Category: stories

Adventures in Analogue II
This seems to be the time of year when I blog about my adventures in the analogue world. Most of my work and much of my friendships are happening online in some form or other, so this is post is about the things that are happening offline, in the analogue world I treasure.

A photo of my painting desk, with work in progress, a book about learning how to paint, colours, paletes.

Painting

I started painting a while ago, and mostly focused on seascapes to begin with as that is where most of my inspiration comes from. On a summer trip to Oxford however I picked up a book promising “Art in 15 Minutes” and ever since I have been learning how to paint with the help of its projects with great joy. I would not normally choose the motifs or the colours the exercises focus on, but I am learning much about mixing colours, working with shadow and simple perspective. As you can see in the photo above, the small, postcard-size canvases I use fit very well with the templates in the book, and so I paint away happily most days. It’s a very relaxing activity, but also fuels my creativity no end.

Photo of the view from a local woodland path towards the sea.

Running

Since the Vancouver Half Marathon in early May, my running distances have decreased, but I have kept a steady training schedule of 3-4 runs most weeks. I can’t say that it’s been particularly easy given conditions haven’t been particularly helpful, but I am very proud to have kept going after that big milestone race I was training for over a long period.

Parkrun has made a welcome return in my schedule, and I am very grateful for several local community events to choose from every Saturday.

A photo of books, cards and stationary which I picked up on a recent visit to Hay-on-Wye.

Reading

Reading has been A LOT of fun this summer. I have read too many historical naval novels (thank you, Patrick O’Brian) and also a lot of other fun reads, whilst failing most of the time to track them as I had hoped to do this year.

I catch up on the app I use every now and then when I remember, but by then I have likely moved on to new books already. Some recent highlights:
- We Burned So Bright by TJ Klune: An original story-telling voice and an end of the world scenario spin a tale of an existential road trip. I loved it.
- wild things by laura kay: a summer romance read with a wonderfully diverse cast of characters that I spent a very happy afternoon devouring.
- The Secret World of Weather by Tristan Gooley: my current read, and absolutely fascinating. I stood in the nearby rugby field with a compass, checking which direction the wind came from and watching the cloud. Highly recommended.
I’ve also been re-reading Richard Osman’s cosy crime books in anticipation of his new one coming out. Joy.

Postcards that arrived this month

Pen Pal

One of my lifelong hobbies is writing letters, and over the years I have had many pen pals. Some come and go, others stay for many years. My mother must be my most long-standing postal correspondent but I have a few friends with whom I have sent many letters, cards and small parcels back and forth across continents and oceans. It may be out of fashion (and many postal services are creaking), but it brings me much joy and connections.
31/08/2026
Road to Nowhere

I love the song Road to Nowhere by the Talking Heads. I am listening to it right now, just as I am typing this.

This post is a bit complicated, so let’s see if I can put it all together and make some sense out of it:

It all started with the DS106 Radio Summer Camp, an online, radio-based conference that happened for 12 hours on Tuesday (and it was FABULOUS). I always play the song as part of my set, as I associate it with all the things that I treasure about being a citizen of the open web and the DS106 community.

…would you like to come along? You can help me sing this song. And it’s alright…

At the end of a long day of connecting, chatting and sharing tunes on the airwaves, I started to read a book I recently bought in town (TJ Klune’s We Burned So Bright). It’s a story of a road trip, during the apocalypse. There’s a black hole approaching that promises the end of the world and against that backdrop a journey across the US brings many encounters and adventures.

I haven’t yet finished it, but it’s a beautifully written book, and very much a book of our times. In one chapter the Golden Records get a mention, and it really captured my imagination. If, like me, you don’t quite recall, the Golden Record is a “phonograph record, a 12-inch gold-plated copper disk containing sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth” which was launched into space in 1977 on the Voyager spacecrafts.

The day following the summer camp, I was working on a postgrad module about leadership and organisational culture, and as part of that research I was seeking some inspiration in the work pioneered by Lou Mycroft. As it happens, Lou just posted a newsletter that really chimed with me on Joy and the Planetary Crisis, a great read and full of valuable, practical reminders of what we can do to make a difference every day.

One of the questions Lou leaves us with is this: Ask yourself, ‘What am I fighting for, today?’. And that is where this post comes in.

I was thinking what I would put on my own version of a Golden Record, what I would treasure enough to tell the universe about, even in times of apocalypse (and this summer the climate crisis has certainly focused my mind on those times).

Most of my list would be about the people I love. my husband, my family, my friends, my dogs. Some books, art, music. There’s a lot in the world I love and want to protect, and many experiences I treasure. Blogging and radio, too.

On Tuesday I felt that once again. How important this lifeline of connection and community is to me, and how joyful it was to cut across the digital noise and celebrate the things we are curious about and the stories we want to share. If our 12 hours of radio became a Golden Record, it would surely give anyone listening a sense of hope and joy, of what we hold dear and what we want to protect and fight for.

Thank you DS106 Radio for making it happen. #4life.

Thank you to Chahira Nouira, Simon Horrocks, Phil Walker, Clint Lalonde, Martin Weller, Alan Levine, Mark Corbett Wilson, Sarah Honeychurch, Joe Murphy, Taylor Jadin, Alexis Block, Laura Gibbs, Sam Hooper, Jason Teitelman and especially Jim Groom, for everything.

20/08/2026
The beautiful long tail of (un)social media

I really like this recent article by John Naughton on how social media has turned unsocial. In it he shares some interesting figures about the declining proportion of users, particularly younger adult users, who post on social media sites and the increase in consuming content passively, scrolling mindlessly.

It echoes with my own use of these platforms, both in terms of my personal posting habits and my ability to reach and connect with others. Things have changed, that’s for sure. And yet I am one of the lucky web generation that experienced the age of social media and blogging that built real personal connections and friendships, many of which still persist.

Never has that been more apparent than on a recent trip to Canada, a holiday which gave me the opportunity to catch up with many friends first made on social media, through conferences and collaborations. In many cases it’s been many years since we last saw each other in real life, hugged and shared food, and we keep in touch sporadically via letters and postcards, or old-fashioned family facebook posts or indeed on signal and wherever else.

We shared travels tips and subsequently visited many eateries and vinyl shops and beaches recommended by friends. It really made the trip so much more special, and led to sharing many photos and travel updates along the way.

A photo of the Tacofino taco truck in Tofino.

We collected stickers, now proudly covering my suitcase, from as many places as we could, and it reminded me of my laptop that likewise used to be covered in stickers from conferences (it still is, I just travel a little less nowadays) and how I used to collect and send stickers from events on to friends who couldn’t make it. Once we had a regular ‘black market’ for Bryan Mather’s beautiful creations between the edtech lady pen pals of the world.

I may not like what many mainstream social media platforms are turning into today, and I will continue to try and connect and engage via federated social media, but I am most grateful for the connections that I made in the before times, and all the beautiful friendships that have resulted from them.

18/05/2026
Long time reader…

I often talk about blogging, but this post is different. This is a thank you to two writers whom I have been following for a long while, and whose work continues to inspire me.

Julia Harrison

First up, is Julia Harrison, a North Carolina-based artist, anthropologist, and educator, whom I met when I was studying Anthropology at UCL.

Julia’s work is all round awesome, and I am a regular reader of her blog, and a great admirer of her creations. From wooden paper bags and jewellery to awe-inspiring public art and furnishings, her domain is a treasure trove of inspiration. You can even join her for a virtual studio visit!

What I appreciate the most, however, is Julia’s newsletter. It’s semi-regular, and whenever a new edition lands in my inbox I happily read the whole thing. I love the tone and voice, I am always interested to learn about what’s been happening and it balances a great mix of work/art and life.

Nick Tabone

Around the same time as I was at UCL, I also worked at Foyles, and London’s melting pot delivered a wonderful group of co-workers including Nick Tabone. Already full to the brim with book and music recommendations then, many of which I still have on my bookshelf and in my record collection today, Nick’s writing has evolved over the years as his life has taken him to become a writer, a sailor, a runner, and a skateboarder.

I mostly follow his non-fiction, usually written from aboard ship, always compelling and beautiful. And there is a huge amount of poetry and fiction to explore as well, which I strongly recommend you do.

One day, I hope that copies of Nick’s published books will sit alongside all the volumes he inspired me to read on the shelf next to my desk.

May the blogging continue 🙂

Image: Hat tip by Maren Deepwell is licenced CC-BY-SA 4.0

16/06/2025
Read, Run, Write. Repeat.

After a week away I have returned to my desk to write (freshly inspired thanks to the museums of Amsterdam). Progress on the book this month has been better, and I have found a new rhythm: read, run, write. Repeat.

It helps me to read more to feed my creativity and find inspiration, and I am lucky that my recent haul of books from the library has been plentiful in both. The running gives me space and time to think about things, and although I rarely manage to actually record anything whilst I jog along river paths (I need the breath for running), by the time I return home I am usually ready to get writing.

In my writing journal I keep a record of the days I write, and how long I have worked for. At the moment, I have started with 90 minutes, then step away. My concentration doesn’t last much long yet, as I am finding my way into the book. Flow is patchy, but there is a vague shape of things now. I am getting words down on the page.

This month was the first in my new writing regime, and it feels good.

28/05/2025
The Lost Podcast: Talking career (meaning) making with Kin Lane

Inspired by Kin Lane’s post Having a Career I recently posted my own career story, and this blog post exchange inspired me so much that I reached out to Kin to record a conversation for the podcast. And so, two humans and two dogs assembled online to do just that.

We chatted for an hour, and the conversation was so thought provoking! In addition, meeting the one and only Poppy R Lane (follow her on Instagram) was especially fun (my own dog eyed the bike side car with envy… ;)). Unfortunately the tech gods weren’t smiling and I didn’t manage to capture the conversation audio, resulting in no podcast. Sigh.

Instead, I want to use this post to capture some of the things that came up (for me) during our conversation and also express how much it inspired my thinking. In an ideal world, the conversation would have happened in a NYC park, where I was supposed to be later this month, and instead we made do with the best virtual equivalent. Maybe this ‘lost podcast’ is a good metaphor for why some conversations have to happen in the here and now. Maybe there will be another version of the conversation we eventually record as a podcast.

Creating measure for what matters

One of the things we talked about was finding new meanings for what matters when traditional metrics of career progress, financial or reputational reward, become less meaningful. In the context of reinventing yourself and your career path. We shared examples of manual jobs we had early on, and how there is no straight line, no template to predict the path from those origins via all the things that have been accomplished since, to where we are now. Each on our own journey to reinvent and I suppose reinvigorate our thinking at the intersection of technology and society. I shared the example of beach/life balance (my measure for how often I can afford time off to go to the beach with the dogs), which I have come to use to check in with work/life balance and focusing on things outside of my computer screen.

Holding your own space on the web

Kin is a prolific blogger, both on his own domains Kin Lane and the API Evangelist. As a writer and a storyteller he holds his own space on the web, and we reflected on how we would advise new or emerging bloggers. This was prompted by me being asked recently how and why I started to blog and how to get started now. I couldn’t really recall exactly how I got started initially, but it was during my time at art school, when I was experimenting with writing and sketching and sharing my work in any way I could. Given how much the web has evolved since then and what being present online necessarily brings with it, we came up with quite a few hesitations about starting now. From staying safe and dealing with inevitable unpleasantness to navigating the dynamics of social networks and the struggle to actually find someone to connect with.

And yet, Kin mentioned how important it is to hold your own space on the web, to have your own domain and to use it to articulate, to have a voice.

If you haven’t come across it, watch Kin and Jim Groom chat about Blogging over on Reclaim TV.

It takes work.

One of the things that really resonates with me is Kin’s commitment to doing the work. The work of reading and writing, to try and see the world from different angles, and to educate yourself about different points of view. It’s a human activity, a necessity (to my mind at least), that you can’t outsource. It takes time and effort and energy. It’s a lot of work. And only you can do it.

I may have had a very different path, but that notion of doing the work, and seeing value in that, it means a lot to me, and it reflects how much I treasure being part of the world, and how much there is to enjoy in the everyday, in being a human being (with a dog;) .

Thank you, Kin and Poppy.

14/05/2025