No you read this and then spent the next 5 mins mucking around with a shit bit of Javascript to test the idea out

You can't even bat two-handed these days. Because of Woakes.

Glorious.

UKGovCamp 2026 ( #ukgc26 ) will be in #Birmingham on Saturday 17 January 2026. We need a venue: 1️⃣ for 250 people, 2️⃣ 8 breakout rooms, 3️⃣ wheelchair accessible. @imhuyorks.bsky.social is leading the search. Please share and reply with ideas 🙂

📣 We’d like to hear from you! Bluesky is rolling out age verification as part of the Online Safety Act, which aims to reduce the risk of children seeing harmful content. We’ve heard that blind and partially sighted folks are unable to verify their age because it’s inaccessible. Have you tried?

It is no bad thing for government to get better at storytelling and that those messages should land 'where people are'. But as (more?) important is government actually being 'where people are'. And that isn't necessarily in your pocket. Resharing my (5 part) long read about GOTHS.

Yet agayne ignored by the Booker Pryze longlist

Apropos of nothing specific. The idea that you would immigrate - even to a country where you might some day claim benefits - to profit from the public purse, is as mad as the idea that you would fly long-haul to get free chips. It is SO expensive.

DAME HANNAH HAMPTON

She's still saying it 🤩

Football, bloody hell. Legends and heroes, every one of them.

Blinking flip #TheFootball

She may not say this ever again after the next 5 minutes, but I am proud at having raised an England football fan who will, unironically, use the phrase "yay, penalties!"

This might honestly be the best sitcom of them all. If you haven't heard it, do yourself a favour and listen.

This is the beautiful Liz Berry poem Frank Skinner references in @petepaphides.bsky.social's superb interview.

I DO NOT WANT TEAMS IN MY CAR, I DO NOT WANT IT NEAR OR FAR. I WOULD NOT LOG ON IN A JAG, I WOULD NOT CALL IN FROM A CAB, I DO NOT WANT THIS TEAMS YOU SEE, GET IT FAR AWAY FROM ME

I’m putting together some events and conferences info for our team. Does anyone know if Govcamp North and/or OneTeamGov breakfasts are still going, please? 👀

I’ve no idea if Mr Cig was real, but what a performance Rip Torn gave for him in the 1991 Doors biopic. The scene where he inspires Jim to write Light My Fire (“light my head, Jim. I’m just a massive human cigarette. Light my head on fire.”) bravo Oliver Stone.

Football, bloody hell.

This is England!

Message Hidden Backward In Black Sabbath Album Wishes Everyone A Good Time Listening To Rock And Roll

“GovGPT, please book me a return train from Leeds to London, with tube travel to Canary Wharf for next Wednesday. Make sure the booking adheres to civil service travel cost policy.” <New Mexico data centre bursts into flames>

An apology to my fans

In a stunning moment of carnal desire, my calculator said “BOOBIE5”

This story is unutterably vapid, but I'll tell ya. Human beings, we make genius out of vapid every single day.

ceakig wæs þe cyss-cæm þa coldplay gesungon ceo-ceorl wæs trending, trolledon scitposteras. þæt wæs god posting

Thank you to everyone who suggested #ukgc26 locations and voted. We the @ukgovcamp.bsky.social organisers have chosen #Birmingham. We known it came 2nd in the vote after #Manchester, but believe it's a better balance for our first event outside of #London. 🧵 Thread 1/3.

It's St Swithun's Day, have a poem where he's grumpy about the way he was buried, and was actually really happy when Winchester Cathedral started to sink because it was built without foundations.

Who's coming to One Team Gov North on Tuesday? #excited 🙂 #oneteamgov #manchester www.eventbrite.com/e/oneteamgov...

Uh oh, I've been thinking again so settle in for another long read. This time on 'Pocket, Pavement, Platform: Government in the App Store and on the High Street' It’s about how and where government shows up: in your pocket, on your pavement, and behind the platforms we use every day.

Honestly, can none of you read? You can still use BSky without going through adult verification. > For people who are under 18 or don’t want to go through this process, we’ll make adult-appropriate content inaccessible, and we’ll disable features like direct messaging. bsky.social/about/blog/0...

Brilliant as per from @bm.wel.by. A vision to go beyond gov.uk (and a gov.uk app) to make gov.uk on the high street: "The UK’s world-class digital shopfront needs a physical twin...a state that shows up wherever we are, with the tools to help, and the humility to listen." bm.wel.by/2025/07/10/p...

I've started a new blog called 'ways of doing' which is about ways of doing digital. Thanks to @matthewsheret.com for suggesting the name.

...meanwhile, over on the @ukgovcamp.bsky.social Slack channel, there's a vote and discussion on where our January 2026 event ( #ukgc26 ) will be and #Manchester is winning. Visit the bottom of www.ukgovcamp.com to join Slack then head over to the #general channel to take part.

This said, seeing Fifa move into the former address of Jose Maria Marin and Chuck Blazer is apt and marvellous in its own way.

If you manage a corporate Android estate then you’ve got problems. arstechnica.com/security/202...

This is a very elegant summary. We've been working in code for decades now. Long past time we started saying that this absurd, over-simplified, wisdom-free and demonstrably harmful approach to problems is wrong, and that those voicing it are as under-skilled as they are immature.

New blog post: Get the location of the ISS using DNS https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/07/get-the-location-of-the-iss-using-dns/ I love DNS esoterica. Weird little things that you can shove in the global directory to be distributed around the world instantly(ish). Domain names, like …

The _middle_?!

or any of the strange stupid things that are said about #poetry and its place in our lives, I suspect that the people doing the saying have had things pretty easy. A tough life needs a tough language— and that is what poetry is.

Followed a link in a message on my phone to legislation.gov.uk, and this time got fed up enough of its desktop-only website to do something about it: presenting adlegem.dracos.co.uk which will make a legislation.gov.uk page readable on mobile :)

Wonderful to have a translation of a point from @jukes.ie that deserves to go further! Anyone who wants a snappy statement of the benefits of working in the open for colleagues and friends in Germany, here it is:

Thinking about yesterday's #CampDigital. At the end of her keynote, @herahussain.bsky.social deliberately welcomed questions *and* comments. And I know it's a meme for a reason, but it made me reflect that *if* you can trust your audience not to be self-centred fools, comments can be enriching too

If you wonder what I *meant* to say at #campdigital this morning - here is my ‘script’ suitably blog-ified digitalbydefault.com/2025/07/03/c...

Turns out the sound of the Apollo 8 astronauts is remarkably similar to early-2010s glitch music! I was dancing a bit. Jerkily. On the inside. #CampDigital 🫶

Spontaneous cheers in the room for this BTW.

Last talk of the day at #CampDigital - Per Aksbom on the Many Lies of Maps! Spicy title. Hoping to land the day well!

A reminder that gratitude is appropriate in the face of the discouragement that can be deeply embedded in how we approach things. Grateful for this talk from Michael Palmer. #CampDigital