The other day I learnt from my brother that the graphic design company The Designers Republic went out of business earlier this month. My interest in graphic design is not particularly heavy. But the interest I do have in it has all stemmed from my exposure to the work of The Designers Republic. Their work […]
Archive:
January 2009
Scottish budget: I can’t blame the Greens
Scottish politics became exciting and sexy yesterday. Sexy as politics goes anyway. The excitement is over the fact that the SNP have failed to persuade the Scottish Parliament to back its budget. Cue lots of finger pointing. It’s the sort of thing that makes members of the public disdainful of politicians. I chose to listen […]
A BBC scared of its own shadow isn’t worth it
Years ago, this blog had a little button on it. Where today you see little logos for Amnesty International and No2ID, there used to be a button that said “I believe in the BBC”. It was to back this campaign, which was one of the things that got me hooked on blogging. I couldn’t believe […]
The second week of launches
The beginning of last week saw the launches of three more 2009 Formula 1 cars. Williams FW31 Wow, 31. Williams have been around for a long time now, but while their heritage can almost match that of Ferrari or McLaren, their results of late have been massively disappointing. Could 2009 be the year they make […]
The first week of launches
Apologies for the lack of posts here recently. I have been occupied by other things, and the fact that it is the off-season in F1 at the moment makes it easy to choose this blog to put on the back burner. I did not even get round to writing everything I wanted to write about […]
The nicer side of human nature
Having laid into the nasty side of human nature a few days ago, it is only fair that I redress the balance when I am reminded of the good side of people. When I wrote about my (un)employment situation I wasn’t expecting to get such long responses from people offering advice. Not only did I […]
Woolworths: Final thoughts and wrapping up
First of all, apologies to anyone who became sick of Woolworths when I published eight posts in a row about it. As you will have seen, “normal” service is on its way to resumption. Anyway, it was good to get it all off my chest, and is at least cheaper than seeing a therapist. When […]
A warm feeling
Being of a (small ‘l’) liberal persuasion, I generally dislike the idea of governments sticking their noses into what goes on in your house. Indeed, I lean towards smaller government in general. But there is one nice proposed bit of government intervention that I’m struggling to oppose. The Greens seem set to use their status […]
Spare part
I see that the BBC’s iPM blog is asking for the human stories behind the current unemployment figures. Well, I am a human face of two recent news stories. As readers are no doubt sick of reading by now, one of those stories was the loss of around 27,000 jobs at Woolworths. The other is […]
The nasty side of human nature
The final month or so of working at Woolworths was without doubt the strangest. It was certainly an experience. The bright new posters, along with the masses of media publicity surrounding the problems Woolworths faced, attracted a different kind of customer. As friendly Woolies regulars browsed the aisles, the vultures started circling alongside them. I […]