Just been on LBC to talk about Burnham. It went OK, I think, but i had the dreaded comms (we seem to have lost Alex) issue for the first time.

I like to think he's done this to make political journalists look stupid, and honestly I admire it.

After a period of reflection, and deciding I absolutely did not trust the load bearing qualities of 75 year old plaster. I made an addition.

It occurs to me that we're probably going to have to look at doing another book... policy.bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/rescaling-ur...

I reckon the best insight into my background mental health is the state of my desk. When I'm busy it gets messier and messier until I have a moment where my mind goes "I can't do this anymore" and there's a hard reset.

When I was 8, I asked my dad to tape the 1994 world cup final. The next day I watched it after school, and remember sitting through one of the most turgid games (that has rarely been surprised in the intervening 32 years). No goals but this game has been alright.

I've made some big commitments in the last 30 minutes. If you don't hear from me please know I've gone to buy polyfilla.

Mrs N, to me, this morning: I'm getting a bit fed up of Easter egg chocolate. Me: well I've got a bit of bad news for you...

When I left the house, I thought I was due for a bollocking off Mrs N when I got in for not putting the washing out. In the interim it has unexpectedly chucked it down. Also, the rain on my ride was lovely.

My broad reaction to watching that speech was "sounds good", but in the words you'd often hear watching Widnes at the rugby (league, obvs): "get after it".

John Sturzaker and I were doing our final edits for Rescaling Urban Governance as Johnson toppled May. I wrote final edits of a chapter for Planning in a Failing State as Johnson left, Truss came in and Sunak came in. Today, I'm sending something to the publishers on Starmer's approach to govt.

“By not opting for a tarmacked driveway or replanting the existing one, households can help cool their streets, protect vulnerable neighbours and reclaim a piece of Britain’s vanishing green heritage.”

Our apple tree has so much gear on it it's literally bent through 90 degrees.

Something that has really ticked me off over the years. You let a car through whilst driving, and everybody is waving at each other like the Royal Balcony at Trooping of the Colour. You let another car through whilst riding a bike, and suddenly drivers are like the Black Knight from Holy Grail.

I managed to compartmentalise this within about 5 minutes. One, because I'm a grown up, and two...

Right. Back to not giving a merry toss about football for another two years.

The idea that quite a lot of people have of what life is like at the University couldn't be further from the truth.

Like most academics, I don't think I'm unusual in getting regular unsolicited PhD enquiries. There are always two distinct filters. 1) The absolute incoherence/incompatability of the idea compared with what I do. 2) If the idea is OK, the answer to the question: So, what is your funding source?

It's interesting how it's all relative. I would give my eye teeth to have a fraction of *any* what London has.

Update: that only partially worked as it still went to the channel. So I've figured out how to delete the channel entirely from the TV. This, I'm sure we can all agree, is better.

Water Butt #2 is effectively spent. We're down to half of Water Butt #3, and a bonus half of Water Butt #1 which I'd genuinely forgotten about after the storm after heatwave two. This should get me to August...

My telly started defaulting to GB news whenever we turned it on. My solution: designate it as an "adult" channel that needs a pin to watch. Problem solved.

Courgettes don't taste bad, it's just the way you cook them.

Tea tonight is pretty much free* *excluding labour costs.

As I was saying. (They taste pretty weird for bananas, though)

The wind is blowing in the right direction for it to be this... www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

It looks, feels, and smells like something quite large is on fire over Liverpool/St Helens.

And I've just realised this is in my hotel room. My nights sleep just got orders of magnitude better, even if I am still at a services in Milton Keynes.

Zero signal at Knebworth, but as always, Maiden are the answer.

We acquired a teapot in a family house move, and I'm bot bothered about it in the week but it is a weekend game changer.

In the spirit of this guy, I hate how the England mens team has the moniker "The Three Lions". There are, statistically, usually more than 3 playing at any one time. It's also especially annoying given the Women's team has the more badass sounding "The Lionesses".

My secret weapon is the dining room door is tightly shut. Thats some prime 22 degree air ready to mix with the house at bedtime.

8pm and we're still not on opening the internal doors, let alone opening the windows yet.

Finishing the last section of interview write up, ready to move on to the analysis feels like a natural point to knock off for the weekend.

Town of Culture shortlist announced, just 15 out of almost 400 that applied. Stockton (Town Centre Ward?) the only north-eastern town shortlisted. There will be lots of disappointed folk across the region. www.gov.uk/government/n...

Once again, for those in the back.

On the train to town. Random man sat by the loos kicks off, swearing at me, because the door opened. Walk outside Lime St. Man loudly on phone: "He's a rat. He's a f*cken rat". Welcome to Liverpool. The friendliest city in the world (TM)

One of the "bonuses" of the dehumidifier is the third of a bucket of "free" water.

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Farage won 46.2% of the vote in 2024 A Martin Bell anti corruption unity candidate could do him. I doubt the current parties have the capacity to rally round one candidate, though.

Everyone watching the Farage statement...

Agree with this. Writing about English devo in 2020 we described it as a patchwork quilt of reform, but with layers that were never tidied up as they went. Everything overlaps, and the result is squabbles, and ironically for an overlapping system, loads falling through the gaps.

In the absence of one distinct algorithm, it’s the “anything can make you insane if you think about it long enough’.

Sorry I nearly ruined it.

I just put the telly on. Shall I go back to bed?

The more I mull it, the more I think "AI" is treated like a hammer ( if all you've got...) by some. In fact, it's many specialised tools, which you need training to know how to use. It's why it's important it's prohibited in early uni settings. Students need time to develop their own skills first.

As a friend points out to me, a 1am kick off, and pubs open until 5am means there are probably going to be a lot of drunk drivers on the road tomorrow. So be careful out there...

They've just diverted all the stock to Scotland...

It's like someone managed to distil the sentiment of why loads of the brexit voters i know weren't convinced or scared by Project Doom in 2016, and put it in an article.