Category: thoughts

  • Levelling up LEOs

    Levelling up LEOs

    This is less of a blogpost and more of a ‘stub‘ to come back to later of some ideas that are swimming around in my head and as such it lacks a certain…coherence! There has been a lot of talk about the Government ‘levelling up’ agenda in recent months and while I am not exactly…

  • An Elder

    An Elder

    Recently when discussing my role with a colleague I quipped – “I am less a manager and more a village elder at this point”. As you’ll know many a true word is spoken in jest and the more I dwelled on it the more I realised there was a certain kind of truth to it.…

  • planning a u-kation

    planning a u-kation

    One of the things that has helped me get through this bleak 10 months or so has been my long-standing plan to take a bit of a sabbatical later this year and do a little (well a lot) of travelling and some writing. Increasingly though I just don’t think it is going to be possible…

  • My Alpha Alpha

    My Alpha Alpha

    Today is the six year anniversary of launching the ‘ONS Alpha’ into the wild. It is also the ninth birthday of GDS and it feels appropriate that they share a day as one wouldn’t have existed without the other. Working on the Alpha (ONS have done many Alphas since – many more complex and better…

  • 2020: The year I forgot how to read

    2020: The year I forgot how to read

    We all know 2020 has been terrible and weird and unsettling…and don’t forget ‘unprecedented’. One of the things I know I’m not alone in was the effect those early days of COVID concern had on my ability to read for pleasure – and here we are staring down the barrel of October (and the foretold…