doing my bit to uphold tradition

You will be visited by three spirits

down our way

four recent b/ws

This is a *lovely* thing, you should give it a listen www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Did not expect a capybara explaining brexit to be so affecting

London November 2025

someone gave me an amaryllis so consider this the first of a new potato update style series

I'm delighted to say we have won the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Education with our work on OpenSAFELY, inventing new methods that let researchers analyse NHS GP data while protecting everyone's privacy, and with complete transparency, in a hugely productive platform! www.ox.ac.uk/news/2025-11...

can confirm, this was a terrific show (cc @gidcoe.bsky.social in case you're inspired to mention it)

I’m on the lookout for a new contract (preferably inside). I’ve got over a decade of experience working in the public sector, mostly in agile delivery management. Two weeks notice. Not got DMs here but Signal is zuz.1337, or LinkedIn is good. Thx :)

listening to my copies this evening, hurrah \o/

*standing ovation*

Stop what you're doing and go buy a copy of The Cords debut album, chock full of jingly-jangly riffs, soft harmonies, la la las, and enough 80s indie nostalgia to storm to the top of the Festive Fifty. thecordsband.bandcamp.com/album/the-co...

COME TO OUR CONFERENCE! Lots of people work on medicines data: researchers; but also "medicines optimisation" teams, using data to directly improve NHS care; and teams who build data tools. These clans rarely meet... Until now! Join us, Dec 10th, in Oxford. www.bennett.ox.ac.uk/events/2025-...

Cutting my lunchtime sandwich into triangles. I deserve it.

This might be useful: Signboard, a simple desktop kanban app that stores its data in Markdown files cdevroe.com/2025/09/16/s...

New theory: eventually, all first names will be used as AI product names giles.app

I thought this schematic was very good in A&E reception

To anyone that was sad that they missed out on the hard copy of the Internet Phone Book (internetphonebook.net) - be ready, you can have another chance! At: 10am ET (US) 4pm/16:00 CET (Europe) ..this page is to stop frowning, and allow you to place an order: livingweb.metalabel.com/internetphon...

had some stuff to get off my chest about strategies ~ gilest.org/notes/strate...

Hi friends. Blogging is fun, so I started again. I hope you’ll take a look and follow along at @notetoself.studio notetoself.studio

An oldie from the archives: some tweets that Pretend Office might have sent... gilest.org/shoebox/pret...

Bumpity bump bump

Nice work Essex 👏

I'm giving away the last few copies of my book, from the early print runs in 2021/22. Email me if you'd like one! Details here: gilest.org/notes/free-b...

the terrifying thrill of eating beetroot salad while wearing a bright white t-shirt

Manager: "What's this milestone about ..'Living on a prayer'?" Lead: "That's the documentation deliverable" Manager: "What's the status of that?" Lead: "We're halfway there" Manager: "Why is progress so slow?" Lead: "You fired Tommy" Manager: "So?" Lead: "Tommy used to work on the docs"

One of the best decisions I made in the last year was unsubscribing from all the politics podcasts

Glimpse a few perseids before bed? Don’t mind if I do

every team should have a little bit of internet to call their own, where they can publish texts, images, ideas, experiments, etc it doesn't sound like a lot to ask. but in most organisations, it's very hard to make happen.

sandwiches, eh? amazing

Uncharacteristically professional post: I'm looking for experienced, freelancing designers & researchers for a swath of FTC roles my team is trying to fill. You'd be joining our Trusted Talent contracting network, with immediate roles in UX, Content, or Service design, and design research. 🧵 1/3

Leaflet looks very cool: leaflet.pub Seriously, click around: there's more to it than you might expect at first glance.

Is it just where I live, or are the ladybirds having a great time this year?

This is a good post by @niacampbell.bsky.social about how content design needs to think about AI - “the way people search, explore, trust and act on information is changing right in front of us.” medium.com/@niacampbell... #contentdesign

I’m often asked for examples of good ‘working in the open’ - so I’ve made a list of some of my favourites, and I’ll do my best to keep it updated as I hear about new ones. It’s called “Doing open” gilest.org/doingopen/

I found my spirit cushion in Dunelm

Potato update

Going on holiday gave me some time to think on the plane, so here's the first thoughtsplurge for a while: how to be open while you test and learn gilest.org/notes/open-t...

Went to Iceland. Iceland’s great.

potato update giftshop.micro.blog/2025/07/04/e...

i like some of these new features in Firefox blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/a...

the new Kae Tempest album holy shit

Your recs, please, for UK-based domain and web hosting providers? (I use Mythic Beasts myself and I'll put that on the list, but I'm looking for some additional suggestions for someone with very little technical knowledge)

The best thing about this is that if I saw any of these on an OS map, I wouldn’t even blink places.projects.alextorrance.co.uk

Excellent 👏 I

If you’re curious which government services have updated to the new GOVUK refreshed brand so far, I’ve run a script to collect screenshots of each service. You can see the results here: govuk-digital-services.herokuapp.com/screenshots