I absolutely bloody love Haim, and they didn’t disappoint this evening.

Attempting to avoid tourist treadmills in France and Spain.

Enjoyed drinks and a curry in Birmingham this evening alongside 6 familiar faces to celebrate an astonishing anniversary; 20 years ago this month, 4 web developers met in Walsall, and the Multipack was born.

The concourse at Euston station is now a festival of Rail Alphabet 2. Yet move beyond that and… well, God knows what font has been chosen for the gantries above the approaches to platforms (which themselves still use NR Brunel). One day there might be some visual coherence on the railway, but today is not that day.

Trying to buy tickets for a major tourist attraction in Barcelona. Three separate attempts fail to complete (session expired). Go to the attraction hoping to buy tickets in person; online purchases only. When speak to an official, tells me to use Google Chrome (I’m using an iPhone, which is a whole other issue but needless to say, this is not an option).

Just a small, insignificant example of how this century has rapidly turned into a techno-centric idiocracy.

Trying to buy tickets for a major tourist attraction in Barcelona. Three separate attempts fail to complete (session expired). Go to the attraction hoping to buy tickets in person; online purchases only. When speak to an official, tells me to use Google Chrome (I’m using an iPhone, which is a whole other issue but needless to say, this is not an option).

Just a small, insignificant example of how this century has rapidly turned into a techno-centric idiocracy.

Thanks to severe train delays, I have a morning to spend in Paris. Last night I booked into a charming hotel in Saint-Paul, and just met some of its extraordinarily friendly staff at breakfast. Going by previous experiences, I didn’t think any of this was possible! Paris might be growing on me.

Favourite tree doing favourite tree things.

♫ Lucky by Radiohead

Played this in the car driving around Kent with Jon at the weekend, and now pleasantly stuck in my head.

Caught up with the Apple Event. Took me 30 minutes to realise I was watching last year’s event.

Probably the last post-work rays of sunlight for 2025.

With the NHS.UK Eleventy Plugin you can focus on writing content instead of writing code.

Stop the slop.

I found a Benchmark. Harder to find than I thought it would be.

Tonight I watched Nye at the National Theatre, a play about the life (and death) of NHS founder, Aneurin Bevan. Beautiful and haunting, the very last scene completely broke me. Forget ten year plans; Nye had a vision, and he absolutely delivered on it.

Many years ago I read about Book Mountain, a curious pyramid-shaped library in Spijkenisse, the Netherlands. Today I finally stepped inside.

Good services are verbs.
Bad services are nouns.
AI services are whimsical, opaque or vAPId.

As teams at GDS prepare to launch a refreshed brand for GOV.UK on 25 June, so the X-GOVUK community has been updating its projects in preparation for this go-live date.

Poster I created to mark Good Machine’s first firebreak week.

I’m not convinced that the designer of a $10,000 gold watch (now obsolete), who gets driven around in the back of a Bentley, and who spends his spare time in coffee shops ‘inventing the future’ with the likes of Sam Altman, is capable of designing products for the rest of us.

Happy M&S cyber incident update day for those who celebrate.

Goodbye Dribbble.

The mission patch for the HPV private beta features Mavis the polar bear watching the sun rise over the horizon, representing the launch of our new service into private beta.

The mission patch for the release supporting ‘doubles’ (co-administered MenACWY and Td/IPV vaccinations) features Mavis the polar bear meeting her double.

Hey Guy’s

Diffused (sunrise).

If everything is working correctly, this is the first post from my website syndicated to Bluesky via Indiekit. 🤞

I put a little care into something and sent it out into the world.

Just watched B. J. Novak’s directorial debut, Vengeance (2022) and oh boy, it’s a hoot. A hearty recommendation from me.

Please, make it stop.