31st December 2019
(Week 25)
This is only my third update in this series so far, but there hasn’t been much to report recently, at least from my perspective. However, a couple of weeks ago we went for the second, 20-Week baby scan, which is the one where you (can) find out the gender of the baby…… Read more
25th October 2019
(Week 15)
So, the next big step on the way to becoming a parent is the infamous Scan. We had ours a couple of weeks ago and, as seems to be tradition, that is also the point where we finally started to tell our friends and family the news.… Read more
So, as I write this, my wife and I are about to announce to our family and friends that we are expecting our first child.
[Pauses for applause and cooing noises]
Interesting times! I’m still not sure it feels real yet…… Read more
I recently submitted a story called ‘The Journey’ to an online competition. As it was Mental Health Awareness Week recently – and the competition was run by Mind, the mental health charity – I wanted to talk a bit about the story and how I came to write it.
EDIT: You can now read the story here.
One of my recent projects involved working alongside engineers and researchers from the energy sector, which has fueled my interest in green energy and lead me to – among other things – the Fully Charged show and other similar channels on YouTube. Through all this, I became interested in electric cars and I got the impression that the technology had advanced far enough that the time was right to give it a go.
Last month we went for a test … Read more
This may seem like a pretty frivolous thing to say, but I actually have a point to make about the way that we use language and why it matters.… Read more
One of the things that I wanted to talk about on this blog is mental health. Specifically, I want to share my own experiences and some of the things that helped me with my recovery and continue to help me to be in my day-to-day life. In this post, I want to talk about one handy piece of advice from British comedian Sarah Millican…
I haven’t posted on here for a while now. I used to write a lot about gaming, as that was my main hobby and chosen profession, but now I have a new job (and have left the games industry), which means I can’t keep up with the latest titles and write full reviews (not that I was ever much good at doing that anyway!).
I considered abandoning the blog, but I have instead decided to take things in a new … Read more
Bioware’s controversial Mass Effect sequel released a few months ago. They got a serious – and possibly well-deserved – slating from critics and gamers alike for releasing an “unfinished” game, full of bugs and animation problems. I actually cancelled my pre-order as a result of the media sh*t-storm, which is something that I never thought I would do with a Bioware game!
But now, four months on, someone got me the game as a present and have finally decided to … Read more
Normally I try not to get involved in this sort of thing, but what I am about to say is really important to me…
It may surprise you to know that I don’t particularly mind which way people vote in the Referendum. Despite all of the rhetoric, fear-mongering, lies and hatred flying around at the moment, there are some pretty reasonable arguments on both sides (they just aren’t getting any media attention!).
Personally, I’ve decided to Vote Remain because … Read more
XCOM 2 has support for a range of community mods via the Steam Workshop. I plan to try out a few of these mods over the coming months and produce these “Mod Reports”, where I will discuss the good, the bad and the downright insane!
For my first Report, I’ve been experimenting with a few simple mods that (mostly) don’t affect the actual gameplay all that much, but which add nice little tweaks to save time, enhance the information available … Read more
I can’t remember being as excited for a video game as I’ve been about XCOM 2, the sequel to Firaxis’ XCOM: Enemy Unknown (one of my favourite games of all time). I’ve been soaking up all the preview videos and developer livestreams and now I’ve finally got my hands on the game.
So, after a dozen-or-so hours, is it living up to all the hype?… Read more