Baskers

What a nasty little piece of work in the Mail today. Do I need to link to it? If you’re reading this I guess you know the one. “Civil servant drinks booze; gets bored sometimes; feels things; has a pulse;…

Over the opendata rainbow

Every pantomime needs a villain. Tuesday’s was clearly SOCITM – the association of local government IT leaders, famous for labyrinthine procurements, unnatural desires for mainframes, banning Facebook from the desktop and wearing Simpsons ties in the office*. Oh, and for…

Small mercies

A woman sits up in her hospital bed. Pain has started to flash through her, and she knows she needs to take painkillers quickly, before it gets any worse. She knows which painkillers, too. She summons the nurse with the…

Tax discs and pointless processes

Another tale of poor service design. Yes, it’s been a while since I wrote one of these. No, things don’t seem to be improving. Yes, it’s a call centre again. The old challenge of remote authentication: are you who you…

Where in the world are you?

I was tipped off about this interesting little ‘utility’ today. Now, I don’t know much about the author (other than being able to see something of his social graph) and anything you do, or any information you provide, via that…

Tweetbike redux

One should never haul out an old idea, of course. The novelty’s worn off and everybody’s bored. But in a world of pop-up applications and never-heard-of-again gimmicks, it’s easy to try something once and just not bother again. So, rain,…

Speed cameras

The difficulties that digital services have in coping with the subtleties of real-life is a topic of perpetual fascination. To me, at least. As well as providing an example of a meaningful “government” transaction which is mostly binary in outcome…

More lift fun

From the archives: originally written on another platform almost three years ago, but in light of recent discussions on elevatorial matters, revived and blogged here. Enjoy. There’s these new lifts in Portland House. Well, the lifts aren’t new, but the…

Fixed my street

Ormskirk is a small market town in the very south-west of Lancashire. I grew up there. The most famous person to come from there in ages was my fellow-actor from the early 1980s, Jonathan Culshaw (we did pantos and musicals…

The profligate BBC

Or is it? I don’t really know why I’m bothering to take issue with this article in the Sunday Express. Once I start on this sort of mission, when will I be able to stop? Anyway, the lurid headline blares…

When is the government not the government?

The Prime Minister has asked… The government recommended that… It was suggested by ministers that… Number 10 has contacted… Conservative party officials have acted to… MPs demand… The government will order… Parliament to decree… We see variations on these all…