Current reading: Forgotten Churches

Just finishing the book Forgotten Churches: Exploring England's Hidden Treasures by Luke Sherlock. A quite magical book, a mix of architecture, travel and history. Also exploration of place. With evocative illustrations throughout from Ioana Pioaru. Thoroughly recommended.

I mainly read it on my Kindle for disability reasons, but also had the hardback book, which is better for appreciating the gorgeous illustrations. It's a quite compact hardback book, not too large, but just right. I was just tormenting Martin over tea with questions about "Do you know X?" re X places in Somerset, Wiltshire and Dorset! But also had fun showing him some of the fantastic pictures I enjoyed in the later sections of the book. He's a lapsed bellringer, and in his younger days rang bells in many churches in southwest England.

Hobonichi 2026 browsing

For 2 years I've used a Hobonichi Techo A5 journal for my planning. Now trying to decide what covers etc to get for 2026. Navigating my way thru what I like, vs what's Japan exclusive, or even Hobonichi Japan only. Expect to get all from Art From The Heart in Harrogate.

Was going to get a Junji Ito "Tomie" manga Hobonichi cover next year. Then having watched today's many hours preview I favoured something else. Which I now find is Hobonichi Japan store exclusive & ridiculously expensive! Now veering towards something else, very nice, that I can get from Yorkshire.

I'm very lucky to have a good friend in Japan who could help with this. But this time around it's easier for me to get the goodies from the Harrogate shop. Who will charge a bit more than Hobonichi direct and also Amazon Japan, but will save me masses on shipping costs and customs/tax, and I'll have the goodies fast.

Here's my blog post from 2024 about how I use a Hobonichi A5 journal for planning and journalling. My system is self-designed, and established itself really quickly on me first starting with Hobonichi in 2024. I'm still doing things the same way now.

AI moan

Getting beyond exasperated with the number of people on forums and groups I'm on, who reply to questions, needing specialist and reliable knowledge to answer, and post a response from ChatGPT. Usually & consistently wrong. Those folk may learn it's not a good source but others later will use it too.

I'm also beyond exasperated by the misuse of generative AI in creative fields, including art, interactive fiction and writing. I'm also an academic whose own academic writings have been used without my permission to train AI, including for Meta. And then there are the environmental costs. Just stop!

My 88-year-old Mum who's never used a computer or smartphone in her life, and never will, also rants about AI. I'm quite impressed that she knows about it and has enough knowledge to have opinions :)

Incidentally I've been using and involved with some forms of AI since the 1980s. But I really really dislike the modern version and where things are going with it.