I started drawing pictures of cats in the last couple of days, using Paper on the iPad. Cats are pretty much the only things that I can draw that people can correctly identify without prompting. For some reason, they always come out looking a bit sad.
For a half-hearted April Fools thing, I joked that I was going to quit my day job and become a cartoonist – and linked to a couple of the pictures. That led my friend Craig to say “it’s not even worth starting a Tumblr for” – which, for various complicated reasons, means that I had to. It’s known as the Rock & Roll Tedium Law.
Weirdly – for someone who has NEVER been able to draw – I’ve had nothing but compliments. In fact, several people have asked if they can buy prints. Which is, of course, absurd.
But it’s encouraged me to continue – at least for a while. If you’d like to see my pictures of sad cats, they’re now available at a Tumblr blog called The Saddest Cats.
If you like cats, or stories about cats – or if you just like stories – here’s a Christmas gift from me to you (and your kids, if you happen to have any).
I made a ‘cartoon for radio’ about 15 years ago. It’s about cats – well, specifically about one cat, Ashley, who finds himself transported out of the world of humans, can openers, laundry baskets and suburbia – and into a magical world of castles, dragons, princesses and wizards. A world run entirely by cats.
If you’d like a taster before you grab the whole thing, you can check out the first 14 episodes on Bandcamp.
Or you can just dive straight in. All 50 episodes of series one are here for you to download as free mp3s. Merry Christmas.
I was on the way back from the conference in London today, when the announcement came that the train was being diverted. If we wanted to carry on to Birmingham New St, we could stay on, and have an extra 90 minute journey that took us through Stafford, or we could get off at Nuneaton, get a train to Coventry and get to Birmingham International from there.
We chose the latter… which turned out to be a mistake. The train to Coventry had already been cancelled, and there was no sign of any more trains to come. So Tim, Nick and I found ourself in a taxi van with three strangers heading towards Birmingham.
Interesting bunch. One man was a logisitics consultant for the newspaper industry, the woman worked in e-commerce solutions for businesses, and the other guy was a voiceover for cartoons and radio – a guy called Marc Silk.
I'm an author of books about technology, culture, music and radio. I'm also an award-winning broadcaster and filmmaker, a public speaker and lecturer, record producer and festival director. I am closely following developments in emerging technologies and the cultures and ethics surrounding them, and my projects typically focus on issues of justice, inclusion, and sustainability.
Most of my work involves surrounding myself with incredibly smart and talented people who would have no other reason to ever be in the same room as each other. That's when amazing things happen.
I tend to talk a lot about music (often jazz-adjacent and particularly on vinyl, but also playlists and mixtapes). I'm enthusiastic about food and cooking, the intersection of art and science, new technologies, vintage technologies, education, social progress, silence, innovation, narrative, data commons, culture, sound art and the spoken word. This blog will continue to reflect those diverse and shifting enthusiasms. I may also digress.
I'm from Tāmaki Makaurau / Auckland in Aotearoa New Zealand, I have Scottish ancestry, I've spent a decade in the south of Birmingham UK, and another in a forest in the north of Sweden.
Contains information related to marketing campaigns of the user. These are shared with Google AdWords / Google Ads when the Google Ads and Google Analytics accounts are linked together.
90 days
__utma
ID used to identify users and sessions
2 years after last activity
__utmt
Used to monitor number of Google Analytics server requests
10 minutes
__utmb
Used to distinguish new sessions and visits. This cookie is set when the GA.js javascript library is loaded and there is no existing __utmb cookie. The cookie is updated every time data is sent to the Google Analytics server.
30 minutes after last activity
__utmc
Used only with old Urchin versions of Google Analytics and not with GA.js. Was used to distinguish between new sessions and visits at the end of a session.
End of session (browser)
__utmz
Contains information about the traffic source or campaign that directed user to the website. The cookie is set when the GA.js javascript is loaded and updated when data is sent to the Google Anaytics server
6 months after last activity
__utmv
Contains custom information set by the web developer via the _setCustomVar method in Google Analytics. This cookie is updated every time new data is sent to the Google Analytics server.
2 years after last activity
__utmx
Used to determine whether a user is included in an A / B or Multivariate test.
18 months
_ga
ID used to identify users
2 years
_gali
Used by Google Analytics to determine which links on a page are being clicked
30 seconds
_ga_
ID used to identify users
2 years
_gid
ID used to identify users for 24 hours after last activity
24 hours
_gat
Used to monitor number of Google Analytics server requests when using Google Tag Manager
