It's been interesting watching the Oxfordshire localgov reorganisation debate from a distance; the previous 2 occasions i was either working for Oxfordshire or Oxford City. And the result of this latest round? The same proposals as the previous two times. What a waste of time

This is the BEST Spotify 'About the artist' bits I've seen. I often wonder how most can bring themselves to write the towering praise about themselves that they do. Fair play to Tom Rosenthal, and a gold star to him

Fun reading the letters page this morning with EV drivers realising that they are car owners

Predictable to see that MoneySavingExpert is still solely focused on Cash or Lifetime ISAs while Martin Lewis moans about people not getting a financial education

For all our Patrons: Last week's Origin Story live show with @iandunt.bsky.social t.bsky.social & @dorianlynskey.bsky.social is out now! If you'd like to listen to episodes early, please subscribe to our Patreon starting from £5 per month. This episode will be out next week for non-subscribers.

ANDI (Accessible Name & Description Inspector) is a free accessibility testing tool used by people testing for Section 508 compliance. ANDI can't detect everything, but can find some issues and give some suggestions to improve the issues it detects. www.ssa.gov/accessibilit...

@openuniversity.bsky.social guys, why is it SO hard to just have an account to study? Looks like you have 3 subdomains, and it's pot luck which links take you where. And the absolute state of the account creation screen! Tiny buttons, near-invisible fields to complete - an accessibility nightmare

Getting to the Worldpay interface in registering/paying for an Open University course was like emerging from the 1990s to modern day. I mean, I love the OU, but their online services leave a lot to be desired

I just published a new blog post on building a web app for learning French using ChatGPT. Nice to be able to develop exactly what you want using tools to help you, rather than rely on something that is *almost* what you need. www.ox1digital.co.uk/projects/202...

I think it's really helpful people putting up huge Union flags on their houses all of a sudden - now I know I never want to talk to them

Had to visit the emergency hospital in France due to a holiday illness (longer boring story) but wanted to shout out to the NHS App product manager for coming up with an app that could produce my test results, my medications and the dates of GP appointments to feed to the doctor here.

Coming up this Wednesday/Thursday night. An hour’s mix from me, including a track or two from my new album.

Remember folks: - hyperlinks on printed docs don’t actually work when you click them. - your users are unlikely to type out a long hyperlink correctly, or to even try - it is possible to use memorable short URLs on your domain to make it easy for users

We expect the media and Tory class to tell Angela Rayner to stay in her lane… But if you’re working class and joining in to do their bidding for them I have some words for you…

Deleting 1,000 emails would have a carbon benefit of about five grams CO2e. Using a laptop for 30 minutes to delete those emails would emit about 28 grams of CO2e. Destroying the corporations responsible for climate collapse would be so much more fun and effective.

I suppose finding a whole maggot in the freshly-picked plum from the garden when I was eating it is better than finding half a maggot?

I'm so pleased no one gets to see me wail along to David Live (1977). Sweet Thing slays me

Is....is ALL of Philip Glass's music essentially the same arpeggio over and over again? I thought Stewart Lee was the master of repetition to the point of frustration

Never felt more out of the loop on something

I'm excited to share that I haven't written or published a book this week. Or any week

Is Discord the worst application I've ever tried to use? Possibly, yes. Joined successfully once and been unable to use any further invites. Resetting my password and still having problems accepting an invite led to my account being disabled. Contact support? The site defaults to Portuguese!

Me learning about an organisation's in house genAI tools

OK, from a product perspective I can see why v1 of the new GOV.UK app was worth pushing out to get some value out early ahead of the exciting stuff.....but I can't help feeling it's just a bunch of menus linking to GOV.UK with a search tacked on

If I use the same cotton bud for my left ear and right ear, is there a risk of cross-pollinating and having a plant grow out of my nose?

There is never a day when My Shadow In Vain doesn't sound a good as the first day I heard it

Whenever I hear Adele singing 'Skyfall' I make it rhyme with trifle

You bring light in You bring light in You bring light in You bring light in

Lost my rag on a support call to #BarclaysBank this morning - hated being like that but when someone doesn't listen and talks over you constantly what can you do. Manager was great and resolved things in 3 mins. Shame it took 1hr 25mins to get to him

Hey DVLA - if you're gonna ask for feedback can you at least ensure that the email(!) link you provide actually works? Oh, and your direct debit form for car tax is really not up to scratch

I'm starting to think the Underwear Fairy, who meticulously folds and pairs things, may actually be someone human in the house. Or the cat. Will investigate further

At this point it seems obvious that the IT department needs to review their debugging procedure #LoveMessagesFromMyWife

Trip to GP surgery. Delighted to find NHS Wifi available to use if I sign up. Enter my details and get asked to confirm my email address. Confirmation request is on browser and not sent by email(?) But I have no mobile data signal to send the confirmation - that's why I was signing up for WiFi!

Gosh, who'd have thought? www.msn.com/en-gb/news/o...

I've yet to watch a @trashtheory.bsky.social video that I didn't enjoy and learn loads youtu.be/_oXADE5bzZI?...

Popcorn, anyone? www.cnbc.com/2025/04/28/e...

Why is it that AirBNB reviewers insist on telling you a place was 'clean' all the time. Mates, that's my base expectation, like walls and a ceiling. Maybe just mention if it wasn't clean?

It's often an easy (lazy) comparison to make, but reading about another historic leader's attempt to forge economic policy through gut instinct above facts does provide some startling similarities www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

I was thinking about the plight of American industry with the Trump tarrifs, and remembered that The Campaign had the perfect solution - just rename part of China 'America' youtu.be/aRivpStByUw?...

Looks like bad news for unborn pensioners

"Fat Bernie" from the afp album Extrapolated Memories Of Forgotten Films. Available from Bandcamp. afpmusic.bandcamp.com/album/extrap... #AFP #andyfalconer #music #ambientmusic #inspiration

If I catch myself singing along to 'Kiss' by Prince I immediately worry that Richard Gere is going to invade my privacy in the bath No, Richard. I won't sleep with you....

Damn! Ok, just take my entire childhood and adolescence and create a video about it. @trashtheory.bsky.social is the king of music documentary youtu.be/NLuSOMzSy9k?...

@lucyfishwife.bsky.social What made me think of you?

"Daedalus Part 1" from the afp album Daedalus. Available from Bandcamp. afpmusic.bandcamp.com/album/daedalus #AFP #andyfalconer #music #ambientmusic #inspiration

Christ, you'd think I'd get time off for good behaviour....

"Fracture" from the afp album - Ski For The Trees. Available from Bandcamp. afpmusic.bandcamp.com/album/ski-fo... #AFP #andyfalconer #music #ambientmusic #inspiration

Anyone in my digital bubble using the Minimum Lovable Product approach? Would love to hear how it's going medium.com/agileinsider...

Elbows up, Canada.

Ew. I dipped into LinkedIn really briefly but I think I got out again ok