Aug. 6, 2024
A hardback book called “The Satsuma Complex” is all that remains of a mysterious young lady that young lawyer Gary is chatting up in the pub one night. It’s a book that everyone reckons is “a bit sh*t”. But Gary’s moping about after the Satsuma lady doing a runner while he was in the loo will have to be put on hold when his friend turns up dead. I really enjoyed this book.
Tags: Books, Twenty Four, Bob Mortimer, Detective Story, Comedy
Aug. 5, 2024
Welcome to the new look for my blog. I’ve had my eye on a more minimal look for a while now. Whether this new look is successful or not depends on how often I write new posts. To that end, this theme also supports a separate (or almost separate) stream of photos. Once I’ve got back in to the habit of putting photos up, that should be a nice additional stream of content.
Tags: Blogging, Twenty Four, Meta, Writing
Jan. 14, 2024
Once upon a time, a cat named Nerys ripped into the bottom of our sofa to make herself a cozy burrow. This was all well and good, except for the times when she would do it when we were using the sofa too. On these occasions (and presumably on most others) she would proceed to sharpen her claws on what remained of the fabric. (A less charitable reason for this behaviour would be that she was simply widening the whole for her future self after eating more and more kibbles!
Tags: Twenty Four, Sofa, Projects, Puns
Jan. 12, 2024
One of the things that people tend to start around this time of year is a diary. They usually get filled for as long as your new year’s resolutions last. However, I’ve been writing in my current diary for a while. It’s a Moleskine extra large ruled Notebook in beautiful Prussian Blue, covered in whatever stickers pass over my desk. (Hint: find my address and send me stickers Internet.) This is much more preferable to a ‘real’ diary because I can leave a few days and then resume.
Tags: Twenty Four, Writing, Emotions, Diary, Life Experiences
Jan. 11, 2024
There was an excellent article on The Verge yesterday about how Google is transforming the kinds of sites and blogs that are on the internet. I also read this slightly more personal take by Jason Velasquez, which is more about how social networks have gobbled up all the time and attention of people who might otherwise be making interesting web sites. This has made me think deeply about what this blog is for, and why I might continue to blog in Twenty Twenty Four.
Tags: Blogging, Writing, AI, Twenty Four, Life Experiences, Getting Better
Jan. 10, 2024
When I wrote about Maara’s “The Ancient Truth” over Christmas as part of my albums of the year rundown, I mentioned at the end that I would love to find a copy on vinyl to listen to. Well dear reader I managed to! It arrived today from the Netherlands with minimal fuss. It sounds great and I’m not sure whether my review did it justice: that’s the problem with attempting to (re-)review ten albums in ten days with Christmas and New Year all happening at the same time!
Tags: Maara, Twenty Four, Electronic, Album Digest, Vinyl
Jan. 8, 2024
The cats broke their new resolution not to knock stuff over in my office. Oh, who am I kidding? They never had such a resolution! If you can see a sheet of saturated paper, that was my to do list! Oh well. The cats were either bounding across my desk to get to the window and look at the snow. Or they were just chasing each other around as usual.
Tags: Twenty Four, Photo, Cats, Life Experiences
Jan. 7, 2024
Dear Future Matt, Always look up instructions for what you want to do in the Git documentation. It’s dry but it’s good. In a pinch, look at Stack Overflow. Don’t ask Chat-GPT for advice on Git problems! To reverse mistakes, consult the Oh Shit Git website. To make things easier, delete the remote to your Github repository and then add it (the remote) back again. This is so much easier than the alternative.
Tags: Coding, Twenty Four, Blogging, Hugo, Git
Jan. 2, 2024
Travel In 2023, it was Germany or go home. Went to Cologne in January. Here is photographic evidence: We took the Eurostar via Brussels. A bit of a long day on the way back but much less stressful compared to flying. We went to the Isle of Wight in June. It was the first time I’d been since I was about 8. This time I didn’t get Chicken Pox. Anyway, here is photographic evidence:
Tags: Twenty Four, Life Experiences, Writing, Blogging, Travel
Jan. 1, 2024
A quick list of ten other albums I considered to be among the best of last year. I either listened to these less, or in the cases of “Transmission Three” and “Be Opened By The Wonderful” considered them to be ineligible as they are compilations. Yves Tumor, “Praise a Lord Who Chews but Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds)” Great album, recommended to me by Apple Music slinging the first track into my discovery feed back when that featured was added.
Tags: Music, Album Digest, Twenty Three, Twenty Four, Albums
Dec. 31, 2023
Sofia Kourtesis is a Berlin-based Peruvian dance producer, “Madres” is her debut album which follows on from a 2021 EP “Fresia Magdalena”. It was trailed by several singles, including the title track which caught my attention back in May. The album is dedicated to her parents and there are also songs dedicated to the surgeon who performed life-saving surgery on Kourtesis’s mother. The whole album is a heady mix of positivity and dedication to both music and to family.
Tags: Album Digest, Music, Twenty Three, Albums, Sofia Kourtesis, Electronic
Dec. 30, 2023
“Cool artwork! No, we don’t have it but it’s coming in next week.” “Cool artwork! We haven’t had a copy in but I can order it for you.” Me picking it up a week later: “Cool artwork!” “Imagine This is a High Dimensional Space of All Possibilities” is definitely album title of the year, made all the more topical with the intrusion of Chat-GPT and the like into the cultural conversation.
Tags: Album Digest, Music, Twenty Three, Albums, James Holden, Electronic