Buying a house
blogpost 24 Jan 2018
We left London in 2015 because getting on the housing ladder seemed impossible. Our landlord in our small 1-bedroom flat in zone 3 offered us “first refusal” on the place he was kicking us out of to sell – £370k. We refused. Birmingham was a... keep reading
Things I've learned organising events
blogpost 08 Aug 2017
I’ve been running a regular music meetup event for over two years now, across two cities (London and Birmingham). While it’s a small event and a bit specialist/niche, I’ve learned a thing or two while running it and thought I’d share some learnings here. Put... keep reading
#harkive 2017
blogpost 26 Jul 2017
Note: this blog entry is for the #harkive project, an annual popular music research project that asks people to tell the tale of How, Where and Why they listen to music on a single day each year. You can find more about that project on... keep reading
Five things I've learned being on an innovation team
blogpost 23 Mar 2017
For just under two years now I've been a "Digital Guerrilla", working as part of a team of six in Birmingham, created by the BBC to "pilot and prototype new storytelling ideas", and help the broadcaster to "engage with its audiences and to deliver unforgettable... keep reading
Debunking Private Eye's "gobsmacking" gender/race accusations
blogpost 09 Oct 2016
There's a photo doing the rounds on Twitter of an extract from the current edition of Private Eye magazine. The text concerns the recent Forward prize for poetry, and the chaps from the Eye have decided that the gender/racial demographics of the Forward prize panel... keep reading
A resolution on communication
blogpost 08 Mar 2016
Talking is hard. So's writing. Self-expression is sometimes crushingly futile when we try to reduce the mad, beautiful complexity of the human mind into the crude box we call language. Even with the best will in the world we can still mess up, "misspeak", communicate... keep reading
My Atom setup
blogpost 20 Dec 2015
I recently decided to switch my main text editor for coding from Sublime Text to Atom by Github (mostly because my old work license expired when I changed jobs, but also because I liked Atom's open-source nature). In the six months I've spent with it,... keep reading
Learnings so far after leaving my old job
blogpost 10 Sep 2015
It's been three months, give or take a few days, since I left the Guardian—and London—to move to the BBC (I know, how imaginative...) in Birmingham. It's flown by. Tomorrow I'm off for a visit to the capital where I'll be seeing some former colleagues... keep reading
Past, present and future
blogpost 05 Jun 2015
By the time I press “Publish” on this entry, my employment at the Guardian will be over after just shy of five years working as a developer there. I’m also days away from leaving London, the city I moved to in order to work at... keep reading
Guardian Hack Day February 2015
The Guardian 26 Feb 2015
It’s that time again – the Guardian’s Digital Development team is having its quarterly Hack Day. Follow along to see... keep reading
An apology
blogpost 18 Feb 2015
On Monday night I posted a ranty tweet which I followed up on Tuesday. In essence, I was registering my surprise that a digital journalist at an internal event admitted they didn't know what "CMS" stood for. There were a couple of reactions to the... keep reading
Humans and algorithms
blogpost 05 Feb 2015
Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter, has made headlines this week for his admission that "we suck at dealing with abuse and trolls" as part of an internal memo. While Twitter is unclear about how they currently moderate the platform, it seems that much of the... keep reading
MozFest 2014: creative chaos – in the best possible way
The Guardian 30 Oct 2014
I think the moment I first realised this tech event would be different was when I saw a pile of... keep reading
Book review: JavaScript & jQuery (by Jon Duckett)
blogpost 01 Oct 2014
I was excited to sit down and read the newly-published JavaScript & jQuery by Jon Duckett, produced by the team behind the hugely well-received HTML & CSS book. It's a large and beautifully-designed tome aimed at newbie developers with familiarity with HTML/CSS but no experience with programming... keep reading
#dareconf 2014 review: people skills for digital workers
The Guardian 29 Sep 2014
The tech scene is awash with conferences: it seems every other day there’s a new clique of enthusiastic men (and,... keep reading