I’m John Peart. I’m a policy professional with an interest in technology, services and diversity. I write about all sorts of things, and I build things in code.
As I write this, the UK is experiencing the heat death of the universe, as we enter our second month of near-continuous heatwaves. Anyone that knows me well knows that I find warm weather particularly egregious. Whilst I suspect my entire extended family is taking the opportunity to role-play being a human barbecue 1 , my body is not made for this. No, I find a cool, crisp autumnal day much more…
On 13 July 2026, John Peart at Enabling digital identity posted: Digital verification at scale: our keynotes at the European Identity Conference and Identity Week Europe Over the past month or so, the OfDIA team has attended some digital identity industry events abroad. Not everyone gets the opportunity to attend industry events like this, so we’ve written up the presentation we delivered as a…
Marvel Entertainment at YouTube posted: Marvel Animation's X-Men ‘97 | Intro Da nanana naaaa na na. On 12 July 2026, John Peart shared and commented It doesn’t matter how old this theme tune gets, or how many times I hear it, it never gets old. An all-time classic of the genre. Which reminds me, I really should resubscribe to Disney+ so I can watch X-Men ’97 .
On 11 July 2026, Russell Davies at undermanager posted: Fredkin’s; the best paradox The more equally attractive two alternatives seem, the harder it can be to choose between them — no matter that, to the same degree, the choice can only matter less. On 11 July 2026, John Peart shared and commented I’ve never heard of Fredkin’s Paradox before, but I’ve certainly observed it! When faced with…
On 06 July 2026, Ari Notis at Polygon posted: Dark Souls popularized the worst control scheme and I'm sick of it Put those attack prompts on the face buttons On 07 July 2026, John Peart shared and commented I could not disagree more strongly with this. Having played Souls and Soulslike games, I now can’t compute any other control scheme in an action game. It’s just so efficient ! All other…
What. A. Week. I wish it could be Beermas every day After months – no, years – of waiting, I was finally, finally able to go around the office shouting “Happy Beermas” to everyone in the team. Some people gave me funny looks, but those people didn’t know the good news: regulations have been laid so that you can buy booze with a digital verification service from this October . It has taken many,…
On 29 June 2026, Sherif Saed at Eurogamer.net posted: It looks like PlayStation 6 is going to cost Sony about $1,000 to make, which likely means it will cost more than that at retail The cost to make a single unit of the PlayStation 6 has gone up, according to new information from a reliable insider. On 30 June 2026, John Peart shared and commented RAMageddon is clearly part of the cause of this,…
I would not ordinarily consider myself to be an international man of mystery but for the past 6 weeks, I have spent just as much time outside the UK as I have in it. Rotterdam or anywhere Whilst perusing the options for a long weekend away I had pondered Manchester. Then I discovered that it was cheaper to get to Rotterdam by Eurostar than it was to get to Manchester by train – or Liverpool or…
On 22 May 2026, Giles Turnbull posted: gilest.org: Working in the open ≠ comms Decide to do “comms”, and you’ll get one thing. Decide to do “working in the open” and you’ll get a totally different thing. On 28 May 2026, John Peart shared and commented We’re trying to do a lot of working in the open in our little corner of the world; because it helps to derisk the work and build trust. Giles’s…
On 16 May 2026, John Peart at John Peart posted: Douze points Vote for your favourites. For your Eurovision house party. On 16 May 2026, John Peart shared and commented Happy Eurovision, to those who celebrate. My house party voting app is back and better than ever. If you want to join in, you can get it on iOS via TestFlight, or on the web.
It’s 2019 and the week before the Eurovision Song Contest . Frustrated with paper-based scorecards from the Beeb, and looking for a techy distraction, I cobbled together a digital version on a whim. Every year since, I’ve been iterating and improving. Now, the latest version is available: Douze points is ready for Eurovision 2026! Get Douze points : for iPhone and iPad on the web How it started…
Good evening, Europe! This is London calling. The Olympics of music – the Eurovision Song Contest – is back on our teleboxes this month; with the semi-finals on 12 and 14 May, and the grand final on the 16 May. Each year, I buy the album (yes, I’m that kind of weird) and treat myself to a little preview of the melody and madness to come. Then I write down what I think. I’ve been doing this for…
Is it that the job is hard, that I can’t do it, or that I don’t want it now that I have it? Those the are the questions that have been plaguing my mind for the past month in the run up to my end of year review, which took place this week. I have had in my sights, since 2013 when I joined the Civil Service, that I wanted to be a senior civil servant. I was told back then, and I believed it, that I…
(For the avoidance of doubt you should read what follows in a vaguely Yorkshire accent). This game is so daft . Set in t’fictional town of Barnsworth, Thank Goodness You’re Here is a reet send-up and celebration of t’North West of England. More story than game, I were chucklin’ from start to finish at t’whole bloody thing. Ten out o’ ten, champion that.
Robin Payot at Wind Waker JS - Robin Payot posted: Wind Waker JS Zelda: The Wind Waker is one of my favorite game and I tried to remake the ocean part of it using Three.js I hope you’ll like the result! On 14 April 2026, John Peart shared and commented This is so freaking cool . (Also Wind Waker was and is the best The Legend of Zelda game ever made and I will hear no counter-veiling opinions on…
This frantic, first-person, puzzle platformer in the lineage of Mirror’s Edge is quirky, stylish and challenging. It’s a speed-runner with a card-based, action mechanic that requires microsecond reactions and twitchy thumbs. Every level has multiple routes to success, but only one that is speedy enough to achieve the top rank. Only 0.6% of players have managed to pull every trick off to achieve…
There should be more games with cats as protagonists.
Child-aged me was obsessed with this game. Adult me, less so. Child-aged me was not very good at this game. Adult me? Well, same, but I have, at least, finished it. Perhaps the most disappointing part of this whole game – a game clearly inspired by cyberpunk and Blade Runner – is that its final mission transcends into a poor parody of the Death Star trench run from Star Wars; but much less…
Whilst my heart belongs to the sci-fi futurism of Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun , its alternate-timeline sequel; Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 is truly the zenith of the Real-Time Strategy (RTS) genre. With the exception of the setting and story, every single element of Red Alert 2 is better than every Command & Conquer ( C&C ) game that has come before it, or since. The mechanics are tight.…
These “weeknotes” are meant to be weekly. The clue is in the name. Alas, life is messy. As much as I love blogging, I don’t always want to spend the time at the end of the week in front of yet more screens and keyboards. Maybe these should become “monthnotes”, or even “infrequent notes”, instead. Anyway, more than a month has passed since the last one. Here’s some stuff … Nerd stuff I have been…
Somehow it’s already the end of the second, full, working week of 2026. How did that happen?! I’ve come back to work with a lot of new energy. Last year, my team landed a huge amount of work. Almost everything we’ve been working to achieve from the last 4 years is now “done”. That provides an opportunity for a really meaningful conversation about what we prioritise and do next, to deliver the…
Resource management and a driving simulator put the fun in functional like no other survival game I’ve ever played.
Lies of P Crow Country Split Fiction Humanity Mario Kart World Is this seat taken? Elden Ring: Nightreign Kero Kero Cowboy Sword of the Sea Carrion
The real-time strategy (RTS) genre may be commercially dead in 2025, but in the early 2000s it was alive and kicking. The Command & Conquer series was the epitome of the genre. Corny and stupid. Puzzling and challenging. Camp and chaotic. All the classic C&C games are the same. Tiberian Sun was the first one I properly played and – now that I’m replaying it – I remember why I loved it so much. Far…
This is a nice, slow-paced puzzle game that’s just the right balance of challenge to keep it interesting, but not so difficult that you ever need hints or a guide book. Persistence and patience is enough. A nice cosy game for when your brain has melted and you need a break.
When this game was originally released on the Nintendo GameCube way back in 2002, I was… well, I was about as good at this as you would expect a 12 year old to be. To be fair to tween-age me, being bad at it wasn’t entirely my fault. The game notoriously had difficult to use controls; the gaming industry still hadn’t figured out the twin-stick, first-person mechanics familiar to pretty much every…
What’s the stuff I rely on to get stuff done? Inspired by Aaron Parecki’s “life stack” , this is my life stack; a list of all the tools, services and other things I use to get stuff done. Computing MacBook Air (2025) 13-inch laptop with an M4 processor, a 512GB solid-state drive and 24GB of “unified memory”. The best laptop I’ve ever owned. Dell 34 Plus USB-C monitor (S3425W) A 34-inch,…
Oh hi! It’s been a minute – in fact, three and a half months – since my last weeknote. That was not intentional. Why the radio silence? Well, some pretty big stuff has been happening; both personally and professionally. Lots has changed. It didn’t feel right, at the time, to talk about that in a weeknote. Now it feels a bit safer to do so. The one consistent thing in the past three months is that…
It’s Mario Kart . How much more is there to say? OK. Fine. It’s a good Mario Kart but not my favourite. The new open world format doesn’t really add anything to the core gameplay loop. The connectedness of each track is fun, but the connections are too long and repetitive the tracks are then too short. Aside from that, it’s not really any different from Mario Kart 8 , which is probably the perfect…
On 30 September 2025, Iain Thomson at The Register posted: Microsoft moves to the uncanny valley with creepy Copilot avatars that stare at you and say your name Microsoft is testing talking avatars for Copilot to see if users feel more at ease chatting with a face instead of just a text box. On 11 October 2025, John Peart shared and commented Just give us back Clippy , you cowards. (Seriously…
Home After two years of “doing long-distance”, I’m now – finally – living with my partner, Matt. For his consultant doctor training, he’s now been posted at a hospital that is commutable from my place in Croydon, so he’s moved in with me. I’ll miss the regular trips to Brighton that have been more of a joy than a chore for the past couple of years; but we have already committed to regular trips…
I’ve never gelled with the survival-horror genre. Games like Resident Evil have always seemed too clunky to me. The tanky and janky mechanics always put me off. But Crow Country has made me realise that I’ve been overlooking something. They are just not-very-scary puzzle games. Or at least, the original, PS1 era games are. The kind of “let me get a pen and paper” puzzle game that I didn’t know I…
You are a dog. Save the people. That is the premise of this superb puzzle game that really shows off the power of the PS5. It’s tough, but not too tough. It oozes charm and quirkiness. I was smiling like an idiot as the story and mechanics developed. It took me about 14 hours to complete and get the Platinum. Only about half a dozen puzzles broke my patience, nudging me to look for hints as to the…
On 24 July 2025, Giles Turnbull posted: Doing Open This is a resource for people who find themselves looking for examples and links about working in the open and agile communication. On 12 September 2025, John Peart shared and commented I have just realised that Giles has published yet another great resource! First there was Doing presentations , then Doing weeknotes , and now, Doing open . A…
On 06 September 2025, PlayStation Access at YouTube posted: Game Remakes That Blew Us Away Inspired by the incredible Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, this episode of The PlayStation Access Podcast see the gang chatting all things remakes: their favourites, what makes a great remake, and what games they’d love to see get the remake treatment. On 11 September 2025, John Peart shared and…
Make my wish come true… If you were in Brighton this past Saturday, at about 11:00PM, and heard a unfathomably high-pitched sound; fear not, I can explain. That was not the whistle tones of international superstar Mariah Carey, as she paraded about at Pride On The Park . No, it was the blood-curdling screams of tens of thousands of gay men as Mimi cancelled Christmas. For an hour and thirty…
I mentioned that I’ve been updating the illustrations on my website as part of a site design refresh; for consistency. (Also because why not?! ) When these illustrations were added, they were added incrementally and none of them really sat together as a coherent whole. As part of my new, neubrutalist-leaning design, I made the existing elements more blocky and bolder. Thick lines. Vibrant colours.…
Getting everyone together This week, we got about 80 or so of our stakeholders together for the afternoon to update them on our policy and delivery work, and to solicit feedback on some emerging areas. We do these events fairly frequently now, and I always hugely appreciate the time our stakeholders are willing to offer to enable us to move our collective endeavour forward. This time we mixed…
Another week, another weeknote. Or, in fact, a fortnight note this time. This past couple of weeks has been much, much quieter than… well… than the past 4 months! Some of the knottier issues that I was managing at work have – thankfully – gone away. That means I’ve had time to focus on strategic problems, not reactive ones. But before that… This is not the assistant I’m looking for We’ve all been…
This is Elden Ring . And it is not Elden Ring . The landscapes, controls, weapons and enemies are all familiar, but the gameplay loop is entirely new (or, at least, new for a FromSoft game). The open world role-playing game elements are swapped out for a 45-minute, multiplayer looping rogue-like format. The Platinum trophy for this game was fairly straightforward; mostly involving beating all the…
Today, 28 June marks the anniversary of the Stonewall uprising and the birth of the pride movement. Never forget, it was lesbian and gay men and women, and gender non-conforming men and women, and trans men and women — many of them people of colour — that were the first to stand up and push back. Never forget. Marsha P. Johnson. Sylvia Rivera. Stormé DeLarverie. Craig Rodwell. Bob Kohler. The many…
It’s been a minute since my last weeknote. Consider this a six-weeknote. This one is full of self-adulation; apologies in advance. Work stuff One major reason for my radio silence over the past month or so has been that work is, and has been, full on. There are lots of things that, as ever, I can’t talk about but luckily there is also plenty that I can! Over the past few weeks, my team has been…
For the past couple of months, I’ve been rethinking the visual style of my home on the internet: this website, the one you’re on right now. In this blog post, I’m going to share some of the ideas I’ve had along the way – including the ideas I’ve thrown away! As it was For most of the past decade, iterations of this website tilted towards minimalism. The homepage of this blog has consistently been…
A much better way to say “I told you so.”
This month marks the anniversary of the Stonewall uprising ; or as you might more commonly hear it referred to, “Pride Month”. 1 Several years ago, I was asked at the last minute to present to around 100 civil servants about pride… in no more than 5 minutes. No one likes listening to these kinds of presentations – including me. They invariably turn into a tedious history lesson. A well-meaning but…
From a very young age – as far back as I can remember – I’ve watched the Eurovision Song Contest . Today, I watch it religiously. I go to the Contest when I can, and when I can’t, I have a party at my house. I have a small cadre of persistent party buddies ( hi Ben, hi Ollie! ) and, without fail, we have a good time. When I tell people about this, or when I invite them to join us, I am often met…
“Viennese” whirls (British) “Danish” pastries (Austrian) “French” fries (Belgian) “Madeira” cake (British) When people go to other countries, they often like to eat “traditional” foods. Fish and chips in Britain. Pizza in Italy. Snails in France. You get the idea. Many years ago now, when I visited Vienna for the first time, I was desperate to locate what I saw as the pinnacle of biscuits – the…
On 03 April 2025, Emma Roth at The Verge posted: WhatsApp is officially getting ads Meta says it will tailor the ads to your interests by using “limited” information, including your country or city, language, the channels you follow, and how you interact with ads on the platform. You can also change your ad preferences from Meta’s Accounts Center if you’ve opted into the hub. On 16 May 2025, John…
Good evening, Europe. This is Berlin calling. This week I have swapped my desk in Whitehall for a roving work setup in the beautiful city of Berlin. I was there for a conference I’ve been visiting for the European Identity and Cloud Conference , hosted by KupperingerCole . My venture to the conference was about a year delayed, with my original appearance having been cancelled due to the 2024…