Category Archives: The world of work

Hidden wartime remains and the language of wild beauty

Posted on December 18, 2019 by indyjols

The latest issue of Ernest Journal hit doormats last week, including quite a few bits and bobs by me. Along with quite a few smaller items, I’ve got a couple of longer articles in there. The first is on the … Continue reading →

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The intricacies of bee etiquette

Posted on January 25, 2019 by indyjols

Fine news. Another edition of Ernest Journal is out. Featuring lots of grand stuff including pieces on Romanian bison, cocktail bitters, American shanty boats, death trees and paranoid French castaways. Also, there’s a bit from me about bees. It struck … Continue reading →

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Mead fit for a king

Posted on April 4, 2018 by indyjols

‘Turbulent old time, the 17th century. It was the age of characters like Cardinal Richelieu and the Duke of Buckingham; of Oliver Cromwell, Galileo and Guy Fawkes; of civil war, regicide and plague; where a volcanic compound of science, magic, … Continue reading →

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The Sherlock Holmes Book

Posted on November 18, 2015 by indyjols

Sometimes the perfect job falls into your lap. As a 13 year-old picking my GCSE options, I quite fancied taking chemistry. Until further consideration revealed that I was abysmal at the subject, and always had been, despite the concerted efforts … Continue reading →

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Contributor to The Great Outdoors

Posted on October 8, 2015 by indyjols

Could anything be more pleasing than getting paid to go on strolls and write about them? Or to work for magazines that you read anyway? The Great Outdoors very kindly agreed to let me write a few North York Moors … Continue reading →

Posted in North Yorkshire, The world of work, Walking | 2 Comments

The motivational lessons of James Bond novels

Posted on October 5, 2014 by indyjols

There’s a tendency to underrate the perceptive capacities of thriller writers. You get so bound up in the pace and action of a plot that observations that would give you pause for thought in a more pedestrian work are left … Continue reading →

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Employment and elevation

Posted on March 4, 2014 by indyjols

Our lifts at work are a hundred shades of shite. There are supposed to be six of them, but this number is reduced to at most four, and frequently three. They serve a fifteen-floor tower block in Vauxhall, and on … Continue reading →

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Inky catharsis

Posted on January 9, 2014 by indyjols

No doubt psychiatrists and medication have their place in life, but as an outlet for a whole range of mildly negative emotions (frustration and boredom being chief among them), I have found since my schooldays that a biro and a … Continue reading →

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Before sunset

Posted on December 4, 2013 by indyjols

I was obliged to move desks last week. My new desk is about two thirds the size of my old one, but I don’t mind at all. Because it is a window seat on the fourteenth floor of a tower … Continue reading →

Posted in London, The world of work | 1 Comment

Hallowe’en for geeks

Posted on October 30, 2013 by indyjols

Ever heard of a zombie webpage? Apparently it’s where a page is deleted from the content management system but still somehow appears on the website. A colleague of mine sent round an email about these the other day. He was … Continue reading →

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