from the dial-up days

“If I had understood the situation a bit better I should probably have joined the Anarchists.”

— George Orwell

“It takes much longer to get up north, the slow way.”

— Ian Dury

“The internet could be a very positive step… Changes and progress very rarely are gifts from above. They come out of struggles from below.”

— Noam Chomsky

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notes

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writing

  • It is raining in Paisley again. A grey, steady drizzle that seems to have set in for the winter. I checked the time a moment ago. 7:34 pm. I didn’t check it on a screen. I didn’t have to wake a device up, or swipe past a notification about a breaking news story, or see […]

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  • Most of us wake up and immediately doomscroll. We check the mental weather report against the global one. We see the ice shelves melting, the inequality gap widening, and the sheer inertia of the systems we are trying to dismantle. It is easy to feel small. It is easy to let the “climate grief” dictate […]

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  • For a few years now I’ve leaned into the idea of using my own site, writing slowly, valuing analog habits, stepping back from the endless scroll. Blogging felt like a quiet resistance to the noise of “platform social media”. So when I say I’m now using Bluesky, it might sound like a contradiction. But for […]

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  • The email arrived today, right on schedule. It was from the Wikimedia Foundation, kindly reminding me that I had donated £5 last year and asking if I would consider renewing my support.My gut reaction was to hesitate. Do I actually use Wikipedia that much? The answer is no. My habits have changed. Like many people, […]

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  • I keep circling this idea that the line between human and artificial intelligence might be more cultural than real. When I finish a book I love, my attachment is to the ideas and the feeling it left behind. Would it change anything if the author turned out to be an AI trained on a century […]

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  • There’s a rule in the UK that forces some migrants to wait ten years before they can apply to stay permanently. Not because they’ve done anything wrong. Just because that’s how the system is set up. The people affected by this aren’t strangers. They’re carers, nurses, parents. People who’ve lived here for years, worked, paid […]

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  • I believe in public service broadcasting. The idea of a well-funded, independent broadcaster providing education, culture, news, and entertainment for everyone, regardless of income, is something worth protecting. That’s why I support the principle of the BBC. But I don’t support the TV licence as a way to fund it. A Flat Tax in Disguise […]

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  • It’s 26 °C in Paisley, and that’s no anomaly. Scotland is heating up, and what once felt like a rare summer treat is now creeping into the forecast more and more. 1. From Temperate to ToastyOur recent decade, from 2010 to 2019, was about 0.7 °C hotter than the historical average. All of Scotland’s ten warmest years […]

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  • Someone sent me an anti-burka message recently. It got me thinking, not just about the burka, but about how often this sort of thing isn’t really about clothing at all. It’s about control. Let’s be honest. Most people who complain about the burka aren’t genuinely worried about fabric or face coverings. They’re uncomfortable seeing something […]

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  • There’s a pattern I keep noticing. Canada lives beside the United States, quietly distinct but always affected by what happens next door. Scotland has a similar relationship with England. Different places, different histories. But the same feeling of being caught in something bigger. Neither country is fully in control of its own path. Both are […]

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