I struggled with Capaldi at first because I’m such a Thick Of It fanboy and couldn’t see the Doctor for the Malcolm Tucker. But rewatching it a couple of years ago with my Who-obsessed daughter I realise how wrong I was: hands down the absolute best.
I assume you’ll be doing Fantasy World Dizzy next, so here’s the original production map of it to help you out. bsky.app/profile/sono...
If you get to Spellbound Dizzy and complete that in an evening I’ll be impressed. Took me weeks. Drew a map of it that covered my bedroom wall (I didn’t go out much).
That’s sort of sad, although I also like the mental image I now have of a sea of kids in footie kids, with B in the middle just wearing his normal clothes.
My favourite WBD costume ever is still the kid I saw in full Man United kit with a copy of the Match annual under his arm.
I try not to give parenting advice, because in the end we’re all muddling along best we can in an impossible situation, but as another World Book Day comes around I think perhaps the one piece of crucial advice I’d give to any new parent is: buy a glue gun.
10 year old dressed in green top and green hat with a cardboard dagger and shield
@jamiesmart.bsky.social the 10yo has gone for Flopz from Hero Slam for WBD this year (from Phoenix issue 700, very specifically). Also, on the walk to school he’s come up with some ideas to make the HS game “even more amazing” so if you’d like to use them, we can open negotiations.
If there’s one critical weakness I have, it’s the 1990s classic Mac typeface Chicago, set in outline and shadow.
It was the only Mac in our school - the one actual computing room was full of Acorn Archimedes which, looking back, might have been even cooler. When I was in sixth form, they replaced them all with Windows PCs, which even in 1996 felt sad and soulless :-(
Screenshot of a text style selection menu from an early version of Mac OS, showing the different text options in the relevant style (“Bold” styled in bold text, “Italic” in italic, etc)
Reading Nikita Prokopov’s excellent blog (via @gruber.foo) about terrible menu icons in MacOS 26, and getting a massive proustian rush from this old screenshot. 1994, huddled over a tiny Mac in the Design & Technology room that smelled of sawdust and glue, overusing SHADOW in my GCSE coursework.
EIGHT YEARS
It didn’t make the snail happy.
Big fan of getting milk from a milkman (no plastic, satisfyingly retro/nostalgic). But not a fan of grabbing a bottle from the fridge to find I’ve actually just grabbed a big snail that had crawled up the side of it 😱
Am at the very first UK Gov research operations conference today, which is very exciting. A room full of public sector people doing innovative things on shoestring budgets to help us do better research with government service users more quickly and efficiently. Inspiring 🙌
I am recruiting a Senior Accessibility Specialist to be part of the Government Digital Service accessibility and digital inclusion team. Applications open until Sunday 26th October. www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/index.cg...
#a11y #Accessibility #AccessibilityRegulations
Well you didn’t need to tell me that, Kate.
Also, what a great weekend. Did you watch it with the kids, or secretly on your own? (no shade/maximum respect if so)
I’m less distressed about this because at least he was meant to be 30 years younger between 1955 and 1985.
(I watched BTTF2 a few weeks ago, and I think there’s a whole PhD thesis to be written about how the school teacher already looks past retirement age in 1955, but not a day older in 1985)
Photo of an indoor wall. There is a light switch in the middle with a picture hook above it.
Moved a picture to a different room, and remembered it was hiding a MYSTERY LIGHT SWITCH. As far as I can tell it controls no light or anything else electrical in/outside the house, so assume instead that it controls some kind of terrifying portal to hell? Will cover it up again with a new picture.
Love this. What’s it been replaced with, digitally? It’s not Facebook marketplace or anything like that. Maybe Craigslist or something in the US, but not over here. I’ve genuinely no idea - is this a completely lost piece of wonderfully barmy culture?
(Just checked and THANK GOD I still have eleven years before I’m as old as Connery was in that gif. Harrison Ford - not such good news 😭)
Can’t find the proper Donovan ageing/“he chose poorly” gif, but this sums up my feelings reasonably well.
Just read something that said Michael Palin’s Around The World In 80 Days was the start of his “latter-day career” and yep I’ve just checked & Palin was younger than me when he did 80 Days - which is an unnecessary reminder for a Monday of both my general decay & my minimal overall life achievements
Thanks, really appreciate you checking! (and this is my second nice interaction with kids’ authors in the last 24 hours, after Nadia Shireen was LOVELY with my son, signing the new Grimwood at our local bookshop/attacking him with a Sharon The Party Crow puppet. You guys are all brilliant.)
Came here to ask the same question @jamiesmart.bsky.social! (Although mine is dancing lesson, not cub camp)
My loft is a bit chilly, otherwise… 🫢
(Am now gutted I can’t remember the rest of the mixtape. It’s probably up in the loft, although even if I spent half of Saturday looking for it [not completely out of the question] I of course don’t have a tape player to play it on)
Been listening to Ash recently, from the 90s, who I had sort of forgotten existed. Remembered a) how great Ash were, b) a mixtape I made in 1998 or so that started with Jesus Says - which is a banger of an opener. Don’t want to big myself up too much, but I was an absolute premier league mixtaper.
Re 1: in addition to the medical definition (which is important to understand for diagnosis) I’d like expert summaries of non-formal but commonly accepted features. Eg RSD & emotional dysregulation aren’t in the definition, but discovering they’re a thing in ADHD was the biggest ‘oh!’ moment for me.
