About a decade ago, I spent a large part of a holiday taking an oral history with my grandfather. It was a fantastic experience and I recorded around 20 hours of tape. Over the years, I managed to transcribe the tapes…a slow and painstaking process. I’m not a bad touch typist, but I’d never learned [...]
Categories: Remembrance of things past |
Tags: granddad, oral history | 
5 Comments »
Those who follow me on Twitter may have been aware of my deal to quit smoking. Stay quit for two months, get a Mac. Fall-off the nicotine-free wagon and lose the Mac. Seriously. Simon said he’s going to sell it, and I think I believe him. So if you’re interested in a second-hand Mac, leave [...]
Categories: tech geekery, tickled me fancy |
Tags: mac unboxing video smoking | 2 Comments »
RHS Wisley the botanical gardens in Surrey is always a beautiful place to go, but during the Christmas season they’ve added a bit extra magic with “lumiere” in the gardens. Lumiere, I think, means lights designed by French people to be worthy in an artistic sense and funky. We had no idea that they’d have [...]
Categories: Family fun |
Tags: Christmas, lights, things to do, wisley | No Comments »
A lot of groceries (my Ocado delivery arrived this morning) Lunch The Guardian A cup of coffee at Tuttle A train set
Categories: Uncategorized |
No Comments »
Early this week, I attended a workshop run by Local Futures on Connected Places – hosted at the BT Tower (sadly on the ground floor, but still quite nice). Local Futures usually offer all kinds of data useful to councils and local partnerships with analysis and mapping. But this event was all given over [...]
Categories: Uncategorized |
Tags: digital britain, digital inclusion, digital infrastructure, local government, RIEPs, social media | No Comments »
The British are awfully fond of their own chocolate. And why shouldn’t they be? It’s made to their own tastes and preferences. But they’re wickedly derisive of American chocolate…or as it’s often phrased “your so-called chocolate”. As Cadbury’s the British chocolatier for the masses faces a hostile takeover by Kraft or a possible friendly-ish merger [...]
Categories: current events commentary, expatica |
Tags: Cadburys, chocolate, expat, food, Hersheys | 1 Comment »
Feeling crafty I love crafts. I don’t do much by way of crafts anymore at home, but I love a good workshop based on the use of brown paper and stickers and coloured bits of paper. The Blue Peter method of facilitation. Ocasionally you get people (often senior) balking at rolling up their sleeves and [...]
Categories: khub |
Tags: facilitation, khub, knowledge management, performance, workshop | No Comments »
Not too long ago (as in yesterday, I think – but my days are a blur right now) I saw this Douglas Adams quote: 1) everything that’s already in the world when you’re born is just normal; 2) anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and [...]
Categories: musings, tickled me fancy |
Tags: curmudgeonry, gadgets, tech | No Comments »
A variety of links to interesting and/or helping things on local government and social media, use of data, efficiency and corporate governance. Social media tips and how-tos A quick start guide to Twitter For those looking to begin on Twitter… good stuff from Dave Briggs and Learning Pool Editing Wikipedia Something about you or your [...]
Categories: Uncategorized |
Tags: accountability, data, efficiency, linked data, local government, open data, social media | No Comments »
The next round of applications for Customer-Led Service Transformation and Efficiency Capital Fund for social media and customer insight are due on the 8th of January. You can find a revised application form for social media projects here in the Social Media Community of Practice (free registration required). If you’ve started working on an application [...]
Categories: Uncategorized |
Tags: CLG, funding, gov2.0, local government, service transformation, social media | 2 Comments »
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