Gorgeous

Tremendously depressing read. Also: proper reporting. open.substack.com/pub/londonce...

The eBook of Castle is only 99p right now. Repost this for a chance to win a signed copy of the original hardback edition. www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/...

It's a bit of a myth that rents are constantly increasing faster than earnings or overall inflation - on average, they're not. So what *is* the problem of unaffordability in the private rented sector? And what does this mean for how we go about fixing it? Our take 🧵⬇️

Little extract from today's piece, which I'll be posting on www.tom-cox.com a little later today. (If you subscribe you'll get it in your inbox so don't have to worry about missing it here.)

Full thing is now up: www.tom-cox.com/what-i-am-ab...

The fact they made this travesty and didn't even call it Your Own Personal Jesus is the worst crime of all.

This is super interesting

The result? Apple's most successful laptop in *years*, which has now sold so well that Apple has exhausted the supply of defective chips and is scrambling to fill orders: www.macrumors.com/2026/04/07/m... 18/

Glorious long thread in praise of process knowledge and the unsung heroes who keep every organisation going by having been there a long time and knowing how everything really works (in ways that can never be fully written down)

Music for these moments: Yo Yo Ma plays Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen youtube.com/shorts/FSN4E...

my youngest grandson returns from The Waste. No food again, just metal scraps. But he's so proud, and wants a reward. "Tell me again about The Great Before. Tell me why The Green went away," he begs. "in the Before," I begin, "people had questions about who should participate in women's sports..."

Armageddon is terrible, but our only other option was diversity trainings at work.

The Black Designers Guild is an amazing programme! Deadline to apply is 10 April. Go for it ✨ www.linkedin.com/posts/tayome...

I’m not entirely sure this piece isn’t, in fact, pure parody. Or Cummings has simply become a parody of himself. The Strait of Hormuz can be reopened in 72 hours by a team of hackers and physicists, apparently. 🙄🤷‍♀️ open.substack.com/pub/mrhenrym...

Gotta say, I'm a bit less freaked out by alligators now I know they vibe to acoustic guitar.

People Who Love Corporate BS Are Bad at Their Jobs, New Cornell Research Confirms Ever had to work with someone who spewed corporate bullshit all day long, yup, that person. Science proved what we all knew all along: they are bad at practical decision making and analytical thinking.

Dog hears a harmonica for the first time: 🔊 #AGoodPlace Source: www.reddit.com/r/dogsbeingd...

April in the UK...

This is not a 'masculinity crisis', it's a misogyny crisis. This is not a problem with 'masculinity'-- millions of men model positive masculinity every day. This is a problem of male violence. Stop calling it 'masculinity'. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

"i have two Microsoft Outlooks, and neither one of those are working." The Astronauts truly representing us all up there.

One story among many. For it is a simple fact that businesses in the UK face higher barriers to trade than their counterparts in all of our neighbours. This is a political decision to favour independence over integration made and denied by successive governments including this one.

Next Sunday we're running a guided walk of London’s Soho. Our theme is The Beatles and what they learned about cultural power. This post gives a little taste of what we’ll be exploring. Free playlist of music and videos, free full colour map - and it’s a fundraiser for Centrepoint homeless charity.

Fascinating piece on Ed Miliband. It frames Iran as a strategic choice between petro-state and electro-state, which as a second order issue is a choice between tilting economically towards America or China. The forces arrayed against him are very powerful. web.archive.org/web/20260325...

Two things underlie most service failures: bottlenecks and incentives. Understanding both changes how you design and argue for your work.

UPDATE: History has not, in fact, been lying to you. www.marcmorris.org.uk/2026/03/king...

Next day: baby can't handle a bottle so it is back to the syringe. www.tiktok.com/@wildheartre... Beaver breakfast day 2

This is why I have never talked like a consultant, and don’t trust folks who do. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

I spent seven years in the civil service. It is, like the private sector, mixed. It has some brilliant leaders and some mediocre leaders. It has some brilliant committed staff and some lazy inept staff. It has juniors you think should be a couple of rungs higher, and the odd “WTF are they”. /1

Another stunning victory for Blue Labour.

This is a perfect example of the bias instituted by platforming. Considering this a legitimate question for public intellectuals to debate at a prestigious university's literary festival gives it an enormous helping of unearned credit.

Waiting at a random doctor's surgery for a blood test, so just for fun, here's all the touchpoints it took to get here: 1. 17th Feb: Call my surgery on my lunch break. Learn that they are closed from 12-3 every day.

What ho badgers :)

On Adam Smith www.theguardian.com/commentisfre... Two things come to mind: • He didn’t think markets or companies could be ethical. People have virtues & beliefs. It is their responsibility to behave well and guide wisely. Humans, not markets, are the core. They must recognise the bad they do 1/2

A week today is the tenth and biggest Bradford Digital event, at Bradford Live, the redeveloped ex-Odeon cinema in the city centre. Looking forward to see where this all goes next. (And glad I can support the event - and the city I moved to just over 30 years ago.) www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

100% would try

I see the traditions of Easter are holding strong. (Mixed feelings about this, although on balance I do really want to try one.) The Costa hot cross bun with mature cheese, bacon and chilli jam.

From the research I've seen and done, it seems to me most people don't think about joined-up govt or joined-up public services till they are either driven mad by disorganised back-end systems or horrified by an abuse of power. But ppl who work in govt think about joined-up services all the time.

AI “used to make mistakes” like Cormac McCarthy does… 🙄 I’m not sure this is the killer point NYT thinks it is

Anyway, keep doing really annoying PowerPoints with lots of bullet points, as inconsistently as possible to keep your job.

See for example this in the conclusion (which I assume you haven't reached let - afraid it is a long book!!)

Paywall is off this one until 5pm today...

Our walking tour isn't about fame or nostalgia. It’s a walk about what The Beatles learned, and how those lessons shaped their music, their ambitions, and the foundations of the modern music industry. 5 April. A splendid time is guaranteed for all. tally.so/r/w4OO5k

When speaking to person describing delusional beliefs, listen without interrupting or dismissing their experiences. Instead of immediately correcting them, say something calm and neutral like: “That must be very frightening for you.”' #delirium

We're looking for speakers to join us at SDinGov 2026. If you have something you want to share with our community, this is your chance. If you'd like to speak at this year's event, submit your proposal before 17:00, Monday, 9 March 2026. sdingov.net/call-sessions

Reminder that the Call for Sessions for September's @sdingov.bsky.social event is open: govservicedesign.net/call-sessions Conference theme: Democratising Design: sdingov.net/democratisin...

Ebook 99p. Offer ends today. www.amazon.co.uk/Anglo-Saxons...

For anyone struggling to visualise: Here the "Progressive" vote (Green + Labour) is split in all possible ways. One of Green or Labour always has total exceeding Reform.

Over the past eighteen months, the political science consensus on the nature of Labour's vote has been absolutely correct - and yet also completely ignored by pundits and strategists who continue to get it wrong.