Strange stories and interesting things
I used to be scared about climate change; but then I read Annie Jacobsen s Nuclear War: A Scenario. Now I think that the world will be lucky to reach four degrees. Annie Jacobsen s nuclear war book described what might happen after a bolt-from-the-blue nuclear attack (the same scenario as in Kathryn Bigelow s A House of Continue reading Biological War: A Scenario
After a lovely June, July felt like pissing into the wind and I m glad it s done. The wheels fell off at the start of the month from a combination of stress, bad food and sickness and never really got running again. Work commitments also meant cancelling some plans made back in September. There were Continue reading Monthnotes: July 2026
I spent much of June on holiday, my longest break in years, visiting Jake and Scarlett in Wales. The plan was to spend some time helping to renovate an old school into an arts centre. Doing physical tasks day after day took its toll, but I enjoyed the change of work. It was a very Continue reading Monthnotes: June 2026
Back in 2010, I wrote a blog post, Thinking about Time-Travel, prompted by a question raised on Twitter What advice would you give to your sixteen year-old Self? The advice I wrote then was: Don t bother with uni. And take English Lit History, not Maths and physics for A-Level . I now see that Continue reading Moments of Time-Travel
May was challenging. We were supposed to release the work project I ve worked on since November, but the testing phase won t end although the bugs were all false positives from testing issues. The long client-office commute has been wearing, even when it s only twice a week. My life is good overall, but this has Continue reading Monthnotes: May 2025
When I was young, I wanted nothing more than to one day publish a novel. Over time, I realised that being published will not solve my problems, or make me feel better. I ve seen people I know achieve the sort of success I longed for and end up unhappy. And, besides that, the novel is Continue reading A Great Work
On Thursday 5th March, I went to the Tate and saw Tracey Emin s bed, a piece of art I last saw in the 90s. A couple of days later, I visited the Bronte Parsonage, where I saw the reconstruction of Branwell Bronte s bed. This representation of Branwell s room as it might have looked in the Continue reading A Tale of Two Beds
Since 2019, I ve been working on a series of stories set along the South Downs Way. At almost 40,000 words, this is the largest thing I ve published, and it s still expanding. The work consists of six print zines and a few dozen stories shared on my mailing list. I ve now created a website to gather Continue reading The South Downs Way: What Next?
Whole sections of bookstores are dedicated to becoming successful. The shelves are packed with titles like The Science of Getting Rich and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. There is no section marked “Managing Your Professional Decline.” An article I ve been thinking about a lot is a 2019 piece by Arthur C. Brooks, originally shared by Russell Continue reading Professional Decline
The Doc Web is a now-lost piece that survives in the Internet Archive, written by Elan Kiderman Ullendorff, about how any tool can be transformed into something to write with. Yelp reviews will be co-opted to publish blog posts; Venmo payments will be co-opted to publish poems; spreadsheets will be co-opted to publish personal websites; Continue reading New ways of story-telling