2026-03-19 17:46:10
This has to be one of the most popular bags of all time.
Manufactured in Sweden in the 1960s (not mine, obviously) and visible on virtually everyone on the commute, this hardy rucksack is big enough for everything I need without being overly big.
I've been after a Mustard one for ages and spotted this for £8 on Vinted which is an absolute steal. Admittedly the bag was pretty dirty but that doesn't really bother me; it's going to spend half its life on the floor of a train anyway!
Designed originally as a school bag, it has a little front pocket for pens and trinkets, a thin sleeve on each side for a water bottle and an umbrella, and a large main compartment for everything else.
There is zero padding anywhere. Luckily I was brought up to always carry a towel which protects my fragiles in transit.
This modern variety has a sleeve inside for a laptop. My 14" Macbook Pro fits perfectly.
The only downsides are the tiny side pockets. I had to buy a specially slim water bottle as a regular Chilly's didn't fit.
I'm not entirely sure I'd cough up full price for one but it's an ideal size for my daily commute, comfortable enough on the shoulders, and infinitely affordable secondhand.
2026-03-19 03:28:38
Following in the footsteps of Alex and Joel, here's my contribution to the Great Genre Debate™.
Fantasy.
There's a lot of sub-genres from Sword-and-Sorcery to Historical Fantasy, contemporary Urban to the encompassing world building of High Fantasy.
I much prefer contemporary urban fantasy to sword-and-sorcery; think Harry Potter instead of Conan the Barbarian, but I do enjoy a bit of swashbuckling every now and again. There's some snobbery around "low fantasy" but I say fuck snobbery and fuck book snobs in particular.
I have a few depending on the sub-genre.
Sarah Painter's Crow Investigations series is a modern classic of the urban fantasy magical realism genre.
Susan Cooper and Juliette McKenna mix magic and mythology and folklore into places I know like the back of my hand and show me a world I know through new eyes.
Brian Jacques' masterful descriptions designed to make his books more inclusive for disabled children make him some kind of writing god.
Victoria Aveyard and Suzanne Collins both write strong female leads in dystopian authoritarian universes.
I've read some incredible debuts recently from Sunyi Dean, Tomi Adeyemi, and Gareth Brown.
Obviously no list of fantasy authors is complete without Ursula K LeGuin — absolute queen.
A combination of variety and escapism.
I love the idea of magic particularly. I would probably be utterly freaked out by that amount of power if I were to have magic myself and I don't like the potential ramifications of such power being abused.
Fantasy, despite appearances, tells us a lot about our own mundane society. Much like science fiction (often the two genres are lumped together as SFF
), fantasy is often a mirror or a speculation; “what would the world look like if…” Giving heroes mystical abilities to overcome the horrors, I feel, shows us we need to work to prevent the worst because we can't rely on magic to save us!
There's probably only a handful of actual "stories" but infinite ways to tell them and there's so much beauty in that.
I can't quite remember what came first; Mr Preston reading The Hobbit to us in school like he had done for countless other classes year-in year-out, or getting Redwall books from the library.
I think everyone should read "A Wizard of Earthsea" at some point. Ursula K LeGuin's high fantasy series is just brilliant. It's a peak example of how the genre can be done well. That said, it's also approachable. It doesn't suffer from a level of pretension that makes a lot of "classical" (pale, stale, male) fantasy impenetrable and, dare I say, dull. Sorry not sorry, JRR!
That's like asking a bird why it sings — it's what I do, it's what I've always done.
I love the way my imagination powers the story, my experiences fill ambiguity and colour my reading between the lines.
Reading is my entertainment, my education, my way of processing the world.
So, what about you? What's your favourite genre to read? Get in touch by email, hit me up on the Socials™, or elsewhere online.
2026-03-17 05:00:39
When I was a kid, my dad did an A-level in photography for funsies. He used this beautiful Praktica LTL. At the time I had no idea what that even was.
Fast forward 30 years and I'm the photographer and that Praktica has sat in my dad's attic… until now.
He popped round one weekend in mid-January and dropped off his old camera bag with a boat load of gear inside; the body, a couple of lenses, a flash and shutter release cable, and a Leningrad 4 light meter.
The Praktica LTL is one of those 1970s "Soviet Workhorse" cameras that rivalled the Canon AE-1 and the Minolta SRT series. Similar all-metal construction to my Zenits but with a touch more East German finesse.
The viewfinder shows more of the scene than a Zenit but is darker than more modern cameras. The focus ring is microprism only; no split like my Minolta SR-T 303 and certainly no diagonal split like my Minolta X-9 (the absolute queen of focusing rings!)
Unusually, the shutter release is on the front of the camera near the self-timer instead of the top. I keep trying to press the top of the winder which is where my Minolta has the release. Apparently the positioning and the sloping angle means you're pushing it into your face when you take a shot which stabilisers the camera better than the "straight down" of other makes. I can honestly say I didn't notice any difference.
One thing I did notice, however; the internal film spool has an incorporated wire grip to make loading film quicker and more reliable. Feed the end of the film through the two wires and close the back — boom "speed loading"! I'm not one for burning through multiple rolls on one outing but I certainly appreciate the design.
The vertical metal shutter is efficient and bomb proof but noisy.
The aforementioned self-timer is jammed but it doesn't appear to affect the operation of the camera. I never really use it myself and I'm not particularly bothered about resell value so I'm considering it "not an issue".
This sleek metal mechanical weighs less than my Zenits, more than my X-9, and about the same as my SR-T 303.
It was well balanced with the 50mm prime on the front, didn't rock back or pitch forward on the strap.
I loaded a roll of trusty Kentmere Pan 400 and took it with me on a couple of day trips. Given I was bringing the camera along for the ride, not a dedicated photo walk, I decided the safest thing to do was set-and-forget.
I put the shutter on ƒ11 and the speed at 1/500s which was a good balance for the bright but overcast English Winter day.
Twisting the focus ring to zone focus between 3m and infinity — hyperfocal distance — meant I didn't have to fiddle around adjusting the focus ring for anything more than 3m away which, at a zoo, is pretty much everything!
A comfortable carry, the Praktica dart around my neck all day without complaint.
I got some weird "slipping" at the end of the roll restoring in some double exposure which, happily, were more artistic than shit.
Setting up to be a "point and shoot" made it a breeze to get some good shots of the animals and landscapes. Next time I'll try some actual focusing. It'd be a crime to not use that Carl Zeiss lens to full potential!
This isn't the easiest of my cameras to use, nor the most fun. But it's the most special and I love it.
2026-03-16 02:35:51
I started reading Tomi Adeyemi's "Children of Blood and Bone" this week and I'm really enjoying it. I'll save a more detailed analysis for a proper review when I'm finished but, amongst other things, I'm really appreciating the world building.
Another busy week at work.
Organising epics into stories and discussing design system implementation within the existing ecosystem.
It feels like I spent more time talking about work than actually doing it 🤣
Quite pleased that we've identified a lot of technical improvements that can be done ahead of the new design launch. Hopefully we'll get the foundations shipshape and purring like a kitten before a new lick of paint gilds that lily (to mix a few metaphors).
My wife shared a lovely article on clever Japanese stationery design with me and now I've mentally spent hundreds of pounds. I probably will buy the Stálogy Editor’s Series 365-day Notebook (A6) at Christmas because it looks lovely and, even though it's expensive on the surface, it works out at only 7p a day!
I posted two rolls of film at the start of the week but not heard they've been received yet which is worrying. The developers are usually really responsive so I'm sure the fault is with Royal Mail. I'll be gutted if they've gone forever.
He wants to believe that playing by the monarchy's rules will keep us safe, but nothing can protect us when those rules are rooted in hate.
Tomi Adeyemi, "Children of Blood and Bone"
2026-03-11 23:23:25
For as long as she can remember, James's connection with her twin has gone beyond intuition - she can feel what he feels. So when Johnny is killed in a tragic accident, James knows before her phone even rings that she's alone - truly alone - for the first time in her life.
I knew I liked this book when I realised I was half way through and virtually nothing had happened. A slow burn, small rural town pace. Glacial; like the very landscape.
Speaking of; the descriptions of the northern Californian forests felt Twilight af (affectionate).
I love the "is it supernatural or not" vibe; feels very intentional and cleverly written.
The big hook for this story is at the heart it's a juicy mystery! His sister James and his best friend, Micah, try and piece together his final moments to work out if Johnny's death was an accident or not. Firmly in the solving crimes without cops sub-genre of crime thrillers I love love love.
This is all rounded off with a twist I did not see coming!
I would recommend this to fans of interesting mysteries, crime thrillers without explosions and car chases, or anyone who wants to lose themselves in the dark, damp forests of the Pacific Northwest.
2026-03-09 17:54:25
A bout of bacterial tonsillitis recently necessitated a course of antibiotics. I had to take them 4 times a day at regular intervals. I did some maths and settled on 06:30, 11:30, 16:30, and 21:30.
I have a terrible habit of ignoring Todoist notifications and I didn't want to clutter the family task list with my personal medication reminders. So, I had a quick look around for a medication reminders application.
I had an alternative motive as well; at work, we make a lot of patient support apps that, inevitably, include medication reminders and I was curious what functionality a dedicated tool might have.
TakeYourPills looked like what I wanted; free, simple, no account needed.
The app has had a fairly standard Material Design™ feel to it. There are a handful of sensible settings customise reminders.
I chose the "Guest" profile and didn't have to provide any information. Multiple profiles seem like a good idea for, say, carers who have their own medication needs — if I needed to give my kids meds as well as myself, having one app with multiple users is much better than several apps!
Again, simplicity wins out here — Name, Description, and Shape. I love the Shape option; a handful of icons depicting tablets, capsules, needles, inhalers, creams, and liquids. A really simple mechanism but so useful if you have multiple medications to take — comorbidities being something very common with chronic illnesses.
You are given a couple of options; "at specific times" or "every x hours". I feel it was lacking the specific "4 times a day starting at" option that I really wanted but, as I said, I worked out the times myself and used "at specific times" without any issues.
There's also a schedule for when the medication should be taken; "every day", "on specific days", or "every x days". This feels like it covers most bases.
I left this alone and manually ended the course but, again, I can see utility.
Being able to set dosing warnings ("maximum dose in 24 hours" and/or "minimum interval between doses") is a nice addition for more complex medications or those with more serious side effects. I didn't feel I needed to set this either.
Push notifications from the app allow the user to mark that dose as skipped or taken which is great. It also logs the exact time you skipped or took the medication.
I wouldn't exactly say I enjoyed using this app. It's fairly utilitarian; short on delighters or "gameification" but, honestly, that suits me. I don't think I would have enjoyed "Yay! You're crushing it!" vibes but YMMV.
TakeYourPills did exactly what I needed it to, the in-app ads were unobtrusive, and I'm glad I didn't have to create an account.