Alan The ExCeL had solved almost everything I normally measure. Flat floors, step-free stations, staff everywhere, live commentary across the whole site. I still went home on Saturday evening wondering whether Sunday was worth the journey. What stood between me and Formula E was not the building.
I decided to go to Edinburgh with fifteen minutes to spare, and nearly regretted it by mid-morning. Then a slice of pizza, a street singer and a chainsaw-juggling unicyclist changed everything. This is what a day inside the Fringe actually felt like, cobbles, crowds and all · ~9 min read ·
The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo on a night when three festivals had the city at a standstill. Why the hardest part happened entirely outside the gates, what sixteen cast members gave up an hour before curtain, how it felt to be handed a serving airman’s rifle on the cobbles inside the Castle, and the reason a touch tour made the show land harder than sight alone would have done.
Read time: roughly 17 minutes.
A small country fair on a working Dumfriesshire estate, mud and rain included. Why my cane stayed in my bag for the day, how a phone camera became my only way of watching the main ring, the ownership story tucked beside a 1967 tractor, and the Highland cow that made the whole soggy afternoon worth it.
Read time: roughly 7 minutes.
A small volunteer-run museum on the site of a wartime airfield, where nothing is roped off and you can walk right up to a Meteor, climb aboard a Trident flight deck, and lose an afternoon in engines alone.
A two night city break in Prague, a fairytale city built on cobbles. How I learned the route before I left home, why the trams deserve more respect than the cars, what happened when nobody recognised my white cane, and the trick that gave me Charles Bridge and Prague Castle entirely to myself. Read Time – 12 Minutes
I spent an entire Saturday walking up and down somebody’s driveway, and covered more than seventeen kilometres doing it. Goodwood is loud, dusty, crowded and physically punishing, and it is still one of the most accessible major events I attend, because it gives you enough ways to make the day your own. The platforms were full, Future Lab defeated me, and none of that mattered by the time I found the one car I had come to see.
22 min read • Micro-case studies included
The day before Goodwood, a friend asked which single car I most wanted to find. I answered without hesitating, and then I found it, unroped and close enough to lean into. What I didn’t expect was the man standing beside it, who told me that if you drive a car hard enough to break it, you haven’t failed, you’ve found your next improvement.
6 min read • Special Report
Before I lost my sight, I drove, and I loved it. This week the RNIB invited me to climb inside one of the Waymo test cars now learning the streets of London, and to hear what a room of thirty visually impaired people really thinks about handing the wheel to a machine. This one is different: a special report from an afternoon where hope and hard questions sat side by side.
Read time: 11 minutes.
I very nearly turned round at Cambridge station, unable to find the shuttle and wondering whether the whole day was a mistake. What changed my mind wasn’t an aircraft at all, but an A-Team van, a scientist holding thousand-year-old ice, and a running commentary that quietly told me exactly where to look. At Duxford the flying is extraordinary, but it’s the people who make you want to come back.
16 min read • Micro-case studies included