Recently updated blogs

It's the first post of the new year 2025 and unlike every other website on the internet I am going to start with a damp squib rather than a bang. Hopefully we will build to a crescendo over the coming months and experience a few bone-dry rockets along the way... But after searching the web for history books published in the UK in December 2025 I have ended up with …

Is reading ever easy? Is knowing what you want to read possible? The times when the two click—when you find a book that says not what you know but what you need to hear—are the times I remember with the most longing. When a book speaks to you, and you are able to hear it, it’s everything. This year it was a struggle to find that match, to meet with …

As we reach the end of another year, now is the time to reflect on all the joys and disasters in the garden and allotment. This year I celebrated ten years of blogging. If you like, you can look at all sorts of developments over the last ten years by clicking on the categories or tags. In this review I’ll look at the highlights of 2024. Fabulous fruit Vegetables are …

The ware for December 2024 is shown below. This one should be a cakewalk, and I’m mostly sharing it because I had trouble searching for a recent example at an image quality sufficient to make out most of the part numbers. Maybe this can help someone else in a similar fix! Warm wishes for a safe and happy new year to all!

Every year, I make a New Year's Resolution just for writing. I don't bother with personal resolutions, because I never keep them. (I have not, for example, run the Boston Marathon, cured cancer, or finished my PhD...yet.) But, without fail, I do keep my writing resolutions. In past years, I have made writing resolutions to Write What I Feared (we must all face our writing demons), and to get more …

That Day We reach the time when I assess how well I predicted the ups and downs of the year and look forward to the next. Here we go again:The Sugababes release an whole album of brand new material.Not yet. although there is evidence they've been in the recording studio and there'll be an announcement next year. No marks.General election called, Tories lose power.They did! One mark.Overhaul of Disney "content" …

Joss Naylor 1936-2024This story appeared in The Guardian this week. It is a 17 minute film about an incredible runner in England, Joss Naylor, a shepherd and farmer who in his lifetime performed some seriously extraordinary running feats. And yet he remained a person of modest persona despite his shattering runs. He died this past June at the age of 88. Fell running is a very British sport. One I …

It is not often in life that you get a chance to meet a President. I consider my life changed by standing in front of Jimmy Carter and having a conversation. A sincerely human and humble conversation.He was a great man and the world is a better place as a result of his lifelong commitment to peace and helping his fellow humans.I need to go back in time to explain …

In our last post, we explored the Nordic VPR RISC-V processor through the lens of the peripheral processor (PPR) on the nRF54H20. While we demonstrated how the application processor can configure and start a VPR processor, we stopped short of demonstrating any further communication between them. Most meaningful use-cases of the PPR and the FLPR, involve communicating with the controlling processor. Nordic uses two different hardware peripherals for inter-processor communication …

After making hardwood gift boxes for the 20-sided dice I made to give as holiday gifts, I decided they needed an additional wrapping to protect them, and to create a reveal for the wooden boxes. I cribbed the closure for this box from a classic Japanese product packaging design. The Celtic knot on the sides is the same one I used for the silver medallions on the wooden boxes. These …

riving white oak Twelve-thirty-one. What better time to look at what’s what. I’m not going to write “in 2024, I did this/that/the other…” – mostly. Or maybe that’s exactly what I’m doing. I’m still working in the shop, making carved boxes, ladderback chairs and some other odds and ends. And waiting/hoping for the next large commission to come in so I can make some larger joinery projects. I had a …

I love a beer festival. Many of my faves are now sadly defunct (Walsall and Birmingham spring to mind) – however there is so much great beer variety in pubs these days that it could be argued that these festivals aren’t needed any more. And yet it always was nice to see the same faces at these festivals every year. And that’s what makes beer festivals so special. They are …

The Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians (1981) This imaginative, quirky fantasy/ comedy by director/writer Oldrich Lipský (based on a novel by Jules Verne) recalls the work of fellow Czech filmmaker Karel Zeman (with a heaping helping of Terry Gilliam). The opera-singing Count Teleke (Michal Docolomanský) embarks on a quest to find his lost love, Salsa Verde (Evelyna Steimarová), who was abducted by the shadowy Baron Gorc z Gorcu (Milos Kopecký). …

Taking the new year holiday to try and prepare for the upcoming year. Trying to review the last year and figure out where I’d like to do something different. I am going through my social media feeds and trying to konmari1 as much as I can. Being selective on people with good signal to noise. Removing people who are (often quite understandably) reacting to something frustrating, rage inducing, etc. I …

Years ago, Teller performed a magic trick.1 First, he’d have you pick a card. He would attempt to produce the card, but fail, indicating the card may have travelled elsewhere. He’d then lead you on a short walk to a nearby park, and then be inspired to dig a hole. Buried there, beneath undisturbed grass, was a box. When opened, the box would, somehow, contain the card you’d chosen. An …