Goals for 2024

2023 has been a pretty rough year – I’ve had several health problems (still making my way through the NHS system), lost a major client (a natural end as there was no longer enough work to justify reserving my time each month), and have lost touch with some people. For most of the year I’ve […]

250 Who

I have written a lot of Doctor Who reviews over the last few years, mainly for podcasts that I listen to (both have mostly finished their classic stories now). I am gradually uploading them to a new site, 250 Who (because they’re 250 words or less). Let me you know if you have any thoughts […]

Book series to read

This year in particular, I’m trying to be a bit more focused in my reading. There are a bunch of book series that have been on my ‘to read’ list for a long time which I’m looking to make progress on. Chronicles of Narnia: I used to read this with my Mum when I was […]

Goals for 2023

2022 has been another mixed year – I had some things go spectacularly well and other things fall apart. I’ve concentrated on clearing out dead wood, both physical objects – such as a books I’ll never read – and digital items such as old websites. I’ve got far too much stuff in my life and […]

Ancient History UK

I recently moved all of my Ancient History (Roman and Greek) resources to a new website, Ancient History UK. It’s still a work in progress, and I’m planning to add the following over time: Places to visit in the UK, e.g. Ribchester Roman Museum Groups to join, e.g. the Classical Association Resources for topics – […]

Goals for 2022

2021 has been a mixed year, with some major ups and downs. Hopefully 2022 will be a bit smoother! This year’s goals were: Read 50 books: I’ve read 60 books this year (down from 79 in 2020) – success! Launch at least one of my side projects: Minimal progress on this due to other things […]

Public speaking in lockdown

I’ve given lectures, talks, and taken part in discussion groups during lockdown, and the experience has been very different to in-person events. For me, giving a talk is more like appearing in panto or performing stand-up than recording a TV series – there are jokes, sci-fi references, provocative comments (e.g. PHP is the best programming […]

Goals for 2021

With what seems like remarkable foresight, but was probably just forgetfulness, I did not set any goals for 2020. For several reasons, including the obvious two, it was mostly a rubbish year, although there were some upsides, such as improving my French from “haven’t written/spoken for 20 years” to A2 on the Common European Framework […]

Future of Currybeer and Geek Walks

As many of you will know, I run two regular events in Manchester called Currybeer and Geek Walks. Since mid-March both have been running as regular video chats via Jitsi instead of in-person. I’ve been asked when the events will return to normal, but unfortunately they are both risky to run in a pandemic because […]

Lockdown language learning

As mentioned in Life under lockdown, I am currently trying to re-learn Latin, partly for self-fulfillment purposes and also because I’d like to be able to understand texts used when I attend classics and ancient history lectures, or when I deliver them and need to translate sections for notes. I’m also trying to re-learn French […]