With Christmas and New Year just around the corner, this is my final post of 2024. It’s been an interesting—but certainly not the best—year.

I’ve always thought of myself as coming from Irish roots. I never questioned it. My family are Doyles. Doyles were Irish. So, my roots were in Ireland. Except they’re not.

A few weeks ago, BBC Question Time’s Fiona Bruce announced the programme was coming to nearby Chester, so I filled in the online form and applied to be in the audience. I completely forgot about applying until a researcher phoned me the day before the show and asked if I were still available. I was.

Maybe, calling my open source web designer and developer contract a “Killer” wasn’t such a smart idea?

“I’ve got an idea,” I said as Sue and I sat on beach outside Perth in Western Australia. “Why don’t we move to Australia for a couple of years? We love it here and it would be an adventure.”

Sue and I were driving home last Sunday when I realised that on Tuesday this week we would’ve seen Motörhead live at the Manchester Apollo.

After talking with Laura on Unfinished Business this week, about burgers in donuts, we moved on to discuss the Geek Mental Help Week that I’ve been thinking about and planning for the last few months. Something that I sincerely hope will help those of us who suffer from mental health issues and the others who support us.

My blog is ten years old today. Of course Stuff and Nonsense as a company is older than that by a few years, but today, ten years ago, on May 13 th *, I rolled out the welcome mat on the new site.

Last November I switched from a 13" MacBook Air to the equivalent MacBook Pro with a retina display. How does that feel?

It’s once again that time of year when almost every web designer, developer, podcaster and bottle washer that you follow on Twitter is asking you to vote for them in the annual Net Awards. Well, if you can’t beat’em, join’em.

I won’t blame you if you didn’t read it, but a couple of Septembers ago I wrote something personal about my name, how it made me feel, why I changed it and then regretted it ever since. You can read it now if you like, but the general gist is that being called Andrew when I was young reminded me of something I was missing and that made me terribly sad. So I asked everyone to call me Andy instead, and they did that for the next thirty-five years.

Yep. Number forty-one of one-hundred. To be honest, when I was told about being part of the Drum Digerati list I wasn’t at all happy about it.

I’ve lived with the new video feature in Instagram for about a week and while I was originally sceptical about whether video and Instagram would be a good match, I thought it best to wait a while before forming an expressing an opinion.

And here’s what happened:

I can remember the first cigarette I ever smoked. It was 1983 and on my way to art foundation one day, I stopped my car at Kettering railway station and bought a packet of ten Benson & Hedges and a box of Swan matches. I pulled on the cellophane band, tore off the top and flipped open the golden box. I’ll never forget the smell of tobacco that rises from a freshly opened pack or the bitter smell of a match. I slipped a cigarette between my lips, struck a match and lit it.

Here’s something personal I wrote for the Pastry Box Project today:

The end of this week sees web design masterminds, mobsters and even petty criminals heading to Austin for SXSW. It’s like Parkhurst for design geeks.

The end of this next month should see me taking the longest flight of my life; from London to Sydney for Web Directions, then on to Spain for Fundamentos Web. Two conferences, a world apart.

Early one mornin’ while makin’ the rounds I took a shot of cocaine and I shot my woman down I went right home and I went to bed I stuck that lovin’.44 beneath my head Got up next mornin’ and I grabbed that gun Took a shot of cocaine and away I run Made a good…

Even after only the briefest of spells travelling in the USA this year, I became accustomed to those creature comforts that make a travelling designer’s life so much easier.

Driving around Engerlaaand, it’s hard to miss the flags of Saint George flying from buildings and cars. Every second person is sporting a replica shirt and petrol stations are doing a roaring trade in everything from Ferdinand fragrance air-fresheners to…

In today’s Arno Zimmerman episode, Paul Scrivens hones in on the money in’The Nine Rules’. Of all Arno’s contacts, Paul was the only person to name a figure. Arno would have been pleased to pay it too, if only life were so simple.

With awareness of standards and accessibility being raised by groups such as WaSP, companies and organisations across many sectors have adopted standards. Sometimes their decision to do so might have been commercial, other times out of a need to comply.

In the news this week, three times winner of the Tour De France and occassional web designer Jeffrey Veen announced that MeasureMap has been acquired by Yahoo, AltaVista, Starbucks, Google.

In the news this week, three times winner of the Tour De France and occassional web designer Jeffrey Veen announced that MeasureMap has been aquired by Yahoo, AltaVista, Starbucks, Google.

It was announced yesterday that one of the most influential artists of the British 1960’s art movement, Patrick Caulfied, died on Thursday.

I love my Nano, I want to keep it close, keep it safe. My Nano is so precious, I can’t bear to think of it getting scratched.

Travelling around the London Underground, it is difficult not to notice a series of posters for the British Legion’s Victory Thanks campaign. Among all the advertising for theatres and stores, these Victory Thanks posters stand out as striking and evocative.

Every now and again I pull out the tin and sift through its contents, photographs and other small treasures which my Grandad thought important.

School music teacher: (To class) Who would like to learn a musical instrument? Teacher: What instrument would you like to learn?

Since I delivered my (slightly modified) Anatomy of a Mouse presentation at @media2005, I’ve had time to formalise my thinking about my answer to one of the questions from the audience.

When I reached the studio this morning, (Ed says: Malarkey is always grumpy before 11am. ) there was a mysterious box sitting on my desk. Open the box! shouted the voices in my head, so guess what? I opened the box!

A while ago (when I couldn’t sleep), I sat up late watching re-runs of home decorating shows on UK TVStyle, a channel wall-to-wall with house make-overs.

Some of you may recall that way back in June last year, Stuff and Nonsense grew up, moved away from home and got a place of its own. I wasn’t so sure about the move at the time, but (happily) I was proved wrong and it’s been a good move.

Just like Scrivs announced this week that the CSS Vault has been sold, this site too has a new owner and I’d like to introduce him to you. His name is Malarkey. (Ed: What are you rambling on about now?) OK, I’ll get to the point.

Oh my kiddy aunt, it’s started already. Driving through Warrington yesterday, I caught my first glimpse of the UK Labour Party’s first campaign posters for the up-and-coming (to a church hall near you) General Election.

I’d just finished reading Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman’s Long Way Round book (kindly given by Sue’s Mum for my birthday at the end of November) when the DVD pops into my Christmas stocking (this time, nicely gift wrapped for my brother by Amazon (lazy…

Most recently, Paul Chadwick has recieved much critical acclaim for his work on comic-book movie tie-ins such as Star Wars and the Matrix.

Two of my favourite comic books artists excel in black and white illustration, the first, Frank Miller is better known for his work on Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and more recently, Sin City.

NB: This article refers to a prior version of the WWF UK online store that I designed in 2004. I was pleased to learn yesterday that our work has won the ECMOD 2004 (European Catalogue and Mail Order Days) Best Charity/Good Cause Related Catalogue Award for…

Forget Superman or the Hulk, the Fantastic Four or (God forbid) Captain America! When I was a kid there was only one comic book hero, the mighty Judge Dredd.

We’re back from the south of France, two weeks without the phone, email or MSN. At home, my usual morning routine runs something like this, In France it’s a little bit different; two weeks of,

Time travel. It’s a subject that often keeps me awake at night, pondering… So I thought I’d interview a bunch of bloggers to help me out. Thanks to Brit Packers Andy Budd, Simon Collison, Jon Hicks, Gordon Mackay, Tim Parkin and Richard Rutter.

An eagerness to please should always push a designer to do the best for a client. But there are times where just when you thought the job was finished, a client will say, Can we just add… The four stage sign-off sheet can be our best friend.

Over the weekend, I installed iTunes on all the computers in the design studio and centralised our entire CD collection on the server.

Why are certain types of criminals glamorous? Not murderers or muggers, but forgers, safe crackers and con-artists. From the fictional Italian Jobster Charlie Crocker (original, not remake) to the late Great Train Robber, Ronnie Biggs, I see a certain romance…

Working life at Stuff and Nonsense has been very hectic of late, infact there has rarely been a day off in the last twelve months.