20 May, 2024
A new manifesto for the web
This blog post has now been re-arranged with the manifesto at the top, and the reasoning that led up to it beneath. Because, after all, placing the important content six or seven hundred words in is hardly being pure, is it? Web Dogma 24. By me. Content First. All articles, images, and graphics must be […]
11 May, 2024
Design Dilemmas: When bathrooms become battlegrounds
In the world of transgender rights, the battle for the bathroom has reached fever pitch, especially in the USA. Now, I’m not here to referee in this brawl – because on one side of the debate you have the ‘TERFs”, and on the other, the trans rights activists sometimes labelled “handmaidens”. Both are terms about […]
3 May, 2024
A little change on this website
In the past, this website was sort of my place to keep family and friends in touch. I first set it up in 2005, just before going away to Peru on travels. It was a great. Facebook had been invented but wasn’t generally available or popular yet, other platforms weren’t well thought through or scattered, […]
28 June, 2023
Recovering from a heart bypass. The physical and mental challenges.
Having a coronary artery bypass isn’t much fun and comes with challenges. Four years later I thought I’d describe some more of my experiences.
28 November, 2022
Are VW in trouble with their electric car strategy?
Could VW really be in trouble, if they’re cancelling a factory and pushing back a car launch? I don’t think so, but they’re not entirely in the clear…
4 September, 2022
Steps and missteps on my path out of poverty
At 18 I was skint and got made homeless. It took a lot of graft, patience and mistakes to get out of that and into a moderate middle class lifestyle. Here’s how.
15 February, 2022
Interesting times in the world of software
About a decade ago, I was at a conference and talking to a fellow developer (I still call myself one, even though I don’t code so much these days) when he giddily told me about the funding he’d got for building a new piece of software he was hoping would make it big. It was […]
26 April, 2021
I broke my heart in five places and got it fixed
A year ago, I was sitting, shorn of all body hair and waiting to go in for a five or six hour operation. I knew the next two weeks would be hell.
5 December, 2019
The great pension scam, how people were conned, and how young people fixed it
In my previous post, I discussed the importance of separating wealth from income, and to stop beating up a chap called Rob Barber who made the mistake of having a high income but not feeling rich. I get exactly where he’s coming from because I’ve been in the same position. In fact, it was more dangerous, […]
23 November, 2019
Wealth, income, and why that bloke on Question Time with £80k was wrong (and right)
There’s a bloke who’s been on Question Time who makes £80k a year and claimed he’s not in the top 5%. Which clearly makes him a moron and a subject of derision, right? Sock it to the wealthy! They’re all bastards who need putting in their place! Well actually, he’s not. A lot of people […]
18 November, 2018
The EU are bullying the UK
A short screenplay, by me. It’s a Monday morning at a small train station on a mainline. It’s bustling as business travellers head to London for their week’s business. The air is cool, with people blowing little clouds of steam as they head into the station from their taxis and cars. Mr Hock, a late-middle […]
17 December, 2017
Why political parties lose support by winning.
People do like to look back angrily, don’t they? Yet many a time, their anger today doesn’t reflect how they really felt back then. If you look at the Iraq War, and the UK’s involvement in it, most people supported the action. For sure, an awful lot of people today don’t think it was right […]
22 February, 2013
Finding a missing person in South America (and elsewhere)
I promised, ages ago, that I’d write up some tips on how to find somebody who’d gone missing in South America. Recently I had an email from somebody in the same situation which has spurred me into action. Since 1997 I’ve found or been found by my mother, my brothers and my sister. Here I’m […]
5 October, 2012
What It’s Like to Dine Out When You’re Veggie
Imagine, you arrive at the restaurant. It’s slick, it’s luscious. Wonderful smells assault your nose. You’re hungry. Very hungry. This is going to be great! So, you sit down, the waiter comes over. Oddly, he doesn’t hand you a menu. Instead, he decides to tell you what you can eat. “Tonight, for starters, you can […]
18 July, 2012
It’s OK, Coming Second Isn’t So Bad
One of the lessons I’ve learned, from motorsport and life in general, is that coming second is actually OK. You’re brought up in school to believe that winning is important. Anything else is being a loser. Well, they’re wrong. The minute you learn to accept that you win by being the best that you can […]
24 May, 2011
Thinking Digital University (2011)
So, here I am again at Thinking Digital. Only this time I’m no longer driving the seemingly doomed Golf TDI I had last year that did one of it’s self destruction tricks en-route. Consequently I’m not missing out on the workshops here. In fact, I’m doing better than that – an additional workshop was added […]
28 August, 2010
The Story of Juanito
Here’s something… a smiling, happy and charming man who knew my father in Arica, lives just around the corner from the hotel I’m staying at. He actually lives in the cabin that guards a car park. Just him. He’s been married twice, I believe, but that’s all I know. So how can I tell his […]
Arrangements, part dos
Anyone who’s experienced the death of someone close to them will know that there is often a lot to do. No exceptions here, plus the added pressure of limited time. However, I’m not entirely unhappy about the time thing… makes me get things done. Cementaria Parque de Arica So, following the funeral I went yesterday […]
27 August, 2010
The Funeral
And so it came. In a way it’s weird… I always felt there were only two likely things to happen. First, I would find my father (or he would find me) and a period of reconciliation may take place. Closeness, perhaps never, but reconciliation would be fine. Second, I would never find him, and that […]
24 August, 2010
Chris Coveney…the Introduction
I’ve started writing this post in Amsterdam airport…I’m on my way to Arica in Chile where I’ll be (hopefully) burying my father, Chris, who died on the 19th of July. I say hopefully not because this is something I’m looking forward to but because I face a number of legal and monetary issues with the […]
18 January, 2010
Is WordPress Slowing My Site Down?
I noticed on my pingdom stats recently that this site has been slowing down recently. But why? Is it WordPress? Some plugins? Time for research!
20 July, 2009
What it’s Like to Present and Attend at WordCamp UK
Over the weekend just gone I made two planned presentations at WordCamp UK 2009 down in Cardiff. I also threw in a quick 45 minutes of show and tell on the Caribou Theme that runs this site and is available for download from Spectacula.