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Dec 14, 2024: Finished reading: Poems by William Blake, selected and introduced by Patti Smith 📚
Dec 6, 2024: Great quote from Hunter S. Thompson: “It is not necessary to accept the choices handed down to you by life as you know it. There is more to it than …
Dec 4, 2024: Finished reading: Principles of Sustainable Finance by Dirk Schoenmaker and Willem Schramade 📚
Dec 1, 2024: Finished reading: A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver 📚
Nov 30, 2024: Finished reading: Stasiland by Anna Funder 📚
Nov 29, 2024: Some useful definitions of diction, tone and voice from Mary Oliver’s A Poetry Handbook. Diction: “‘Watch your language!’ you may say to …
Nov 21, 2024: Finished reading: A Life on Our Planet by Sir David Attenborough 📚
Nov 19, 2024: Finished reading: A Path Through the Jungle by Prof Steve Peters 📚 What a fantastic book. Strongly recommend it to anybody looking for some practical, …
Nov 18, 2024: Delighted to have been awarded a distinction in my journalism diploma from the London School of Journalism. 🎓
Nov 14, 2024: Finished reading: Invisible Doctrine by George Monbiot and Peter Hutchison 📚
Nov 11, 2024: Finished reading: How to Read a Poem by Terry Eagleton 📚
Nov 10, 2024: As the dust settles on the US election result, those who care about what it means for the climate may find some strength in these words from James …
Nov 10, 2024: Sir Jonathan Bate has commented on the shift from humanities to STEM subjects among students seeking well-paying jobs. “The irony of that, of course, …
Nov 9, 2024: Venus is shining bright as the sun goes down. Seems like the only star in the sky.
Nov 8, 2024: Finished reading: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou 📚
Nov 2, 2024: Every now and then something happens in my life that reminds me of the importance of having a compassionate mind, both towards others and towards …
Oct 29, 2024: Big fan of iA Writer. Its measured approach to incorporating AI in its writing tool is interesting. Instead of adding OpenAI & Co. to our app …
Oct 26, 2024: Stopped for a lunchtime drink at a bar in Rome and, unknown to me, a French girl sitting at the next table was drawing me as I was talking on the …
Oct 26, 2024: The room in Rome where John Keats died.
Oct 25, 2024: Walked past some old building in Rome around sunset tonight.
Oct 20, 2024: “Coming from an ‘empty’ world with abundant natural resources, the Industrial Revolution brought prosperity in the form of economic and population …
Oct 17, 2024: “Being kind to others is mostly about your actions. Being kind to yourself is mostly about your thoughts.” From James Clear’s newsletter.
Oct 16, 2024: Finished reading: The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson 📚
Oct 12, 2024: A beach at the Porto Selvaggio nature reserve in Salento. You need to walk through woods for 30 minutes from the nearest parking spot. Worth it every …
Oct 11, 2024: Finished working my way through the Earth’s Changing Climate course by Professor Richard Wolfson, available on Audible or directly through The …
Oct 6, 2024: Great article by Helen Thomson in The Observer about the mental health benefits of taking walks in nature. Throughout the pandemic, I tried to take a …
Oct 2, 2024: Finished reading: Cosmos by Carl Sagan 📚
Sep 21, 2024: Finished reading: Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks 📚
Sep 21, 2024: Finished reading: The Madness of Crowds by Douglas Murray 📚
Aug 25, 2024: Finished reading: A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle 📚
Aug 21, 2024: I’ve been looking for a markdown editor that’s nice to use, keeps everything in sync and plays well offline. I frequently work across …
Aug 11, 2024: Finished reading: Ultra-Processed People by Chris van Tulleken 📚
Aug 10, 2024: Finished reading: Vulture Capitalism by Grace Blakeley 📚
Aug 2, 2024: I’ve been comparing Google’s Gemini 1.5 Pro with OpenAI’s GPT-4o. The consensus from my research seems to be that most people think …
Aug 2, 2024: Finished reading: The Cold War by Odd Arne Westad 📚
Jul 21, 2024: Finished reading: The Collected Poems by Robert Frost 📚
Jul 2, 2024: Finished reading: Poetry in the Making by Ted Hughes 📚 This is a great short book about poetry and the craft of writing it.
Jun 25, 2024: Finished reading: The Murders in the Rue Morgue and Other Tales by Edgar Allan Poe 📚
Jun 5, 2024: Finished reading: The Inferno by Dante 📚
May 19, 2024: This quote from software engineer Kent Beck pretty much sums up where I keep going wrong. “By far the dominant reason for not releasing sooner was a …
Apr 28, 2024: Young vines preparing to soak up the summer sun.
Apr 25, 2024: Finished reading: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho 📚
Apr 5, 2024: Finished reading: Bright Wings by Billy Collins 📚 Drawings of birds and poems about birds. What’s not to love?
Apr 1, 2024: Over recent months this website has morphed into a public log of my reading. I’m ok with that. I guess the beauty of having a personal website …
Apr 1, 2024: Finished reading: Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris 📚 Funny and beautifully written.
Mar 25, 2024: Finished reading: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams 📚
Mar 12, 2024: Finished reading: Regenesis by George Monbiot 📚
Feb 21, 2024: Finished reading: Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad by Austin Kleon 📚
Feb 18, 2024: It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that you just are who you are, forgetting the power you have to take action and become who you want to be. …
Feb 17, 2024: Finished reading: Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller 📚
Feb 15, 2024: Apple recently shared a great Q&A with its UX writing team from last year’s WWDC. Lots of good insights here. If you’re a writer it’s …
Feb 13, 2024: Interesting to hear Malcolm Gladwell talk about his writing process on MasterClass. He shared how he breaks every piece of writing down into small, …
Feb 13, 2024: Finished reading: The Creative Act by Rick Rubin 📚
Feb 12, 2024: Finished reading: Naples ‘44 by Norman Lewis 📚
Feb 10, 2024: This has been a year of discovering American sports. Feels like they never stop, except for the ads. Chose Chicago as my base, don’t ask me why. …
Feb 9, 2024: The Merlin Bird ID app really is a remarkable piece of kit. Its Sound ID feature tells you the type of bird you can hear after recording only a few …
Feb 7, 2024: Finished reading: Wild Mind by Natalie Goldberg. This book was recommended at a poetry event I attended a few months back. Thought-provoking advice on …
Feb 1, 2024: Can’t remember how I stumbled upon The Odin Project web development curriculum, but I’m glad I did. I like the way it points you where to go to dig …
Jan 28, 2024: Italian Sundays are made for passeggiatas. Here’s a shot from our stroll today in central Lecce.
Jan 25, 2024: Hit a 77-day streak on Duolingo today. The gamification of studying Italian is working wonders. Duolingo has become a daily habit, and this also …
Jan 22, 2024: Enrolled in Harvard’s CS50x: Introduction to Computer Science course. Enjoyed working through an older version of this years ago before …
Jan 15, 2024: Finished reading: Dickens and Prince by Nick Hornby. It’s a niche one for sure, but right up my alley. These two geniuses had more in common …
Jan 14, 2024: Whoa, we’re half way there 🎶
Jan 12, 2024: Finished reading: The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play by Neil A. Fiore 📚
Jan 10, 2024: Finished working my way through the Learning How to Learn course on Coursera. This was recommended as a helpful resource at the start of The Odin …
Jan 8, 2024: When I close my computer and head outside, sometimes it feels like I’ve stepped through a time machine instead of a door.
Jan 8, 2024: Finished reading: Dreyer’s English by Benjamin Dreyer 📚
Jan 6, 2024: In a chapter in Baseball 100 about Japanese baseball player Sadaharu Oh, Joe Posnanski compares baseball training in Japan to spring training in the …
Jan 5, 2024: I’m currently listening to The Now Habit audiobook by Dr Neil Fiore. 📚 It’s about beating procrastination. My main takeaway so far is the idea …
Jan 2, 2024: Em dashes (—), en dashes (–) and hyphens (-) I’m currently rereading Dreyer’s English to brush up on some American grammar and enjoy the excellent prose of a man so in love with the …
Jan 1, 2024: This paddle boarder had the right idea. Need to get myself one of those for days when the sea is as beautiful as this.
Jan 1, 2024: Watched: Noam Chomsky’s ‘Independent Thinking and Media’s Invisible Powers’ course on MasterClass. 🎥 Well worth the time. Being …
Jan 1, 2024: Finished reading: Chokepoint Capitalism by Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow 📚
Dec 31, 2023: New year, new home for my thoughts. Let’s make writing here a habit in 2024.
Dec 31, 2023: Becoming a Digital Craftsperson My career has not exactly been a straight path. I have no regrets about that, I much prefer it that way. But it’s funny, because looking back at some …