How Fares the Banana Reclamation?
Detailing my ongoing quest to reclaim thousands of pounds temporarily stolen from me by my ever-bungling government.
Blog Posts on Ben Goldsworthy
Recent content in Blog Posts on Ben Goldsworthy
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Why Did HMRC Send Me to a Payday Loans Company?
The robbing bastards at the HMRC managed to send me on to some even more brazenly robbing bastards, but why?
Come, Mister Tally Man
Fuck the British tax system. And the student loan system too, whilst I’m at it.
Friends Factcheck Friends
Factchecking several conversation points from a recent pub conversation with a couple of friends
Mapping Out My Infrastructure
I mapped out all of my tech and their connections, uncovering some chokepoints and learning about some new technical developments in the process.
Tomorrow, This Post Will Be Illegal
In which I lay out the case against Palestine Action on the eve of their criminalisation.
Diet <code>bengoldsworthy.net</code>
In migrating my site to Hugo, I’ve put a lot of work into trimming it down and making its various resources more efficient.
Review of 2024
Once again, I review the previous year against the goals I had set myself.
Fuck Starling Bank
In which I get locked out of my bank account at the worst possible time, because Google has decided it doesn’t like my phone.
Thousands of Protestors Marched
Last weekend, I headed down to London to join more than 200,000 others for the 11 th National March for Palestine. I’d like to briefly explore how different media outlets chose to present the march.
Review of 2023
Once again, I review the previous year against the goals I had set myself.
Back to the UK
In which my jollies come to an end (for now).
East Coast
In which I head to the belly of the beast for a surprisingly enjoyable city break and a relaxed petering out of the trip.
Mexico
In which I go back to school, observe some human rights and visit a movie set.
Honduras & Guatemala
In which I Uber my way out of a kidnapping, rekindle my love affair with hammocks and sink to new depths.
Mental Disorders and Accessibility
A look at how mental disorders, and those who have them, are underserved in tech. accessibility discussions.
Cuba
In which I insist on poking everything to see if the walls are real, get involved in several political arguments and finally feel a pang of national pride for the first time in recent memory. ¡Viva la Decimosexta Brigada!
Nicaragua
In which I hang out with some hippies, accidentally sneak across a national border and climb up some angry hills.
Baking bengoldsworthy.net
I’ve finally moved my site off of WordPress and onto a static site, as well as a VPS. In this post I give my reasons for doing so and provide a tour of the new site.
Panama
In which my best-laid plans keep going awry, and a trip to a Caribbean party island to celebrate New Year’s Eve becomes a two-month odyssey from one side of Panama to the other.
Costa Rica
In which I visit Central America for the first time, spending my time befriending the animals and frolicking naked in the jungle.
Travel Tips
Here are some of my top tips and tricks for travelling, from kit packing to safety advice.
Arizona
The first stop on my trip is Arizona… during an election.
Review of 2022
Inspired by 8,760 Hours, I decided to give myself a set of goals for 2022. How did I do against them?
Bentral American Diaries
I’m hitting the road for the best part of the next year; here are my plans and objectives as I set off.
The Half-Year of Lents
As with my other major year-long project , this one was also disrupted into oblivion by my decision to uproot my entire life and go travelling for a year, amongst other things. In the end I only made it as far as May. April: Ramadan ¶ Though I went into this year with the intention of fasting for Ramadan properly , I pretty quickly made an exception for water due to physical activities I was…
Ben's Remaining Twenty
Life got in the way and somewhat derailed this project. Between moving, quitting my job and embarking on some heavy-duty travelling, I didn’t manage to write up my second quarter of recipes or to get close to my initial goal of completing all of the recipes. That said, I think the spirit of the project has been largely fulfilled: I made 53 out of 115 recipes, including most of the…
Europespedition III
Three weeks spent Interrailing around Europe, seeing my continental pals and fulfilling a dream postponed since 2014.
Monkey Run Scotland
Despite neither of us having any experience riding motorcycles, my brother and I decided to ride tiny ones the length of the Scottish Highlands.
Rethinking Security
I recently attended an online course at Woodbrooke entitled “Rethinking Security: Steps to sustainable peace with justice”, delivered by Johanna Frew, Outreach Coordinator at Rethinking Security, and Philip Austin, Coordinator for the Northern Friends Peace Board (as well as a member of Rethinking Security).
Jesus Against Empire
I recently attended an online course at Woodbrooke entitled “Jesus Against Empire: Solidarity, Liberation, and the Poor in the time of Jesus”, delivered by Dr C. Wess Daniels, the William R. Rogers Director of Friends Center & Quaker Studies at Guilford College.
LibrePlanet 2022
Last month saw the Free Software Foundation (FSF)’s flagship annual LibrePlanet conference take place entirely virtually. The theme of the weekend was “Living Liberation”, and many of the talks tied into the FSF’s current incrementalist baby steps Freedom Ladder approach to free software activism (in contrast to its more previous, more rigidly absolutist stances).
A First Quarter of Lents
Three months in to my perfectly normal series of deprivation challenges, and things are proving to be much easier than planned. That said, each of these challenges did see a handful of lapses, but ones that I have been willing to excuse as not significantly impacting on the spirit, or objective, of each challenge.
Ben's First Quarter
I’ve managed to exceed my initial goal of getting 25 recipes done in Q1, instead managing to plough through 29 with almost-complete success! And only one that wasn’t entirely vegan! Fab!
The Hollow Stars
How do you go about convincing someone to give table-top role-playing games a go, when their only knowledge of them is Dungeons & Dragons is geeky ? Easy: dupe them by running a game in a setting that they trust! That’s right, it’s the old pie in the windowsill trick; they haven’t seen that one since ’nam.
A Year of Lents
One day, observing a child drinking out of his hands, he[Diogenes of Sinope] cast away the cup from his wallet with the words, A child has beaten me in plainness of living. Diogenes Laërtius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers Lent is the Christian religious observance, falling before Easter, in which the faithful commemorate Jesus’ 40 days spent fasting in the desert and resisting…
Ben's Twenty
This is one of my projects for this year: to cook every one of the 100 recipes in Ruhlman’s Twenty , adapting each to replace any non-vegan ingredients.
BlackBerry Elegy
This is the story of my BlackBerry, the slow end of the world and the virtues of the Amish healthcare system. It is a story of love (both experienced and exploited), loss (both mine and yours) and lessons (both learned and forgotten). It is a story with an unhappy ending.
Understanding the UK Online Safety Bill
The Internet Society’s UK England Chapter recently held a webinar to discuss the newly-published draft Online Safety Bill . Olivier Crépin-Leblond—the Chapter’s chair—introduced the event and speakers before handing promptly over. First up was Open Rights Group (ORG) Policy Manager Heather Burns, who provided an overview of the proposed bill and its many concerning…
<cite class="presentation">Introducing the Morecambe Bay Curriculum</cite>
Prof. Robert Barrett , Eden Chair for Education and Engagement at Lancaster University, recently delivered a public lecture entitled Introducing the Morecambe Bay Curriculum . The event was introduced by Lancaster’s Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Andy Schofield , who stressed the university’s commitment to the region as captured in their recently-unveiled new strategic plan . The Morecambe Bay…
Fuck Microsoft <cite class="software">Teams</cite>
I have drafted and binned this post a number of times already. Unsurprisingly, this usually coincides with any instance in which I am required to do anything marginally complex with Microsoft Teams , and often not even that. I have used a huge swathe of programs over my life and career. Some have been great. Some have been average. Some have been frustrating, or poorly-designed. I can safely say,…
5, 10, 20
I’ve passed a lot of milestones over the past few months, signalling both ends and new beginnings. Standing on the cusp of a new (Gregorian) decade, my job of almost two years has ended, likely signalling the end of almost seven years’ association with Lancaster University. I’ve transferred into a new part of another organisation and am ready to embark on a new stage of my career…
<cite class="presentation">UK Military Spending and its Alternatives</cite>
Hot off the heels of the UK Government’s announcement that they would be raising military spending whilst reducing international aid provision (and with a budget announcement expected the following week), the UK branch of the Global Campaign on Military Spending (GCOMS) hosted a briefing aimed at examining the impact of spending decisions in relation to the military and helping people to…
<cite class="presentation">Coping with imaginative resistance</cite>
Dr Daniel Altschuler of the University of Oxford’s Faculty of Linguistics, Philology, and Phonetics delivered a talk on his research into imaginative resistance to the DisTex research group. Altshuler began with a famous made-up discourse by Weatherson entitled Death on the Freeway : Jack and Jill were arguing again. This was not in itself unusual, but this time they were standing in the…
<cite class="presentation">Introducing MANTRaP</cite>
Prof. Veronika Koller of the Lancaster University Linguistics and English Language Department delivered a talk, on behalf of her colleagues (Lancaster University’s Jessica Aiston and Alex Krendel and Birmingham City University’s Dr Mark McGlashan ), on their research into the manosphere to the DisTex research group. After an initial content warning, Koller explained what is meant by…
<cite class="presentation">Gay Graffiti at Lancaster Castle</cite>
Dr Colin Penny, Museum Director at Lancaster Castle , delivered a presentation on graffiti within the walls of the former prison as part of LGBTQ+ History Month 2021. Penny began by explaining that graffiti, citing the examples of Herculaneum and Pompeii , represents the voice of people who don’t leave any other record . It is also endangered, with exterior pieces particularly at risk. Penny…
<cite class="presentation">Language, cognition and drone warfare</cite>
Dr Matthew Voice of the University of Sheffield delivered a presentation on his research into drone warfare discourses to Lancaster University’s DisTex research group. Having initially been interested in military autobiographies and the ways in which soldiers describe their participation in acts of violence, Voice was currently investigating the subgenre of drone warfare autobiographies,…
<cite class="presentation">China's Political System</cite>
The Lancaster University Confucius Institute and China Centre invited Prof. Wang Zhengxu of Fudan University to present a talk on his research into China (PRC)’s political system and how it responds to significant crises (such as the COVID-19 outbreak). The presentation was chaired by Lancaster University’s Prof. Jinghan Zeng of the Confucius Institute. Prof. Zhengxu introduced himself…
<cite class="presentation">A study of how Egyptian Bloggers shaped the UK newspaper coverage of Political Events in Egypt</cite>
Marwa Elkhodairy of the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) recently presented a talk on narrative formation in the UK press regarding the 2011 Egyptian revolution to Lancaster University’s Language, Ideology and Power (LIP) Research Group. On the Egyptian media side, Elkhodairy looked into both the Egyptian state-owned press—which unsurprisingly towed the government line and…
<cite class="presentation">The Necro-Geopolitics of American Insecurity</cite>
The Necro-Geopolitics of American Insecurity was a talk delivered by Prof. François Debrix of the Virginia Tech College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, as part of both the Security Lancaster and the Lancaster University PPR Lunchtime Seminar Series'. Introducing Debrix, Dr Mark Lacy of Lancaster University highlighted his publications Tabloid Terror: War, Culture and Geopolitics and…