Leeds Tube map updated
Update: you can now buy the Leeds Tube map as a poster for your wall! Hello visitors! See this update for v3 of the map! My Leeds Tube map was an unexpected hit on Twitter, and I even ended up being in the Yorkshire Evening Post! I also received some feedback from people who would like to see my fantasy tube support more of the population centres in Leeds. Some of the feedback was very constructive so I’ve taken the time to update it with two new lines, the East Circle, connecting settlements in East Leeds, and the West Line that connects Armley and Bramley with the rail network. I also updated the Google Map to show the real1 locations of these stations. View Leeds Tube in a larger map As before, this is released under an attribution-noncommercial licence,...
Leeds Tube map
Update: you can now buy the Leeds Tube map as a poster for your wall! Hello visitors! See this update! Leeds is an amazing city: my favourite place I’ve ever lived. But one thing it does really badly is public transport. We have one massive railway station in the centre of town and then (with a few exceptions) the rest of the city is accessible by unreliable, expensive and unpleasant First buses. As I have got to know the city better, one thing has kept coming back to me: wouldn’t it be amazing if Leeds had a metro system? So I imagined an alternate reality where the city I love has an amazing and reliable underground railway called Leeds Tube. Leeds Tube has several lines that connect the major population centres and attractions, including the...
Leeds Beer Quest
Regular readers of my blog (if such a thing exists) will notice it’s gone quiet here recently. I’ve not vanished, but I do have another project to keep me occupied! Emily and I are on a Leeds Beer Quest! We’re on a mission to visit every single pub and bar in Leeds city centre and review them. We’ve done 36 so far, which sounds like a lot, but we’ve got at least 140 to do! Check us out over there, especially if you live in Leeds and you’re looking for some ideas about new places to go out (or places to avoid). The address is pretty memorable: http://leedsbeer.info/ I’ve also not given up my commitments to Twitter and Flickr, and you can find me on those sites by following the links to the right hand side. I do have loads...
Success stories reported as failure
Something I often see happening in the media is the reporting of success stories as failures. The scenario is this: Something unfortunate and unpredictable happens. The authorities / people responsible clean up the mess and few-to-no parties are harmed, physically or financially. This major success is reported by the news as a failure. Today’s story about the keys at Wembley going missing was a great example of this phenomenon. Something very unfortunate happened – a set of keys went missing at a major Olympic venue. But here’s the thing: this fact was discovered instantly, and security protocol was initiated which resulted in all the locks being changed before there was any chance of security being compromised. This proves the security systems...
Lords Reform: Time for a Senate of the modern age?
The House of Lords is a bag of balls. We know this – you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone other than a foaming traditionalist who believes that having almost two-thirds of our country’s lawmakers being appointed, rather than elected, is a good idea. The recent news about the latest bill for Lords Reform — the latest in a line of small-scale tweaks — is the most exciting yet because it promises a large proportion of the seats to be democratically elected. But do we need another set of politicians elected the same way as the Commons? Will the public even understand why they’re voting for two different representatives? Will they care? It’s hard enough to get people to turn out for elections when they’re only voting for one. In...
Thought for the day: Andy Murray
I don’t normally write about sport (or indeed, anything, these days) but I thought this was worth a moment. The BBC is reporting today that Andy Murray’s defeat in the Wimbledon final was his “biggest disappointment yet” because he played better than ever before. And I have no doubt he feels that way. That’s our culture that does that, not logic or common sense: the better you do and the harder you work, the bigger a disappointment it is when you fail. Why? Is this a good thing?
Karaoke for snobs
Those of you who know me well enough will know I’m a bit of a karaoke fiend. Stick me in a room with beer and some friends and a load of backing tracks and it will be very hard to get me to put down the microphone. The trouble is: my musical tastes and karaoke don’t strongly intersect. A karaoke playlist will always have a bit of Radiohead, REM, Kings of Leon… if I’m lucky I’ll find some other moderately popular artists like Mumford & Sons or the Manic Street Preachers. Sometimes there’s an absolute gem like Alabama 3 or Guillemots but this is really pushing it. What we need is a karaoke bar for snobs. A place where Kylie and Girls Aloud are banned and the playlist oozes with quality songs that really test a singer’s...
Leeds-based non-binary nerd and sewist. I won't break my streak on Duolingo for anyone. 
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