They've lost the 9yos

I'm an incredibly introverted person. Any time I hear "go and find somebody you don't know" or similar, it's just this to me. It just triggers the *run* reflex... youtu.be/1svA2sGhDEE?...

Started life in Skem. My dad always said if our house was anywhere else *but Skem* we'd probably still be living there today.

I was walking down a street in New York and I thought how lovely it was, with the trees and the light. Tried to take a photo and this came out. It’s incredible how blind we become to the ugliness of cars. They really do mess things up. Yet somehow we manage to filter them out.

“The only drawback is how you guarantee parking outside your house”. Have ministers an answer to this entirely predictable - and predicted - problem as they “power up an EV revolution and supercharge our infrastructure “ to quote from the PN? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Moving from "what's the most authoritative answer?" to "what's the most plausible answer?" turns out to have downsides.

Welcome Week, and proof you're never too old to be a tourist in your own city. For example I'd never been in the Port of Liverpool Building before. You also take so much for granted.

It's effectively autumn so I've started riding in with my football socks on. I've also got my favourite green jumper on today. I look like Brian Clough.

Today we had the Merseyside launch of the @justcentre.bsky.social . I was pleased we had a full house, and after lots of prep getting things set up I'm looking forward to getting down to work on the project.

The child this morning: Dad, do you know about transport? Me:

Always buy the plunger before you need it. Get the long handled one if you can too. You'll never regret it.

How was my day, you ask? It's 133 days until I go on research leave, I answer.

I still have* the £100 guitar my parents got me for Christmas when I was ~13. I didn't have time to be a hoodlum. I was too busy trying to shred Metallica riffs. *though have since modified...

It's been one day, and I'm already so mad at this. Mrs N told me ages ago that I wasn't allowed on the parents WhatsApp* because I wouldn't shut my gob about stuff like this. She was, as always, right. *and that's the only good to come of this.

Despite all best preparations, advance planning and otherwise, I always find September overwhelming. Throw in a child starting school, as well as some non-routine issues, and I've come dangerously close to hitting crush depth a few times in the last fortnight. Everything. Everywhere. All at once.

Yesterday at pick up, the child asked why we don't drive to School. Very glad of the opportunity to clearly and actively put that question to bed before we've really even started. We're walking, and that's that.

Day 1 of walking the eldest to school at school run time. Do I feel safe crossing this junction with a 4 year old? Would I feel safe letting a child cross this junction alone? Do cars stop in any way, shape or form for pedestrians? The answer to all of those questions is the same.

It's my first guitar, and for that reason alone I love it. But it's got an action the depth of the grand canyon and how I did my grades on it I'll never know.

British NIMBYism is truly a sight to behold. “We are rejecting this solar farm, because one time I saw an electric vehicle on fire, which reminded me that decades ago a coal mining disaster killed lots of children”.

I'm getting conscious there's not going to be many more mornings like this this year...

It's an exciting day for me. Not only does my eldest start school, but I'm starting a new role sitting on Active Travel England's Technical Oversight and Advisory Group. I'm really excited, and hope to make a practical difference to the ways Active Travel England are delivering their vital work

Just over a week left to go on this opportunity.

JOB! Come and work with me on the Merseyside Team of the excellent @justcentre.bsky.social www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOL725/p...

Emailing on a Saturday, chasing on a Sunday. Congratulations, you've given me zero working minutes to reply to you...

What you gain on the swings, you lose on the roundabouts. More evidence that there IS a time and a place for AI but we should scrutinise those who blindly want to crowbar it into everything. www.theregister.com/2025/09/04/m...

The reshuffle absolutely squashed the coverage of the Reform conference. Maybe that's why Farage rushed to go on so early...

I've felt this for a long, long, long time. Fantastic campaign - I really hope it goes somewhere.

Choices have been made. I'll let the turbo trainer account for the balance tomorrow.

I always feel like this after a Board of Examiners, but I feel it more so this year. It's been a long and unrefreshing summer, and I'm tired. It's been a long 5 years, to be honest. I'm on research leave for 6 months in Feb...

People looking at what to do about the school run and all the prvlems it brings for time immemorial.

I didn't even get to the end of our street today before experiencing the "why is the traffic so horrendous.... oh right yeah, the schools are back". The catchment for the primary near us is ~500m.

I'm simultaneously shocked* and not surprised by this in the slightest. The fine is pretty weak sauce though, if you ask me. If you drive without insurance/tax the car gets seized... *mostly that this is a thing.

There's something about Autum when the old cycling season finishes, and the new one begins... You've always got to start somewhere.

I don't know if it's controversial, but my benchmark is: do I believe he could kill me with his bare hands? I always reckoned I could take Roger Moore in a fight, so how was he seeing off Jaws? Connery, Dalton, Craig: the best bonds.

A few days ago, Berlin opened a new stretch of urban motorway, with the stated aim to reduce congestion. Today, the stretch was temporarily closed because of too much congestion.

When I first started out, reading really broadly was seen as a marker of standout work. Increasingly, it rouses suspicions. The challenge of a generation is formulating assessments where AI doesn't confer an advantage. It might help tighten text, but it won't provide the fundamental understanding.

👇 This one reason why I think trad approaches to school curriculums will continue to be the best approach. How you use knowledge will always change, but the importance of having it, not so much.

My video about how LLMs are not search engines has led to many, MANY comments telling me that I should be using Perplexity. Some insisting that Perplexity does not hallucinate. Out of a list of 26 papers it just provided me (in "Research" mode) 4 were real. FOUR. 85% hallucination rate.

This reduction was consistent across: ✔️ travel modes ✔️ junctions with/without traffic lights Filtering side streets hasn't just made internal LTN roads safer - it has made boundary-LTN junctions safer too. No negative impacts on other boundary road junctions. findingspress.org/article/1434... 3/

Parking is bad, for sure, but increasingly I see some cars which are so big that their owners can't physically drive them on the right side of the road. They just don't fit, yet they have to be inflicted on us all. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

I'll leave you to decide who you think had the most fun.

As time goes on, and enshittification continues, I'm increasingly in favour of owning the physical media. In the same spirit I'm glad I never sold off my cds for buttons.

Local Cllrs were already sceptical of social media (and did it because it was "part of the job"). Evidence like this from Altmetric suggests a lot of people (inc by extension cllrs, and a lot of others who were terminally online) dropped social media entirely. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Where will it all end? "The Gruff Billy-Goats"?

I know I'm being a snoot, and likely also wrong (in a "well akshually" kinda way, but if the re-translation fundamentally amends *the title* what else is it amending?...

JOB! Come and work with me on the Merseyside Team of the excellent @justcentre.bsky.social www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOL725/p...

I saw a dreadful scene today... a couple were fighting. Then thankfully the police came, but they started fighting with them too. Then a crocodile came and stole everyone's sausages!

Is Britain about to blow? Judge for yourself with these live scenes from Llandudno. There's red and white crosses lashed to lampposts and everything.

We've had absolutely loads of people offering house services door to door: gutters, jet washing, tree pruning. I think at least 5 in the last week.

It's August Bank Holiday and we've cracked into the last of the Easter Eggs.