- Blog
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Hard play
I’ve been meaning to blog this for while. Russell thinks ‘soft play’ is “one of those things that’s better than it used to be” and I see what he means but I’m not so sure. I’m a pretty involved dad and I spend a fair amount of my time in a local soft play area…
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Being a dad, benefits thereof
It plays a tune. It flashes. It makes a hardened, unsentimental dad cry. Listen, I know it was invented by Hallmark Cards (or was it the CIA?) and I know there’s no genuine tradition anywhere of celebrating the contribution of Dads to the world (unless you count the whole of human culture, right sisters?) but…
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Interpretation please
According to my web site stats over 11,000 people are visiting bowblog.com every month. That sounds quite good doesn’t it? In fact, if I look back at how much I’d have paid in the past (at another.com, for instance) for 11,000 uniques per month it begins to look quite sickening. I’m clueless, though, as to…
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Mukhtaran Bibi
Tom Watson asked me to link to his coverage of the appalling Mukhtaran Bibi story. Tom reckons the UK media is doing a better job of covering this really egregious example of Musharraf’s out-of-control demagoguery than the Americans. That’s encouraging I suppose.
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More about work
Bill Morris’ series about work, Workaday World, is really good. Very nicely put together, sort of contemplative, focused on the voices of working people (and I’m pretty sure that’s Brian Eno on the soundtrack). It ought to be a set text for business and sociology students. Part two (MP3). This is a programme that really,…
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Podcasting on the Today Programme
Stephen Evans gets the phenomenon about right – and introduces me to at least one podcasting application I hadn’t come across yet: unofficial gallery audio guides. Curry is honoured. Mid-West weirdos too. Worth a listen.
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Monday afternoon listening
Just what you need on a Sunny Monday afternoon: a lovely Russell Davies George Formby doc (MP3) and part one (MP3) of an interesting series about work from Bill Morris, who used to be General Secretary of the T&G. Get your skates on and download Radio 3’s complete cycle of Beethoven symphonies, all recently recorded…
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From the storage unit
A marvellous, solid, heavy and slightly mysterious telephone with a big loudspeaker on the front and connections on the back that look like something from a battleship (what is it?). One of my favourite old gadgets (bought, like all the others, from the place old things go to die: Brick Lane market).
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Mouse superstar
Is JK Rowling the only kids’ book gazillionaire? I’d like to think there’s room for more than one kids’ book superstar – someone, maybe, who makes their money (more quietly than JK) from multiple national markets and formats and from a younger, less bankable audience? If there is, it’s probably Lucy Cousins, creator of the…
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Wolves and loss adjusters
Today, to our house, came a loss adjuster. You’ve met loss adjusters – they’re the lone wolves who tell the insurers to settle your claim or not (fingers crossed for that flood damage claim, people). Anyway, the wolf thing is not an excuse for a cheap loss adjuster gag. Our loss adjuster turns out to…