The commentary on this clip is worth the entire licence fee www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricke...

9 year old got a #chess board for Christmas. I’ve forgotten nearly everything… except this opening that only works on beginners: colonelkilgorekurtz vs progamer1453 - www.chess.com/game/1474588...

parkrun challenge 🏆completed on Xmas day, have now run one on every day of the week.

Very experienced senior person working as freelance consultant on an important issue charging £850 a day really doesn’t feel like a big story www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

slow day in the office so figured we'd start some beef with museums

The end of year wrap has gone too far when your Wickes Trade account does it 🤦🏼‍♂️ 🪚🔨

Thanks AI Summary!

If online recipes actually made it easy to see the ingredients list and method, rather than scrolling through pages of ad-filled nonsense first, I would be more sympathetic with this take www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

My new favourite instagram account is Official Unofficial Time - ve rt much here for the pettiness of holding people accountable to chip times over strava times www.instagram.com/officialunof...

Annual whip round for teacher’s Xmas gifts underway. A lovely gesture that I fully support. Also wondering how my local WhatsApp group will respond to a suggestion of a collection for the parking enforcement officer who works our beat.

Aylesbury U9’s away at Amersham today. A wonderfully foggy, rainy and muddy morning. The kids played some good rugby, first year of full contact and the tackles are getting better.

I'm hoping to unite Left and Right - they'll all hate my piece in today's Sunday Times, saying that successive Budgets have overtaxed the highest-earning 20%, and under-taxed both the median earner and the richest 0.1%.https://buff.ly/BqRFpJr

Post your favourite LOTR characters, wrong answers only

A weeknote, mostly about Casserole - a FutureGov project from 15 years ago benunsworth.co.uk/2025/11/21/w...

You'll never see a better use of a before/after photo slider than in this v nice piece about balding by @rhodri.biz www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/11...

Happy international men's day! I'm making a small donation to Men's Sheds Association menssheds.org.uk/support-us/ who do great work across the UK tackling social isolation and loneliness, through the power of the humble shed.

NEW - we've data showing huge numbers of people reducing their income to avoid high marginal income tax rates. Not just at the £100k point (as previously reported). But at the £50k point:

Chat in my very middle class WhatsApp group is mostly about the potential changes to cyclescheme. 50% of my close friends use it mostly as a way to reduce taxable income to stay the right side of child benefit or tax free childcare thresholds. They would increase SIPP contribs instead.

Blowing people’s minds with my flying machine at Bristol’s science museum yesterday.

Some super jobs going at Skateboard GB skateboardgb.org/careers-jobs/

✍️ weeknote benunsworth.co.uk/2025/11/07/w... Featuring Jevons paradox and Baumol's cost disease, along with links to things I emailed myself this week.

My favourite sign in the building! Thinking of getting a Tech Support (not public health) equivalent made for my support team 😀

The boy’s beetlejuice costume has gone down well this year 👻 🎃

Cognitive polyphasia. One of my *favourite* things about opinion research.

It's a lovely sunny day! If you're out for a walk, please take some photos of memorial benches and add them to openbenches.org We're *very* close to thirty-nine *thousand* benches mapped 😃

Three quotes to replace lead flashing on a flat roof: 1 - £2500 2 - £800 3 - £475 First two quotes were check a trade, third was via recommendation on the village WhatsApp. The first one quoted in person - when I asked if he was serious, he said lead was expensive… (I know the £ of code 4 lead)

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025... hadn’t appreciated how much folks in the Uk hold in cash. Interesting to see Martin Lewis talk about culture change - quick look at his website’s content on holding stocks and shares and the tone is very ‘risk your money goes to zero’

We built a digital peer-to-peer book sharing service about 10 years ago. These odd attitudes towards books as sacred objects were surprisingly common.

Slowly getting back to being able to move some weight around. Have taken it very slowly, worked on ankle mobility and squat is now above 100kg and to a decent depth.

Stares at the remains of the bowl of couscous, two hot dog sausages, carrot and Peppa Pig fromage frais he just ate for ‘dinner’.

Got me a job at a startup and helped me build a network of gov internet nerds that helped build my career. Led to some lovely IRL friendships too. The other lovely thing is that I left the networks I didn’t like (Facebook and Twitter).

One thing that's interesting interacting with big banks is that they essentially replicate 100% of the logic and qualities of public sector bureaucracy (the need to taxonomise, sharply demarcated silos/domains of competence, complete inability to tailor, diffusion of moral agency, etc.) 1//n

Seeing LinkedIn posts where people are using their professional social network to complain (or have a dig at) their local council… then get annoyed that the council isn’t picking up the issue and treating it as a complaint. LinkedIn as a public service channel isn’t something I expected.

We really don’t need to know who you are to report a pothole, we just need to know where the hole is 👍 www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...

And suddenly, my kids also love a band that I like. Excellent cover of Golden from K-Pop Demon Hunters youtu.be/3JQXT-ETQVY?...

Eventful weekend at the Cookham Dean gravity race. Held off posting until we knew everyone was out of hospital and ok. Started well. Had an early run number and dry weather window. Hoped to improve on last years 3rd place. (The child was not driving in the race!)

Two excellent approaches on LinkedIn, for ‘people like me’. Wealth management… lol… 80% of my career is in the public sector. Tailor made suit jackets. Do you do denim?

This was me. Had to get new school uniform, shoes and trainers for all three children.

Absolute scenes in the school WhatsApp group after the PE schedule has been released - clearly stating Y3 need to come to school in kit on Tuesdays and Fridays. Kids go back this Friday. Parents in WhatsApp “so do they wear PE kit this week?”

Having had bikes stolen, I’d add a bit more to this guardian article on bike locks www.theguardian.com/thefilter/20... Less than gold rated lock will be no barrier to thieves in London. Even then, if your bike is worth £1k+ it won’t stop them - spend £250+ on the angle grinder resistant one.

Fun afternoon skating with the kids. The boy has gone from awkward to steezy in the blink of an eye.

My partner’s 80 year old parents did their first parkrun this morning ❤️

More sending it off things while walking with the family. Rude to walk past a perfect spot like this.

Taught the kids about water safety today. Check for depth before yeeting from tree.

Couple of weeks in the mountains now. Glorious stuff.

Where do you get dinner for fussy kids halfway through France on the way to the alps? 🇸🇪

This thing is garbage. Bring back the Biscoff McFlurry.

I did a fun Q&A with @danneidle.bsky.social for FT Alphaville. on.ft.com/3H7w57N

Last week in my current role - have managed to get a trip to the opticians, dentist and physio all squeezed in before I lose my health benefits plan 😅

📝 I am proposing 12 new holidays to help manage our digital lives. daverupert.com/2025/08/digi...