Life
What’s on my iPhone? (Or: Appy new year)
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(This is a lazier than usual post for a lazy New Year’s Day. Normal service will resume when the year is in full swing…)
I don’t know about you, but I can’t so much as glance at someone else’s iPhone without wanting to grab it and have a nose at what applications they’ve installed. So for [...]
Carbon reduction begins at my home
When I watched that Al Gore film, I came away full of good intentions about changing my ways and my lightbulbs - then promptly did neither.
But recently Croydon Council sent round an enthusiastic man with terrible B.O. to do a home energy review, and kitted me out with a load of cool energy saving stuff [...]
Weekend project: A gang of pot heads…
…has started hanging out around in my back garden, much to the delight of my toddler son.
You will need: Enamel paints, clean plastic pots, compost and small things that grow. Tree stumps optional.
Inspiration for this one came from The Dad Manual (an ace book which I’m slightly ashamed to confess I bought for myself. Full [...]
It’s all kicking off in my garden
Spring has most definitely sprung in my garden. I had today off work and was out there planting some veg seeds (already off plan, somehow) and re-potting a bay tree. In the process of all this I spotted many signs of new, edible life. Including:
The first of hopefully many strawberry flowers (above)
Some tiny baby figs
Some [...]
Going Pro: what web applications have you paid for, and why?
With the endless speculation about Twitter’s monetisation plans and ample indications that most Twitter users *would* be willing to pay some hard-earned cash for their continued use of the service, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at what web applications people currently pay for.
For my part, it has to be a [...]
Sometimes They Nest… Some More!
Betty, my Speckledy hen, has gone broody.
This means she will sit on the nest for about 21 days, not laying any eggs and barely eating. Which is a problem if you’re Rosie (my other hen), and want to lay an egg. And a problem if you’re Betty and don’t get enough to eat or drink.
Some [...]
My house is on Google. My jaw is on the floor.
Google Street View went live for the UK yesterday.
So I promptly did the only rational thing and went looking for my house.
To my utter astonishment (given I live in little known Norbury), here it is, and what’s more I can pinpoint this photo to some time between May-July 2008 by recognisable features and alterations to [...]
Plan plot scheme!
“PLAN PLOT SCHEME!” is what I wrote on my To Do list last weekend.
…Not realising until I read it back that it’s just the sort of thing Guy Fawkes (not that one) may have typed into his PDA-equivalent one October weekend in 1605.
What I meant was the relatively innocent task of planning a planting scheme [...]
Hello, I'm Neil Williams. I'm a government web geek, a dad, a husband, a grower of veg, a keeper of hens and a lapsed comedy writer, roughly in that order. 
