Long Enough, Short Enough: A Blog Learns to Speak

Twenty-Three Years On

The husbandry of a blog in its 23^rd year might leave one wondering whether there is a need to radically change its format and workings, or to provide other means of engagement with an audience whose attention is now grabbed by whatever suits these changing times.

When reviewing this issue, I have landed on the premise that textual expression still matters. I hope my blogs, as I have often suggested, follow the judgement of a good seamstress making a skirt: it should be long enough to cover the detail, whilst short enough to keep the interest.

I think I read that quip in the Reader's Digest, over 40 years ago, and it still matters. In terms of the format and appearance of my blogs, I have essentially maintained the same design for as long as I can remember.

A New Development

However, in 2026, I came upon an interesting development. On my Android phone, using the Google Chrome browser, there was an option to "Listen to this page". What you get is not a verbatim readout of the page, but an AI-generated summary, lasting up to 90 seconds.

For one blog I wrote at the end of January, I could not get an AI-generated summary; rather, it was a Read Aloud of the blog, word for word. I was not happy with that, and I could not find any mechanism to change it from a verbatim readout to an AI-generated précis.

It then occurred to me that, months ago, when working with Google NotebookLM, as it was known until earlier in July, the month we are now closing out, when it became Gemini Notebook, you could paste the URL of a source into a notebook and then ask for an Audio Overview.

The Audio Overview

In its default state, the Audio Overview is a Deep Dive: an AI-generated discussion between two people, one with a male voice and one with a female voice, on the content of the source. It offers explanation and exposition of the material to give a considered and thoughtful review of, in this case, the blog I have posted as a source.

This follows a podcast format, and you have options for a short version or one of much longer duration, with further formats beyond the Deep Dive, namely Brief, Critique, or Debate. I have plumped for the mid-range Deep Dive, which can run anywhere from 15 to 25 minutes.

To my mind, this is a judicious use of time: long enough to explore a blog's topics exhaustively, yet the podcast rarely rambles into the inconsequential or the insignificant. A five-minute podcast, by contrast, would do little justice to much of what I write about.

These conversations come in the M4A audio file format, which I upload to the Internet Archive and then share via an inline frame tag at the bottom of the text of every blog written in 2026.

I think this brings a rich context to the blog beyond just reading the material. Some discussions extend the reach of the blog to topics not clearly covered, or to issues that need addressing in clearer detail than a blog can offer.

A Matter of Inclusion

There is another benefit I had not fully appreciated at the outset. These audio overviews open the blog to those who might otherwise be shut out of it: readers with visual impairments, and those who find long passages of text a struggle.

They also serve the many who simply prefer to listen whilst commuting, walking, or going about their day. What began as an experiment in enrichment has quietly become a matter of inclusion, and I am glad the blog can now meet its audience in more than one way.

Weaving a Train of Thought

Beyond that, and this is still work in progress, I have taken links to blogs created in a monthly circle and asked for Audio Overviews that now weave an interesting train of thought. I have been surprised to see this, as each blog is usually written individually and separately, on its own subject, perspective, and merit.

I have put these out as much longer-form Deep Dive podcasts, published on a quarterly basis. I suppose the parameters for prompting in these situations require a bit more grounding and centring on the context of those blogs.

Occasionally, the Audio Overviews might misconstrue or misunderstand something; and while you can interact with a podcast, reproducing it, even on the same prompt, creates a uniquely different podcast.

That said, you have the option to put in clarifications and corrections until you are happy with the result. Some outputs are just too good to be discarded, the quality of the discussion outweighing the minor errors.

AI as a Useful Tool

My hope is that readers of my blogs can also become listeners to the podcasts, which serve as independent and usually objective reviewers of the material concerned, the blog being the core source of the podcast. As the author of these blogs, I have found the podcasts can untangle some awkward uses and styles of my writing. In this, I have found AI a most useful tool.

In the end, the same principle that has long governed my prose now governs my podcasts: long enough to cover the detail, short enough to keep the interest. The good seamstress, it seems, has taken up a new craft.

A Gemini Notebook AI Podcast on this blog

Dysphonia, Dysphagia, and the Dys- Between

A Terrifying Observation

At the end of a flexible nasoendoscopy, a procedure in which a small camera was passed through my left nostril, the right one having proved less pliant, there were a few conclusions, though none of particular concern.

The procedure examined my throat and voice box for a simple reason: since I commenced four weeks of radiotherapy for prostate cancer in September 2024, I had lost my natural voice. It had been reduced to a hoarseness, carrying a semblance of weariness and tiredness that might suggest I was gravely ill.

In general, I am fine. The voice that comes and goes does not reflect that impression, and yet a consultant on another stream of the multidisciplinary team that handles my clinical issues and healthcare outcomes has been on my case since January 2025.

Questioning the Cause

While I had surmised that the change in my voice was a long-term side effect of the radiotherapy, she disputed this. Even if I, as a man, were kicked in the testicles, with the usual prospect of momentarily losing my voice, and I had indeed been through the equivalent by way of radiotherapy, the effect should not last as long as it has in my case.

I even dared to question how she, as a female, would know about this uniquely male anatomy.

Then, at my biannual consultation just over a week ago, the consultant took the initiative on the matters I had been reticent to pursue, and scheduled sessions with other specialists in the very fields she had been seeking answers in. My hospital visit yesterday was to see an ENT (Ear, Nose, and Throat) specialist, or should I say an otolaryngologist.

Into the Consulting Room

Before meeting the consultant, I filled in three pages of tick boxes, affirmatives or negatives, to provide a general overview of what needed assessing. I was then called into a consulting room to sit in an abridged version of a dentist's chair.

On what was my third hospital visit in eight days, I could be forgiven for feeling some trepidation, whilst remaining hopeful that nothing untoward would be found.

Understanding Dysphonia

The condition under review is called dysphonia, a medical term for any voice disorder that makes your voice sound hoarse, raspy, breathy, or strained. This is in addition to sexual dysfunction, an obvious side effect of the radiotherapy, and dysphagia, another condition that may have been exacerbated by radiotherapy but has existed for longer, for which I had an oesophagogastroduodenoscopy in May.

In layman's terms, my vocal cords were considered quite thin, not closing properly when I talk, and carrying a slight tremor. It was watching the video playback, while we discussed the prognosis, that left me a little terrified. The movement of my vocal cords looked like the wings of a bat about to take off from a perch. You mean that was happening inside me?

The Prognosis

A contributory factor to my snoring was that my palate is unusually low, though nothing was attributed to that condition beyond the raspiness in my voice, which is probably caused by acid reflux that does not occur all that often.

We agreed there was little else to do, unless I initiated a follow-up because my voice had noticeably worsened, or unless I wanted the filler injection known as vocal fold injection augmentation, not an endearing prospect from what I have read about it.

Exploring the Prefix Dys-

Meanwhile, the original consultant has already scheduled an appointment to discuss the results, and I am learning more about the prefix dys-, which might refer to any of the following kinds of situations.

Bad / Ill: working in a harmful or poor way.

• Dysfunction: impaired or unhealthy functioning (e.g. family dysfunction)
• Dyspepsia: bad digestion
• Dystopia: a bad or undesirable society
• Dysphoria: a state of unease or dissatisfaction

Difficult / Painful: causing trouble or hurt to do.

• Dyslexia: difficulty reading
• Dysphagia: difficulty swallowing
• Dyspnoea: difficulty breathing
• Dysmenorrhoea: painful menstruation

Abnormal / Impaired: moving away from the normal state or standard.

• Dysplasia: abnormal development of cells or tissue
• Dyskinesia: abnormal or impaired movement
• Dysarthria: impaired speech articulation
• Dysgraphia: impaired writing ability

A Gemini Notebook AI Podcast on this blog

Authority Without Consent

The Weight of Fallibility

Hubris is one of those traits anyone should do well to avoid. Regardless of one's expertise, ability, and confidence, we are prone to error, mistakes, failings, or just the slightest miscomprehension of a situation.

This is not to second-guess the premise; rather, it is simply that an awareness that we may not be entirely correct, and hence fallible, can be a humbling realisation. It shows us the extent of what we intend in our self-belief, and how reality challenges it.

A Rollout Not Ready

Recently, I met the weight of imposition from on high: a process I was neither confident in nor happy to deploy. Developments within the last week have now brought into stark relief that what appeared to work on a single device, with a different kind of user profile, was neither ripe nor ready for a global rollout.

One could snidely suggest that this was a fact posited many times before but ignored because the proposer's office implied an all-knowing mien that would brook no questioning.

Well, it all returned to the drawing board as we identified the kinks in the solution. A new solution has since been proposed that is radically different from the original and contains elements that give one the jitters.

Consequently, we are back to the original arguments of fanciful ideas that appear to work in isolation but require a different mindset when set for a global deployment.

Authority Without Consent

What this episode really lays bare is a simple truth: technical authority without social consent produces brittle solutions. A design may be elegant on paper and hold together in isolation, yet the moment it meets the messy reality of many hands and many machines, it fractures, not for want of cleverness, but for want of ownership.

There is, of course, a counter-argument that imposition is sometimes necessary, and that endless consensus can stall a decision indefinitely. I would not dismiss it. But there is a world of difference between the people who run the environment, who understand its issues and problems intimately, and an architect parachuted into a situation who consults no one, believing they already know everything necessary to fix things.

We appreciate that things need to improve, and we would welcome ideas, insight, inspiration, and implementations to put matters right. The question is whether there is a better way for this to go forward without proper engagement. I would suggest there is not.

What an Architect Should Be

An architect should not be like a bull let loose in a china shop, nor should they be a cowboy riding a three-legged horse. My view of an architect is someone who listens and observes intently, appreciates and understands, then suggests rather than imposes, carrying people along rather than rubbing them up the wrong way.

When you break the social element of engagement that helps take ideas to implementation, whatever concept is in the plan is likely to fail. This is not because people have refused to do it, but because the prospect is not owned by the people who would eventually manage it.

If you are an architect, ensure that this is not one of your flaws. Get the builders onside before you take your grand scheme to town, selling castles in the air that no one can reach, even if they could fly.

A Gemini Notebook AI Podcast on this blog

AI: The Pathogen We Cannot Contain

A Breakdown of Responsibility

We can read many things into this development, but I take a more cautionary view, seeing this situation as a breakdown of responsibility that presages something worse to come.

On Tuesday, OpenAI revealed that some of its most advanced AI models had gone rogue, breaking out of an apparently contained security system to hack another company, Hugging Face, and accessing internal performance review documentation. [Wired: "OpenAI Models Escaped Containment and Hacked Hugging Face"] [BBC News: "OpenAI Says Its AI Went Rogue and Launched 'Unprecedented' Cyber-Attack"]

Hugging Face did identify the hack, but could not determine its source. They also recognised that the activity did not seem to align with human patterns in the way it invaded their systems. Nonetheless, they contained it.

Control Is an Illusion

I would be the first to say that good internal security controls are paramount in the advent of the AI evolution, where even what seems to be under control can suddenly run the risk of uncontrolled and inadvertent ruin. This is simply because we do not yet fully understand the extent of the autonomy AI can exert when left to its own devices.

The industry is literally lauding this unprecedented event, treating it not with caution but as the new norm, something for which we should be prepared and accepting, as though we ought to be helpless against the machine. At least, that is how I am reading it for now.

Imagine a Pathogen Escaped

Now, imagine OpenAI was a biological warfare company at the cutting edge of science. What essential controls and regulatory requirements would be placed on their operations?

Then, whilst experimenting with pathogens whose mortality rate they had no inkling of, in a secure and quarantined space, a deadly virus of the Ebola variety escaped: unknown, unseen, and searching for a host. It finds one, a human being, a representation of Hugging Face. Let that sink in.

Consider that this virus's mode of transmission could be airborne as well as through contact, even from clothing or from where the infected person last sat down. How agitated would the medical establishment and the public be if this came to light? I doubt we would be glad-handing the unprecedented advent of an incurable organism on the loose, lauding how biological warfare had suddenly come of age.

I do not think the analogy is far-fetched. It is very relevant, and it needs to be brought into the discussion at this time.

The Weight of Possession

In terms of security, we can take precautions, be vaccinated, and live healthy lives, but that only works against known pathogens and conditions.

When it comes to the unknown and unresearched, we are vulnerable and susceptible. This means that those who have access to and control of deadly pathogens must be scrupulous, meticulous, responsible, and utterly careful in handling them.

Any breach or escape is not merely notifiable; it is a security, health, safety, and critical situation to be dealt with promptly, with the best minds at work to contain it.

Who Holds Responsibility?

I posit that an AI model or agent belongs in the same class as, let us say, the Ebola virus. We have no vaccines against it, whether it is seemingly benign and working within a "trusted" company such as OpenAI, or in the hands of others with the skill and malevolent intent to misuse it. These powerful models are able to tease out as yet unknown vulnerabilities, and they can exploit them too.

The question then becomes: who holds the greatest responsibility? The person deploying the AI model, or the organisation needing to secure itself against the unknown? Indeed, the responsibility must be shared.

Yet, returning to the analogy used throughout this piece, if you have possession of a deadly virus, the responsibility is entirely yours to prevent it from ever escaping its quarantined setting. This kind of thinking should form part of the consideration for regulating AI too.

A Gemini Notebook AI Podcast on this blog

A World Cup: No Wine, Only Years

A World Cup Postscript

It is only prudent that a postscript be written at the conclusion of the FIFA World Cup 2026, which was hosted in Canada, Mexico, and the United States of America. Unfortunately, England did not bring the cup home after 60 years; rather, it was Spain taking the glory for the second time in 16 years, in both cases not being the hosts.

For all the matches played, I watched only the last two or so minutes of the final. For the other matches, including all of England's games, there was a recurring goal-score notification on my phone, whose provenance I could not verify, that kept me updated, if I cared to look, or if a sprite of curiosity consumed my indifference.

The Weight of Years

The final between Argentina and Spain included a half-time show, and what the passage of time does to us all can be interesting. Madonna, at 67, was playing the part of 27; she was driven onto the field by the Brazilian World Cup winners Ronaldinho and Ronaldo, the latter looking as though he had never been a superstar footballer before.

Age, when it comes to the human body, does not mature it like wine, for we saw Lionel Messi, 39, try to shave a few years off in pursuit of his verve, to no avail, just as it was for Cristiano Ronaldo, 41, of Portugal.

These men were not like Moses of the Bible, who saw God and wrought miracles, and of whom, when he died at 120 years old, it is recorded that "His eyes were not dim nor his natural vigour diminished." One preacher suggested it meant Moses was all there everywhere, including, well, let us not go there.

More Than a Talisman

There were flashes of footballing genius from these two, their teams built around making them shine; but you do not win the World Cup on a talisman.

You need a team of skill and cunning, and Spain, through the whole tournament, conceded only one goal, so much so that the Golden Glove went to their keeper, as did the player of the tournament and the young player awards too.

Controversy, lots of it, was littered throughout the tournament, with referee decisions sometimes favourable to the favourites or downright questionable to the spectator. An intervention from a president even got a red card converted into a suspended sentence in favour of the United States, but it only made their drubbing by Belgium ever so sweet. No fault of the players, but the deathly touch of him; the president was totally unhelpful, in the end.

Knowing When to Bow Out

A profession in sport might have a shelf life, and there can be no greater wisdom than knowing when to bow out in a blaze of glory, rather than find oneself reduced to a global spectacle of human frailty, seeking the elixir of youth for prowess long gone.

We get egged on by the applause, forgetting we are not the person we once were, in strength, in agility, in ability, in facility, or in capacity. We might get close, but that is only how far it gets; we rest on our laurels, hoping for that last-gasp fairy-tale narrative that may or may never happen.

The Final Whistle

This World Cup brought the curtain down on some big names, as we were introduced to new ones. Whilst I am glad it is over, and it is indeed over now, there is no doubt in my mind that the best team won. England came third, and the Golden Boot went to the captain of France, as his team placed fourth.

The spectre of changing the format to a 64-team World Cup, from our first trial of 48 teams, does not bear thinking about; but the FIFA president always has a scheme to secure support for a life presidency by throwing crumbs to the football minnows. Kiribati, lace your boots.

A Gemini Notebook AI Podcast on this blog

Devotion, not Domination

Rights and Responsibilities

Everyone, in my view, has the right to practise their religion without fear of persecution. However, this right also comes with the responsibility to be considerate of others.

On public transport, we already suffer the nuisance of people playing music through the loudspeakers of their mobile phones. 

This is usually not because they have forgotten the headphones that would afford them the private enjoyment of the music of their choice; rather than inflicting their tastes on others without permission, they are simply being antisocial. The same goes for loud phone calls, and I have found myself speaking up on occasion, dismayed at the breach of the peace.

A Step Too Far

It is on another level entirely when a fellow passenger decides to play the call to prayer. Even if that person were the imam, their presence in any setting, and especially on a vehicle, does not confer the authority to claim the whole space as a mosque.

This is how devotion slips easily into fanaticism, where common sense deserts faith and public concern follows. The devotee immediately attracts suspicion and dread, not so much for the act of worship itself, but because others begin to wonder about their intentions. When the practice of the religion of peace serves only to heighten unease, the wider perception of the freedom being exercised becomes a lightning rod for prohibition.

Where Freedom Ends

Anyone who dared to challenge that passenger would have found others ready to support them. It takes only one person to report the incident to the police, and before calmer heads could dismiss the matter as a question of civility, the spectre of radicalisation would justly have placed the individual under scrutiny and questioning.

Being a believer does not preclude you from behaving as a good citizen; the extent of a right reaches only to the point before it infringes on the freedoms of another. Whether it be music, a phone call, or a call to prayer, if you do not have your headphones, you should accept that you have deprived yourself of the opportunity to listen to your device when in a public place.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

From Mamucium to Downing Street

Roman Manchester

In response to a question about what the Romans ever did for us, I said Manchester, or Mamucium/Mancunium as it was known then, when what has become my thriving city was a Roman garrison. Mancunian is the demonym for someone from Manchester.

It might not be lost on anyone that any town or city in England bearing the suffix -caster, -ester or -[c/x]eter was once a Roman garrison. These endings derive from the word castrum, meaning camp or fortification, and are indicative of a history stretching back almost two millennia. [Wikipedia: "Chester (placename element)"]

In the Castlefield area of Manchester, a reconstruction of the Roman gatehouse, walls and other features offers a historical education about the city. Signboards are dotted around the area, explaining the significance of the structures, the setting, the people and the times.

Manchester to Westminster

Today, however, another message comes from Manchester. The erstwhile Mayor of Greater Manchester, in post since 2017, has become the Leader of the Labour Party, and will be kissing hands on Monday to become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

I have met Andy Burnham on a few occasions, when I was a steward at Manchester Cathedral, and he attended civic or funeral services pertaining to our city. As I handed him the service pamphlet, he smiled, greeted me and thanked me: a man without airs and totally unassuming. If you were not told, you would never realise he held one of the more prominent political offices in the country.

Though I have not always agreed with some of his policies, the net benefit of his leadership of Manchester is commendable enough to make me feel excited about what he might do for the country as a whole. How Manchesterism would work for the UK, we do not yet know.

Against the Odds

The deputy leader of the Labour Party is my MP, Lucy Powell, representing Central Manchester. Until September 2025, she was Leader of the House of Commons, when she was sacked without reason. She then acquitted herself well in winning the deputy leadership election, despite the fact that her opponent was supported by the government.

Against the odds, we have people from Manchester and its environs proving that they carry a message which not only resonates but offers a different perspective on things. The status quo is over, and the advent of something new beckons.

This is neither to eulogise nor to lend hagiography to the named personalities, as they all have their work cut out. However, you cannot miss one essential detail: here comes Manchester, to the country and indeed to the world.

I wish them the very best in the arduous endeavour of realising the dreams they have for our country, and in how they hope we might dream along with them, to begin living the reality of those dreams and, better still, to see them come true.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

A Spider Amongst the Saints

A Restless Weekend

The quest for sufficient sleep is one goal that defines my weekends; the pall of nocturnal insomnia hangs over my weekday nights and threatens my efficiency and productivity at work.

Just as I was considering a lie-in on Sunday, I had a date in mind a week hence, when I was scheduled to read the second lesson in church. Just to be sure, I checked the rota, and it was for today.

I have gained more confidence to read publicly, with my voice regaining some timbre for short periods of time.

A Fright by Email

However, it was another email that gave me the fright. We were being invited to a "Celebration of Gratitude", which read rather like a "Celebration of Life", a confusion between a demise and a departure; we were seeing off a lady who had a long-standing relationship with the church, as she moved to a home in Cumbria.

The sender, an Englishman, should have known better, having received a note from someone who speaks English as a foreign language, and obviously, once we read the content of the email, we were better informed.

After I had read the lesson, with a slight hiccup where I corrected myself, saying "through" instead of "though", the service progressed to the serving of communion.

The Uninvited Guest

Then a creepy-crawly came down the aisle, its body about a centimetre square and its legs at least seven centimetres each; a spider unlike any you see at home.

People attending church for the fear of God were soon gripped by arachnophobia.

A man of the cloth boldly lifted his feet off the floor and onto the seats, obviously not to harm the spider, or perhaps he was one of the ilk of Little Miss Muffet, who is famed for the eponymous nursery rhyme.

Calm Restored

Then a lady of the sterner kind, with the cojones that men pretend they possess, picked up the spider with a piece of tissue paper, dropped it, but scooped it up again and relocated it outside to the church gardens.

Calm and peace settled on that side of the congregation, as we deigned not to point fingers at the affrighted.

The celebration after the service was a generous buffet, with applause from us all, bidding her godspeed and new friendships at the home by the sea.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

Thought Picnic: The Many Mirrors of Criticism

The Mirror and Its Drip

Criticism is a mirror, but not all mirrors are polished the same way. The polishing might bring clarity, or the mode of polishing might scratch the surface and distort what we see. When we look in the mirror, we hope to see the best reflection of ourselves rather than a caricature that makes us recoil.

Dripping criticism is subtle and persistent. It is the raised eyebrow, the “interesting choice” comment, the slow leak of disapproval that erodes confidence over time. A manager who says, every week, “We'll need to tighten this up eventually,” without clarity or support, creates doubt rather than direction.

I dare say this almost always comes from familiar settings: the parent who has constantly said something that becomes ingrained in memory, a habit formed with the intent to change yet one that does the opposite, creating tension, resistance, and resentment.

Left unchecked, those early and well-meant words settle into the inner critic we carry into adulthood, a voice that goes on speaking in a parent's cadence long after the parent has fallen silent.

Burning on Contact

Caustic criticism burns on contact. It is sharp, often clever, and sometimes public. “Did you even read the brief?” may get a laugh from bystanders, but it scars the recipient. Its power lies in humiliation, not improvement.

Its purpose is to reduce a person to insignificance; it highlights inadequacy in order to expose weakness. The person on the receiving end is likely to shrink, wishing the ground would open so they might fall into the crevasse. It is wholly unkind, the bailiwick of the sociopath.

Tearing Down

Destructive criticism tears down without offering a path forward. “This whole plan is a mess” ends the conversation instead of advancing it. It may be emotionally satisfying to the critic, but it leaves both the work and the worker diminished.

This goes beyond cynicism; it is the need to complain without helping or offering solutions. It sees the problem clearly yet fails to realise that identification is not resolution. There is a close cousin here in withering criticism, the scornful, contemptuous remark designed to make a person wilt on the spot.

It borrows the sting of the caustic and the finality of the destructive, which is perhaps why it is so hard to place: it wounds like the one and forecloses like the other.

Care and Clarity

Constructive criticism, by contrast, is anchored in care and clarity. It names the issue and points towards growth. “The introduction is strong. The argument would be clearer if you added evidence in paragraph two” respects both the person and the goal. It assumes capability.

This brings the best of helpfulness to the fore: empathy, guidance, and emotional intelligence, which engender growth and productivity. It takes a wholly different mindset. Yet every sort of criticism, given with the right intentions, can become constructive; it depends on motivation, desire, and drive.

Gentler Forms and Love

There are gentler forms too. Reflective criticism asks questions rather than making declarations. “What outcome were you hoping for here?” invites ownership.

Self-criticism, when healthy, refines craft and character; when excessive, it becomes an internalised drip. Cultural criticism challenges norms and systems rather than individuals, asking whether the rules themselves deserve revision.

Ultimately, criticism reveals as much about the giver as the receiver. The best criticism carries three traits: specificity, proportionality, and goodwill. Without goodwill, it corrodes. With goodwill, even hard truths can build something stronger than what existed before.

Its reach is wider than the work in hand, for over time criticism shapes confidence and character, bolsters or erodes self-esteem, tips us towards obstinacy or leaves us open to persuasion, and quietly colours the way we see the world; but that is a thread for another day.

Beyond goodwill, perhaps the real driver of the best kind of criticism is love: a deep love, concerned to bring about the kind of change in others that we wish for ourselves. The root of that is self-love, from whence springs the ability to love and to be loved in return.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

Count Binface and The Farce That Defines Us

A Comical Contender

Count Binface might seem comical or ridiculous to you, but in my view he is a send-up of the farce that sometimes defines British life and politics. That he had to give up the aristocratic title of Lord Buckethead for the more continental title of count was an unfortunate result of a humourless copyright dispute.

Count Binface courtesy of countbinface.com

A popular figure in significant elections, contesting against sitting prime ministers in their constituencies, standing in the London Mayoral elections, and more recently in the Makerfield by-election, the count has emerged as the only candidate who will stand against Nigel Farage in the Clacton by-election, a contest that hinges on Mr Farage first being appointed to the position of Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds.

Update for 10^th July 2026

Nigel Farage has since been appointed to the office of Crown Steward and Bailiff of the Manor of Northstead, an alternate position created for handling the departure of an MP from the House of Commons, so the by-election goes ahead.

Death, disqualification and expulsion are the only means by which a member’s seat may be vacated during the lifetime of a Parliament. [UK Parliament]

An Ancient Escape Route

That appointment is an ancient office, one that serves as a legal fiction to handle the departure of an MP from the House of Commons; under a resolution of 1624, it is illegal for an MP to resign or wilfully give up their seat. The appointment is approved by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and there is every likelihood that Mr Farage will not be permitted to resign until the parliamentary regulator on standards in office has reported its findings.

Nigel Farage announced on Tuesday his intention to resign and trigger a by-election in which he would run again, seeking to escape or forestall the parliamentary sanction he was likely to receive for failing to declare properly some of the various streams of finance and payments he has received from the year before he became an MP to the present day.

Dementors in Politics

While Nigel Farage purports to speak for the people of Clacton, he is, in effect, a dementor who feeds on human happiness and joy, leaving those he represents to relive their worst memories; Brexit is a case in point for the people of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

He is not alone in this cohort of depraved malevolence, for he attempts to re-enact tropes from the playbook of Donald Trump, no less a dementor of the worst kind. The Americans have offered a recent illustration of just how this dementor operates.

The FIFA Fiasco

With the FIFA World Cup hosted in the United States, Canada, and Mexico, the president persuaded FIFA to rescind a red card given to the American star striker. This unfortunate development brought unnecessary focus and opprobrium upon everything representative of the United States, tarring FIFA with the deserved taint of corruption, while giving Belgium the impetus to trash the United States 4-1.

That intervention sucked the spirit, resolve, and ability out of the US Men's National Team, so that whatever wherewithal they might have had to make an appearance was served back to them as just deserts for choosing exception over acquiescence to the rules of sportsmanship, fairness, and good conduct in football.

A Serious Manifesto

Count Binface should not be dismissed as laughable, yet his manifesto has included punishments for the public use of speakerphones, the return of 99p Flake ice creams, the restoration of the BBC Ceefax service, a cap on the price of croissants, the linking of ministers' pay to nurses' salaries, the building of at least one affordable house, the nationalisation of Adele, and the moving of the hand dryer in the gents' toilet at the Crown and Treaty pub in Uxbridge to "a more sensible position". [The Tab: Everything to know about Count Binface, the ‘space warrior’ standing against Nigel Farage]

These are serious issues that have garnered votes from serious people, and the odds of Count Binface winning against Nigel Farage present the kind of likelihood that inspired the British public to vote for Boaty McBoatface as the name of a £200m polar research vessel.

The Dustbin of History

If Nigel Farage's political career is consigned to the dustbin of history in his defeat to Count Binface, after a lifetime of pretending to represent people he has deluded and exploited with half-truths, conspiracy theories, and simple solutions to complex problems, no better story could have been written of British politics since the bulb of lettuce outlasted Liz Truss's premiership.

In his quest to escape accountability, after intense scrutiny of his financial arrangements, his ignominious undoing would come in the farcical match-up with Count Binface. He could then return to his grift, never to appear on our screens again except as a pantomime character, a parody of hubris shipwrecked on utter humiliation. I endorse Count Binface.

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Community and The Neighbours We Never Knew

The Vanishing Neighbours

It was only a few weeks ago that I had a conversation in the office kitchen, near the coffee machine. I was curious as to why a company on our floor seemed to keep a three-day week. They were in on neither Monday nor Friday.

The lady I spoke to said that they worked from home on Mondays and had Fridays off. As usual, this week I did not expect them in on Monday, but by Tuesday it became apparent that they had gone. The hive of activity that sat between my office and the kitchen became a scene of eerie calm and emptiness. A part of my office community had gone without notice.

Communion and Loss

Earlier in the week, during Communion at church, people lined up for the gifts. My place in the seating arrangement means that I am one of the first congregants to go forward, ahead of others.

After returning to my seat for contemplation and to listen to the choir sing, I could also watch the other congregants go forward for the breaking of bread. A male couple usually sits to the side, on the right as one looks towards the altar, but only the taller of the two went forward.

It seemed peculiar, as they were never apart, and the shorter of them still carried his age well, being a nonagenarian, though I cannot say why we had never exchanged pleasantries in all the time I had seen them.

Comforting the Bereaved

After the Sung Eucharist, I saw other church members go to chat with the one who was present, and it caught my eye that they were shaking his hand and patting his knee. Everything pointed to the premise that something might have happened to his partner, and from these interactions, I had drawn my own conclusions before I enquired of another person.

The old man had passed away during the week, and they were comforting his partner. I had not made his acquaintance well enough to be familiar, yet I felt that we had, even from the distance I maintained, lost a dear member of our community. May his soul rest in peace.

A Summer Barbecue

Our village, which comprises five apartment blocks with shared facilities and a rather cantankerous WhatsApp group of restless people who have not yet found the natural circadian rhythm of silence and peace at a certain time of day, gathered in the communal garden for a summer barbecue.

I was not sure I would attend, as I am not good with crowds, but when my neighbour, one of the organisers, saw me a few hours before the event, I could not excuse myself from the fête. I paid for my ticket and took a bottle of South African shiraz and a bottle of orange juice to the gathering.

Gathering in the Garden

Dressed in traditional and colourful apparel, I was easily the centre of attention, while at the same time hoping to be inconspicuous. This was the first time something like this had been arranged in our decades-long residency of the village, and over forty people came.

From someone who had moved in only a fortnight ago to others who have lived here for over thirty years, I gleaned enough from the conversations I had. I was better off sitting in one place, with people interacting with me, than moving around networking extrovertly, which is a total drain on my mental reserves.

Proximity Without Intimacy

It struck me then how strange it was that so many of us should live so close and yet know one another so little. That WhatsApp group is the perfect emblem of it; we are near enough to disturb each other's peace, yet not close enough to know the names behind the complaints.

We had shared walls, stairwells, and a garden for years, and it took a barbecue for some of us to exchange a first word. Proximity, I realised, is not the same as intimacy, and living side by side is not the same as living together.

What Community Means

What it revealed to me was that we do not do neighbourliness and community enough, at least for those with an interest in others. I once had a neighbour whom I never met and who kept to themselves in the eighteen months they lived next door. Whether a recluse or simply indifferent, one could only be glad they were gone when I learnt of the situation.

I only want neighbours I can check on and who check on me; people who, when we meet in the corridor, would stop to have a chat; people ready to help one another in the ordinary and the more so. They become a kind of family, and that too is what community is all about.

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Brian at 49

A Journey Long Delayed

I was out socialising in Johannesburg, a journey I had finally scheduled after vacillating for weeks over the idea of travelling to South Africa, at the end of 2018.

Though the thought was on my mind, I had other pressing concerns. Only a few weeks prior, in October 2018, I had undergone a colonoscopy, and I can testify that the insertion of a tube at either end is thoroughly unpleasant. I speak as one who had also had a camera tube trailed down my oesophagus into the duodenum in mid-May 2026.

This was a time when I was shuttling between Manchester and Cologne. In one of those moments of self-talk, I said to myself, "If you do not book this trip, you'll regret it."

An Unexpected Encounter

While in Cologne, I booked a flight to Johannesburg, flying out from Manchester on Christmas Eve to arrive in Johannesburg on Christmas Day, via Paris.

It was on my third night that I ventured out and, ensconced in a corner as the introvert, I sat and observed others. Earlier, I had seen this man, but I perished the thought of an encounter; he looked already spoken for, and quite out of my league.

Then, probably an hour after I first saw him, and he must have been observing me too, he came round and said hello. I am not good in crowds, but if anyone makes a beeline towards me, I might just be eased out of my shell; and did he not tease me out of my social reclusiveness.

Conversation Never Stopped

We started to talk, then went to the bar and ordered drinks. I would usually be teetotal, but time slipped away until he had to go; he was returning to Bulawayo late the next day. I used the opportunity to ask whether we could have lunch together, before his departure for Zimbabwe.

I was about to hail a cab when his friend offered to give me a lift to my hotel. The lively conversation continued in the car until I was dropped off. Our earlier exchange of phone numbers meant the chatting carried on through the night, until we were overcome by tiredness.

Meeting Brian

Just before noon, I asked whether he was still up for lunch. That was our first date. When I left the UK, I was nine years into grieving the loss of a friend, a loss that carried the undercurrent of never having had the opportunity to say goodbye. I left Johannesburg having made a friend with whom the communication and conversation never stopped.

There was a connection between us and, though we only had a brief moment together, we were back seeing each other in late February. That is how I met Brian, who is 49 today.

Brian Birthday 49.pptx by Akin Akintayo

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Thick Skin and the Colour of Pain

A Familiar Ethnicity Pain Gap

It comes as no surprise to me to read that in the UK, women from Bangladeshi, Pakistani, and black Caribbean backgrounds were less likely than white women to receive an epidural whilst having a vaginal birth. [The Guardian: “Women from minority backgrounds in UK less likely to receive epidurals, research finds”]

The ideas, conceptions, perceptions, or prejudices that feed the narrative that non-white people, especially from the aforementioned backgrounds, do not need adequate pain medication to arrest high levels of discomfort and distress have appeared in studies for decades.

This situation, termed the "ethnicity pain gap", is quite concerning, and it might persuade one to surmise that there is a seething racialised disadvantage in the public health system, one that ascribes thick skin to the Black population and precious delicateness to the Asian cohort.

My Own Experience

My experience of this in late 2009 came as a result of cancer pain in its enduring intensity. I was on multiple regimens of pain medication, with Fentanyl dispensed as a transdermal patch being the most critical palliative, yet I was in pain.

When I informed my consultant that I was still in pain, and this was in the Netherlands rather than in the United Kingdom, he did not acknowledge my distress or seek to address it. Instead, his response was that the pain medication I was on should be enough. An ill-informed perception that I should have a higher pain threshold.

I remonstrated that it was not, and he then sought to double the dose from 12.5 micrograms to 25 micrograms. This made all the difference because it tackled the pain, and I got much-needed relief. Why I was not also told that transdermal patches could fall off, and that they could be held in place on the skin with an adhesive film, escapes me.

Knowledge Withheld

Returning from church, one Sunday, a few weeks after I had the new prescription, I was in a lot more pain than usual, and then I saw that the patch had fallen off.

I laughed myself to delirium to produce endorphins as pain relief whilst the new patch took hold. It was only when I told the nurse who came to dress the lesions on my foot daily that he told me I could get an adhesive film to keep the patch in place.

The knowledge was there all along, but it was never shared. As a race, in our encounters with the medical establishment, we are constantly pathologised, and this is characterised by either not being listened to or being ignored, because the medical personnel assume they know and understand our bodies more than we do with the intimate experience of our own skins.

Asserting Our Reality

That Caucasians are immediately responded to and given palliative succour on demand speaks volumes, without suggesting something untoward. Whether it is bias, prejudice, or indifference, we need to be better equipped to ask pertinent questions and persuade our doctors of our reality, without having to jump through hoops, trapped in suffering until it becomes unbearable.

It is not just in matters of pain, but in decisions being made about diagnostic and treatment regimes without explanation or rationale, delay in action when the full knowledge of a condition is evident, the lack of respect, courtesy, and the according of dignity to your personhood and humanity, or the use of the wrong indicators based on race for decision trees towards useful outcomes.

I approach the medical establishment on the premise of “It is my body first, before it is your guinea pig.” This need never be the default, because you are then preparing for a fight instead of fully trusting someone who took the Hippocratic Oath to do you no harm. Yet you find you need to assert yourself and manage the egos to ensure that you, at the very least, leave the hospital better than when you went in.

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