Nobody will ever understand what an achievement this complete and utter bodge is for me. A new post, only slightly wonky. And a new fence cobbled together from two broken panels. It’s true that it makes last week’s job look quite professional by comparison. But the fact I was able to do something at all …
Leaked photos of Google Pixel Fold suggest it’s pretty much what the Surface Duo should have been. So there’s another device to um and ah over in three years’ time, when it’s on sale on ebay, heavily discounted and almost affordable. This shiny tech is always out of reach.
This morning I am putting furniture together, which means my mind is roving all over the place. So here, as I screw panels together, it occurs to me that 2022 was the year I discovered I was wrong about nearly everything. The low expectations of racism, or vice versa, had had me imagining all sorts …
A decade ago, we had an extension built on the back of our house. Looking at it now, there’s so much I would change. But back then, constrained by finances, we had to make compromises. More so because we had two children under five at the time who demanded more attention than our builders. Nevertheless, …
An economist for the Bank of England suggests we should all just accept that we’re going to be poorer from now on. Accepted wisdom, I suppose. Only, that’s not the universal state of affairs. Those at the bottom of the pile are forever being told that there’s no way in the world they can obtain …
By its third birthday, this will have become really good. Too bad for Microsoft that it took three years of iterative development to make it really good. Currently available on eBay for £350, £1K off its original asking price. Good news for patient nerds. Only, you could get last year’s Samsung flagship — bendy or …
I love the little phone I gifted my beloved. It’s one of those new-fangled flippity smartphones, which bend in the middle, folding down into the palm of your hand. Well, her hand, not mine. It’s a cute little thing, ever-so-neat. So neat that daily I find myself coveting its shiny form factor. But in truth …
All the student activists want to rule the world. My advice to them: start a family first. See if you can handle two teenage kids perpetually rebelling in your midst. If you can, maybe scale up to your local youth club. If you can’t, maybe rethink that ambition to assert authority over populations of eighty-million …
For every soul there is a soulmate, made pleasing to the other, driven together by forces beyond themselves, overlooking of whatever it is that irks others. In my final years of secondary school, I earned the epithet Billy Nomates, known for wandering around the school grounds all alone. In the end, I felt so dejected …
In 1999, when I moved to Scotland for my Master’s degree, I made the acquaintance of a Turkish PhD candidate. He wasn’t my first Turkish friend. The previous year, while still studying in London, I had attended a Turkish-led study circle for a time. Before that, I had known a secular student who had helped …
“And not equal are the good deed and the bad. Repel evil by that which is better; and thereupon the one between whom you and him is enmity will become as though he was a devoted friend.” Quran 41:34
The perfect day to start on those long neglected garden jobs.
Guests descend and don’t leave. It’s nice that they feel comfortable in our company, but we ought to be given notice if we’re hosting a party. We thought they were just coming around for a cup of tea and slice of cake for an hour or so, but seven hours on they’re still going strong. …
YouTuber spends $40,000 on original iPhone in unopened original packaging. He subsequently opens it, so he can’t sell it on, and discovers it doesn’t work. I think to myself, “$40,000 would be a big deal for the local homeless shelter; I hope he match-funded to assuage his guilt.” But his fans remind me he is …
