LONDONIST – Where To Eat And Drink In Croydon

A short guide written for the fine people at Londonist about (some of) the food & drink opportunities in my home town of Croydon. Since I am essentially a roving stomach with a human body attached (semi professional food writer?) and have spent about a quarter of century living around Waddon, Croydon, this was not a difficult task to fulfil.

But it was a fun task and I got to know some of the local food and drink scene a little better. There is a LOT happening in Croydon.

I think/hope that this will be the first of a few food and drink things I write for Londonist!

GUIDE – Hometown Tourist: Central London

The premise behind Hometown Tourist, I think, is region specific travel guides written by people local to those areas.

Having spent the majority of my life in London, and a good portion of my weekdays in the centre of the city either working or eating/drinking stuff, they asked me to write a little guide.

So here it is…

There is no official definition for what constitutes ‘central London’, and so I used one of the amendments to the London Government Bill for guidance (thanks Wikipedia!).

That definition consists of the City of London, all of Westminster, Holborn and Finsbury; and the inner parts of Shoreditch, Stepney, Bermondsey, Southwark, Lambeth, Chelsea, Kensington, Paddington, St Marylebone and St Pancras.

Still, it’s not really a travel article if you don’t have to go very far to see it. Riiiight? *shrugs*

MACWORLD – How to use Game Centre on the Mac: Game Centre for Mac, set up tips and more

Another piece for the fine chaps at Macworld. Mac’s Game Center needs a bit of work but looks like it’ll be much improved by time Apple’s Yosemite comes around.

MACWORLD – How to use Game Centre on iOS, iPad, iPhone: Game Centre set up tips and more

Another piece for the fine chaps at Macworld. I wonder if there’s anyone at Apple trying to broker a deal with Valve and combine the Game Center with Steam?

That’d be interesting…

MACWORLD – Complete guide to using the iOS App Store for iPad and iPhone

I gone done some words for Macworld about how to use the Apple App Store to find stuff. It is, at the time of writing, a bit broken.

#protip Use Google

GOTHINKBIG – Do you even Vlog

A piece I assembled for the fine people at GoThinkBig in which I tracked down a bunch of people who are doing very well with Youtube video and got them to tell the camera how they did it (the whole video idea was GTB’s editor’s idea – and a very good one at that).

The idea here being that maybe us uh…’regular’ Youtube publishers could learn something by instruction. Or osmosis. Or Osmotic Instruction®

What did I learn from this experience?

…I don’t know 😀

THERANKTANK – Smart TV Buying Considerations

I wrote a brief comparison piece for a new UK based consumer site, TheRankTank, on what to look for when you’re buying a next generation/’smart’ TV.

I speak briefly about 4K/Ultra HD (4196 x 2160) , BluRay, 3D, ‘conventional’ HD, and plasma vs LCD.

Short but sweet, I hope…

YANO – Child poverty: unacceptable in the 21st century

A piece I wrote for Yano about UK Child Poverty. Going into this article I had no idea that the situation here was so bad, but it is – and it’s getting worse.

What I like about working with Yano is that it feels like I’m writing about things that are seriously important. I hope to use whatever platforms I have to make people aware of the issue, and help combat it in whatever way that I can.

In this abundant world of excesses and wastage, poverty, wherever it is, is utterly unacceptable.

LATESTGADGETS – The Exciting World Of No Cost Electronica

A tutorial / roundup article for latestgadgets.co.uk on the best music production freeware; covers DAWs, VSTs, AUs, plugins and sequencers. After many years of experience trying almost everything free, I whittled the list down to what is basically the best of the freely available ones.

I love writing about music technology – since I’m basically a pissed off musician at heart :3

Mark’s Daily Apple – Engineering a Better Life

A piece for Mark’s Daily Apple about using the ‘primal’/’paleo’ approach in ‘lifestyle design’.

Disclaimer: I know that terrible liberties have been taken with the lifestyle design label, and I’m trying to steer well clear of all the ‘gurufication’ and all that internet marketing bollocks.

So yeah, in my case this lifestyle design means writing articles in my garden, trying not to spend all my money on bass guitars and having a bedroom that ever so slightly resembles a gym…