Begins
Today was our first “proper” day at home as a family - or rather, we thought it was going to be. My other half got called into work, but really just to put p...
Birthdays And Lego Kits
It was both Mother’s Day, and my other half’s birthday today. After a panicked walk into town yesterday morning, I managed to buy a LEGO kit. This might soun...
Lock Down
The government is finally losing patience with the people - and by “the people”, I absolutely mean the privileged, ignorant, and thoughtless. As of today in ...
Kristin Dialogue In My Head
wp:jetpack/markdown {“source”:”This week on the podcast I talk to Kristin about life in Wisconsin, her earliest days using computers and the internet, workin...
Another Day In The Junk Room
At lunchtime today I walked up to the local pharmacy with my eldest daughter to pick up a prescription - and joined the remarkably patient queue of people st...
Begin Again
Well this is all very exciting. After months experimenting with a variety of blogging platforms, I have retreated back to my own small island in the middle o...
Look For The Helpers
Somebody I have known for years and respect enormously blocked me today, and I feel kind of awful about it. I wrote a comment on one of their blog posts abou...
And So It Starts
After provisioning a number of bits and pieces in “the cloud” this morning for some upcoming pre-sales demos, I noticed a notification about the first “daily...
A Walk In The Woods
Despite the rain that fell all day, I took Miss 19 out for a walk in the woods this morning - or perhaps more accurately, a walk through the fields to a near...
Bigging Up Telegram
It was only while standing in the shower this morning that I realised I had completely missed posting to the blog yesterday. A small voice in the OCD part of...
Natalie Coffee With Calypso
wp:jetpack/markdown {“source”:”This week on the podcast I talk to Natalie about life in Louisiana, computers, the internet, computer games, table top board g...
Stir Crazy
A curious thing happens when I work from home - in short order all the dirty clothes get washed, the clean clothes get folded, and the kitchen remains somewh...
Nowhere Fast
I’ve had a cold for the last couple of days - nothing too bad - just a bullshit cold that any parent of children will roll their eyes at throughout the winte...
Self Doubt
Buried deep beneath the layers of fake confidence I have covered myself with over the years, I’m really still the same little boy that watched all the popula...
Retro
While the younger children ran off across the county to take part in rugby training sessions this morning, I waited for our eldest daughter to get up, before...
Mostly Offline
After attending a charity fundraiser last night and drinking more wine that I perhaps should have, I’ve spent most of the day either asleep, or offline. I th...
Jade Jessica June
wp:jetpack/markdown {“source”:”This week on the podcast I talk to Jade about life, struggles, hardship, resurrection, and her blogging and modelling journey ...
An Unexpected Education
I’m not entirely sure how I’m still awake - or how I’m going to make it through the evening. We’re taking part in a charity quiz tonight, along with a team o...
Rain Rain And More Rain
It’s raining again. It’s been raining pretty consistently since just after lunchtime yesterday, and isn’t showing much sign of stopping. Quite apart from the...
Birthdays And Fighter Jets
I made one of the ladies in the office laugh before leaving work - she asked if I was doing anything special - I replied “yes, for a treat, I’m paying for my...
1973
I’m recycling an old post today. Hopefully you’ll forgive me - it is one of the better posts I have lashed together in the dim and distant past, even if I do...
Slow Sunday
It’s Sunday. I was supposed to be in London today with Miss 19. I got up at 7am, had a shower, brushed my teeth, got dressed, and cleared the kitchen while w...
New Bicycle
There comes a point in the life of most bicycles when the cost of repairing, or servicing them starts to approach the cost of replacing them entirely. I bit ...
Jon Jacob Thoroughly Good
wp:jetpack/markdown {“source”:”This week on the podcast I talk to Jon Jacob about life, computers, the internet, podcasting, and his blogging journey with \u...
Finally The Weekend
I worked from home today. I have an arrangement over the next few weeks to work from home in order to take our eldest daughter to a regular therapist appoint...
The Onlyfans Hack
While scrolling through recent posts at Twitter earlier this evening I noticed that ‘OnlyFans’ was trending. Knowing that a couple of friends have accounts t...
Stupidly Fast
I’ve been sitting in the junk room staring at the screen for the last ten minutes, wondering what to write. I’m in the slightly curious situation of trying t...
Returning To Stormwind
While talking to a good friend on the internet a few days ago, they mentioned playing World of Warcraft, and I realised how long it’s been since I last playe...
Read The Damn Books
Given all the news stories being circulated today about Katherine Johnson - one of the women portrayed in the recent movie ‘Hidden Figures’, I have been wres...
Just About Surviving
I walked to work today, and probably will tomorrow too unless . My trusty bicycle is locked up outside the office - it will get pushed home this evening, and...
Boxing Beer Festivals And Rugby
My ever-reliable body-clock went off at 5am this morning - I rolled over in bed, pulled on the headphones I had prepared the night before, and listened to fr...
Tinika Wells Neeknacks
wp:jetpack/markdown {“source”:”This week on the podcast I talk to Tinika Wells from South Africa about her blogging journey, taking part in NaNoWriMo, her in...
Falling Into The Weekend
I’m going to write a novel, where there is a department that gives out certificates for grown-ups who have succeeded in adulting for an entire week. I’m thin...
Laura And Jonathan
wp:jetpack/markdown {“source”:”The first Wednesday show! Talking to Laura about the \u0022Birds of Prey\u0022 movie, the \u0022Dr Stone\u0022 manga, a wonder...
Slowly Sinking
Brace yourself. This blog post is going to consist mostly of random paragraphs covering each thing going on at the moment - mostly because I can’t be bothere...
Brooke The Little Blog Of Everything
wp:jetpack/markdown {“source”:”This week on the podcast I talk to Brooke Cutler about life in Australia, acting, performing, computers, the internet, and of ...
A Mountain To Climb
I’m working from home for the next few Fridays - with a break in the middle of the day to accompany my eldest daughter to a regular appointment to help with ...
Lethargy And Procrastination
You find me sitting in the dark of the junk room, while the clock ticks past 8pm. I just sat down after a mad dash home from work, a rushed grocery shop, coo...
Listening To Life Stories
I would love to write something along the lines of “I stopped in town on the way to work this morning, and got my hair cut” - but that’s not quite what happe...
Hailstorm City
A few moments after leaving the office to cycle home, the tail-end of the storm that has shut most of the country down and flooded entire roads of houses in ...
Stormy Weather
If I had believed the weather forecasts last night, I might have imagined waking up to discover some sequin shoed legs extending from underneath the house th...
Ian Hope Half Time Pie
wp:jetpack/markdown {“source”:”This week on the podcast I talk to Ian Hope about growing up in the north of England, music, football, computers, and his blog...
A Private Video Diary
I never quite know from one day to the next what damn fool escapade I’ll be involved in next. Tonight has been all about recording a private video diary - my...
Questioning The Universe
You might wonder, after posting somewhere in the region of five thousand times to this blog over the last seventeen years, if I might ever run out of things ...
Sitting Down Here
While listening to the radio in the kitchen last night, “Sitting Down Here” by Lene Marlin began playing, and I’ve been humming it ever since. I remember the...
Slowly Sideways
I worked from home today. I didn’t set out to work from home. After cycling to work, a call from my eldest daughter mid-morning about the internet connection...
An Adventure In London
This morning I got up bright and early, woke our eldest daughter with a bacon sandwich, and then set off for the railway station with her to spend the day wa...
Nothing Disappears Without A Trace
wp:heading Blogging
Pretending To Be Confident
While recording conversations with bloggers for the podcast, a common theme in the hours or minutes before we get started always seems to be:
Finding A Minute Or Two
After spending the greater part of the day working through changes to the leviathan I have been working on for the last several years, I cycled home through ...
Three Kilometres
I went for a run this evening with Miss 19. Actually, “run” is something of an exaggeration. It was more of a slow jog - or a fast amble perhaps. While it wo...
The Podcasting Story So Far
We are now a little way into the podcasting adventure, and I thought it might be interesting to expand a little on the learning curve I have mentioned a few ...
Fishermans Friends
I watched the movie “Fisherman’s Friends” this evening - about the group of Cornish fisherman that recorded an album of sea shanties a few years ago, that un...
Life Expectancy
We have a rescue cat at home - named Kaspar, after the cat in a Michael Morpurgo children’s book. He’s small, black, and scared of everything. While not pret...
Amy Lyon Smith Bedlam And Daisies
wp:jetpack/markdown {“source”:”This week on the podcast I talk to Amy Lyon Smith about her blog \u0022Bedlam and Daisies\u0022 - how she got started, what sh...
Falling Apart
I saw a quote on Facebook a few days ago, commenting that once you get past a certain age, finding out what aches or pains you might have each day is somethi...
Recording
I spent much of this evening recording and editing the next episode of the podcast. I used “Cakewalk” for the first time, using all the lessons learned so fa...
Itunes And Facebook
In-between picking away at change requests for the colossal business automation project I have been working on for the last several years, I have submitted t...
Slow Puncture
For the last several days I have been cycling to and from work with a slow puncture in the front tyre of my bicycle. I pump it up in the morning, turn the pe...
Slowly But Surely
After the craziness of work, home, and idiotic escapades such as the podcast in recent days, I’m finally slowing down. There had been plans to visit a hobby ...
Talking To Laura About Tumblr Wordpress Snapchat And More
The first official episode of the podcast is out in the wild. I think it’s fair to say that it’s been a journey, and that the journey isn’t over yet. I’m sti...
Laura Tumblr Wordpress Snapchat And More
wp:jetpack/markdown {“source”:”This week on the podcast I talk to my eldest daughter Laura about her attempts at getting a blog started at both Tumblr, and W...
Waiting For Spotify
There’s an old saying that warns about putting the cart before the horse. It sounds like just the sort of saying I might completely ignore - in fact I have c...
Small Moves
I chatted briefly with an old friend on the internet today about the various machinations involved in bringing a podcast to life. Just as I started firing qu...
Testing 123
wp:jetpack/markdown {“source”:”To start the podcast, a look back at my own blogging journey, the platforms I have written on, and the people I have crossed p...
Podcasting Rabbit Holes
After taking our middle daughter out for her sixteenth birthday last night, we got home at about 10pm, and three hours later I somehow found myself in the de...
Stranger Things At Secret Cinema
It’s rare that I’m lost for words, but even two hours after a long journey home, I’m still trying to decompress, and absorb the events of the evening. It’s a...
Magic The Gathering
Our middle daughter is 16 years old tomorrow. I still think of her as the unsure little girl clinging to my leg at infant school - I probably always will. Th...
An Opportunity To Tell Your Story
Following a chance conversation with a distant friend this evening, I’ve been turning an idea over and over in my head. I have no idea how I might go about p...
Memories Of Mix Tapes
After a few days bumping along the bottom of the blogging barrel, I have arrived at the weekend armed with a glass of red wine, a new blog, and no idea what ...
A Secret Of Sorts
On Sunday afternoon I will travel into London with my daughter, arrive at a location I am not allowed to share with anybody, and will be greeted in a back st...
Cautiously Optimistic
After dipping toes back into the source code that ruled my life for much of last summer, I appear to be largely unscathed. This is worthy of celebration - or...
Coffee Oclock
I’m working from home today - to wait for a telephone network engineer visit - to figure out what’s wrong with our internet connection.
Nothing In Particular
I have been waiting most of the day for something sizeable to download from the internet. If our internet connection was behaving itself, I imagine it would ...
Nothing Is Something
I cycled to work this morning, and it was raining yet again. I can’t help feeling that I’m living in some kind of Truman Show inspired hell, where rain cloud...
The Well Of All Souls
I just got sucked into watching a YouTuber who’s entire career seems to consist of bashing anything and everything anybody does - and they have somehow becom...
Steve Mccune
wp:jetpack/markdown {“source”:”This week on the podcast I talk to Steve McCune about his blog at stevemccune.com - how he got started, what he writes about, ...
New Years Day
It’s the first day of a new year. The first day of a new decade. You might think I would have invested some considerable effort in a thought provoking stream...