The average reading age of the UK is 11. That’s what the speaker told us at the last Socitm meeting I attended. It struck me as an interesting statistic and possibly a damning indictment of our education system. Of course it may not be true and I felt I needed to explore it a bit … Continue reading The average reading age is…?
Ethics? Whatever
If there was ever a fascinating subject to get your head around then ethics is it. Someone’s ethics are the moral principles that govern their behaviour or the way they conduct an activity. At its simplest, ethics is about doing or being right or wrong. People have argued about the subject for years and no … Continue reading Ethics? Whatever
A&E App
Matt Hancock, the Heath Secretary is proud of the NHS’s latest app. It is designed to help patients find the accident and emergency department with the shortest waiting time. He claims that the app will be’ good for patients, good for clinicians’. It won’t work for two reasons, firstly it is tackling the wrong problem … Continue reading A&E App
An act of God
I’m watching the news. There are pictures of flames licking the sky above Paris. The roof of Notre Dame is on fire with great swirling vortices, yellow and orange leaping from the building. On the television, what seems like a single stream of water pathetically tries to douse the flames and save this iconic French … Continue reading An act of God
By the Wear
An early warm spring day, a rare lunch, Sitting on a bench overlooking the river. People pass by. A young boy shouts out 'are you having a good time?' I hold my thumb up to him and he laughs with his friends. Somehow the food tastes nicer. A gull cries as the river curls in … Continue reading By the Wear
Making tax taxable
The Government issued the VAT Notice 700/22: Making Tax Digital for VAT back in March 2019. ‘Making Tax Digital for VAT requires VAT registered businesses with taxable turnover above the VAT registration threshold to keep records in digital form and file their VAT Returns using software. It is increasingly common for business records and accounts … Continue reading Making tax taxable
50:50 Future
I like getting involved in new things. It might be my fickleness as a Gemini or my magpie like approach to life but there is always something else interesting to have a go at. Lots of people ask me if I can help out and my default position is yes, if I can spare the … Continue reading 50:50 Future
Freeconomy
Free is a four letter word! Freeconomy has nine letters. I first came across the word consciously in the Economist’s new magazine 1843 in an article about how people are playing the system. They scour the media for offers promising free stuff and use their technical skills to create spreadsheets and algorithms to maximize the … Continue reading Freeconomy
All people are…
I shudder these days when I read the news, especially online. I say news yet what I really mean is opinion. With all this talk of fake news it is difficult to separate the reporting of events from the writer’s perspective. Much of what I come across these days is little more than propaganda. One … Continue reading All people are…
Large Hadron Collider
The Large Hadron Collider is the biggest machine that mankind has ever built. It is designed to collide sub-atomic particles at speeds close to that of light and watch what happens after the impact. It is hoped that in this way we can get a better understanding of how the universe was formed. I am … Continue reading Large Hadron Collider
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 