This is an incomplete selection of my work as a freelance writer between 2001 and 2014. Serious linkrot sets in as the links get older – apologies if you click something and end up in limbo.
Columnist, The Press Association
A weekly column, syndicated to hundreds of local newspapers and radio stations around the UK. Very little of it survives online. My own archives are probably your best bet.
The Morning News
Mostly satire, humour, walks and weirdness.
- A lifetime’s one regret
- The Window Cleaner, a pen-portait
- Spies like them, silly spying satire
- Songs in the key of Eno, some thoughts about singing
- The internet of actual things, the stuff of nightmares, or a nightmare of stuff?
- Games kittens play, includes how to chase your own tail
- Touching from a distance, touching the future through the present
- Catlike DIY, putting up shelves with feline assistance
- Interstellar Hard Drive, aka backups in space
- How to attend the Olympics without really dying
- All your futures are known, in which I try to predict the future, and get some of it right
- The Sound of the Internet, transforming the web into noise
- Twitter by Post – exactly what it sounds like
- Things That Go Fifff Striiik Bam in the Night, about sounds and kids.
- The Man Who Loved to Have Coffee with Women, although to be honest I prefer tea
- Handheld Time Machines, gonzo geography in Bristol
- Behind the Pulse, how it feels to faint
- Define the ratio of people to cake, deconstructing daft job interviews
- Dogs like prog – the first in a series of arguments
- The year of practical thinking, the things I learned every day during 2010, in convenient list form
- Where secrets harden; underground secrets and talking dogs
- Stiff upper lip meets sword of truth, David Cameron’s Big Society speech, translated into English
- The passing of the Commons plate, explaining the British political system
- About time, musings on time travel and Press Gang
- Come on sugar, let me know, in which I ask the citizens of Chat Roulette how I know if I have sex appeal
- Songs my mother never taught me, an essay on swearing in pop music
- From cover to cover
- A common nomenclature for Lego families; people, language and Lego deconstructed
- OK Genius, picking fights with software
- The present sound of London, words and noises from the capital
- The Pride of the Bernard-Bernards of West Wickingham is wounded
- When the going was good, political comment
- Wait a minute, Mr Postman, co-written with Rosecrans Baldwin
- Attractive with glasses
- Love sic
- The crippling fear of corriearklet
- A writer by any other name
- Please spool to end of tape before playing other side
Cult of Mac
News, reviews and features about OS X and iOS software. A small selection:
- More Macs than they can count: inside the Moscow Apple Museum
- Control your music with a wave of your hand
- How to use Alfred as a snippet manager
- Notes on the iBooks Author row, efforts to calm a storm in a teacup
- How to bring back Save As in 10.7 Lion
- Clear todo app: also great for poetry!, a silly interlude
- How to set up super quick web searches in Alfred
- Comic Life is half price all this week, writing in comic form
- Snow Leopard is the new retro
Time Techland
Daily contributions for Time magazine’s (now defunct) technology website. A selection:
- Movie shot from space celebrates 50 years since Gagarin’s orbit
- Happy Birthday OS X!
- A wiki history of the world in 100 seconds
- Take a self-portrait every day, every day, every day
- This man knows what you did five minutes ago
- Four seasons in one minute
The Guardian
Occasional articles for the newspaper’s technology section.
The Daily Telegraph
Occasional news, features and interviews.
- Online charity begins at the home page
- In search of the new Google
- Apple versus the iHackers – have gadget, will hack
- Don’t think about it, just write – thoughts on the phenomenon that is tumblelogs
- Like to send the world a text? – explaining Twitter
- Teletext fights for a place in the digital world
- The future at your fingertips – all about multitouch and where it will go next
O’Reilly’s Mac Devcenter
Frequent posts about the early days of Mac OS X. A selection:
- The Good Easy on OS X – how to make your Mac a simpler, more productive environment
- Smarter ways to work with PDFs
- Indie Mac development in the UK
- Introducing Google Desktop for Mac – written at top speed to be as newsy as a feature can be
Contributor/blogger, BBC Online
Contributions to the “dot.life” blog. Also features, interviews, backgrounders and news pieces.
- A library bigger than any building – interviewing Aaron Swartz about his work on the Open Library project
- Building a digital museum
- The seven-year-old bloggers
- I blog, therefore I am
- The DIY travel guide
- Do babyblogs violate children’s privacy?
- Comics turn a new page
- What’s the point of picture messaging?
- The fax machine uprising
- This man wrote down his every thought
- How to be a virtual domestic goddess
- Finding local flavour online
- IQ of 108 and can’t remember anything?
- Roundabout magic, a feature about the Roundabout Appreciation Society
- AI: Artificial Internet?
- Fame or misfortune beckons for weblogs?
Other work
Other companies and websites I wrote for, in one way or another: