Songs I know all the words to #1

I used to wake in the afternoon

When the sunshine finally cut through the haze

I really don’t remember that much

I just know I wasted a thousand days

Born Again by The Christians, released in 1987, reaching 25 in the charts.

We need protection from this infection

Something to ease this cruel disease

A ray of hope and a new direction

I called to you and you rescued me

It didn’t occur to me (age 11) that it was anything other than a love song. Born Again by The Christians.

‘Cause when you’re around

I feel like I’m born again

I’m through going down

In you I’ve a better friend

Oooh, better friend

Got this feeling I’m born again

Swimming

I retired from a promising swimming career at 12, taking it up again in my mid 30s.

I never liked the training. Sunday evening. Floats. Up and down.

Or galas at the Ken Martin.

Of course, I liked to race, but I remember very little enjoyment.

It was like sport, but all gym and no ball. No game.

Eddie, the coach, called me David and I didn’t correct him.

As soon as I felt I could make a choice, I chose pitches over pools, and coaches who knew my name.

My certificates are for breaststroke. But as an adult, it’s front crawl in the medium lane.

Early, Sunday mornings.

Camberwell, West Norwood. Kimberley, Beechdale, and Bramcote. And now the Auchrannie Spa, and Hotel.

MWEG SBAB MMM ECMP

Unmemorable mnemonic of train stops between Midland and Perth, 1994.

  • Midland
  • West Midland
  • East Guildford
  • Guildford
  • Success Hill
  • Bassendean
  • A
  • Bayswater
  • Mount Lawley
  • M
  • M
  • East Perth
  • C
  • M
  • Perth

301 – 0

1989: the first day of the Trent Bridge test, with Dad.

Sat in the sun of the Parr stand, upper tier.

Tom Moody on the balcony, just to our right, in the squad but not the team.

Botham bowling medium pace from a short run, belly and mullet.

Marsh and Taylor, right and left. Marsh driving carefully towards us for 2, Taylor nudging 140.

Devon Malcolm, Angus Fraser, Eddie Hemmings.

301 – 0.

0 – 301.

Operating outside a big organisation, lagom, and a job advert for a user researcher

I joined Lagom a couple of months ago. I’ve probably not been in the role for long enough to know what normal feels like yet, but it’s been pretty good so far.

Two years ago, after leaving my job in the civil service, I was a bit concerned that years of working in government departments had left me institutionalised. I was worried that all that time I’d spent working out the rules and customs of institutions might have left me a decent operator within big organisations, but ill-equipped to operate outside them.

A year of freelancing sorted me out. I proved to myself that I could still function on my own, without the comfort blankets of the institution. It was liberating to just focus on the task in front of me, without all the office politics, committees and change programmes.

Now that I’ve got a job again (albeit with a very different type of organisation) I’ve been thinking about how to get the balance right between the focus I found as a freelancer, and the multifarious advantages of working with other people.

I’m grateful that the small team I’ve joined at Lagom have already spent plenty of time thinking about how to get this right as the business has grown.

Lagom is a Swedish word, which loosely translates as “balanced” or “just right”. It nicely describes the way we’re trying to work.

At the moment I’m spending much of my time working on my own, usually remotely, and I’m expected to make good decisions about how I do things and get on with it. But I am also able to draw on the expertise of other Lagomers when I need to, and I’m connected enough to feel part of a team. The balance feels about right to me, and I suspect that we’re working productively as a result.

Lagom are recruiting at the moment. We’ve got a job advertised for a user researcher. If you think you might be interested in working with us (and if you like the sound of the way we’re trying to work), please get in touch. Here’s the job spec:

I’ve got a new job

It’s nearly 2 years now since I left my role at the Department of Health, ending 17 years working directly for various parts of the state.

I’ve done quite a lot since then. I had a fairly lengthy pause to reflect, embarked on life as a freelance digital person for hire, and moved to the country.

In that time I’ve worked on projects for the Cabinet Office, Defra, the Genomics Education Programme, the Department for Transport, the Home Office, and the Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government.

I’ve enjoyed the variety of the work. And I’ve worked with – and for – some great people. I’ve enjoyed managing my own time, choosing what work to take on and when, and how to balance that with life outside work. I’ve even quite enjoyed the minor peril of never quite knowing whether I’ll be able to find and sequence enough work to pay the bills each month.

I don’t have any regrets about the leap of faith I took to opt out of the security of the 9-5. But I’m about to change it all again because, starting this month, I’m joining Lagom Strategy.

Some of the most enjoyable and fulfilling pieces of work I’ve done over the last year have been with the team at Lagom, so I’m delighted to be joining Liam, Helen, Adam, Linda and the team on a more formal basis.

I hope that by joining Lagom I can help Liam and Helen to develop the business, providing a bit more capacity to expand the volume of work and the range of the offer it is possible to make to clients.

But I think they’ve already built a brilliant business, based around user research, discovery, and content strategy. I’ve already learned a lot from the rigour and creativity of their methods, which get great results, and always make Lagom projects a pleasure to work on.

For me, it provides me with a chance to get stuck into problems from start to finish, in a way that isn’t always possible as a freelancer on a day rate. It might just be a blend of all the best bits of the things I’ve been doing for the last couple of years. So I can’t wait to get started.

I am available for hire

I’ve been doing some proper, paid, freelance government digital work for the last few months. A piece of work for the Cabinet Office, and another for a health ALB, so bits of government that I know quite well.

I must admit that when I started, after quite a long layoff, I didn’t know how I would feel about it. I wasn’t sure how easily it would all come back to me, whether I would recover the energy that I previously had for this stuff, or how I would feel being the supplier rather than the client.

But I’ve really enjoyed it, and I think I’ve done a decent job. It’s actually been a real pleasure to work alongside passionate and clever people, committed to doing good work, and I’m very grateful to Liam and Rupert in particular for that.

So as those projects come to an end, I find that I am a freelance digital person with spare capacity, and available for hire.

My About page lists some of the things that I think people might pay me to do – things that I like doing, have done before, and am quite good at – as well as ways to get in touch.