Chris Brooker

Why can't Manchester United just have a decent owner? Why!? Doesn't anyone decent that likes football and loves Manchester have more money than significant global polluters and thieves...oh, right. Cool.

Tyler Ballgame - For The First Time, Again. Rough Trade. Buy For The First Time, Again by Tyler Ballgame on Rough Trade.

2026, week 5: Tyler Ballgame, For The First Time Again - shop.roughtraderecords.com/release/5346... Mmm voice.
Just 1 album I🧡 this week because I had "Covid Ear". Lost hearing and had tinnitus in my left ear. It's whistling now. Funny but it sucks. Good job we don't talk about the pandemic anymore

2026, week 4: IDK - e.t.d.s. A Mixtape by .idk. hmv.com/store/music/...
Fast forward to the warm weather and this is the one. Hip hop back, again!
Naive Melodies - Talking Heads tribute - bbemusic.bandcamp.com/album/naive-... - heaven in strings and full circle quality song writing and influences

Essam, by Imarhan 10 track album

2026, week 3: Imarhan, Essam. I'm pretty sure this album took me to Tamanrasset and I loved being lost in it.
imarhan.bandcamp.com/album/essam
Westside Cowboy, So Much Country 'Till We Get There EP. EP!? We want LP and it'll be all songs when it's ready.
westsidecowboy.bandcamp.com/album/so-muc...

Rebuilding Soundtrack — JAKE XERXES FUSSELL I’m glad to say that Rebuilding - the feature length motion picture for which James Elkington and I composed & recorded a soundtrack - will see its theatrical release this November! In conjuncti...

2026, week 1: Rebuilding soundtrack www.jakexerxesfussell.com/home/rebuild... - perfect for driving around in the Dorset countryside and slow, short January days.
With Heaven on Top, Zach Bryan - same deal and my 6 year old said it sounds like we're in a film. Insert lazy comparison to Johnny Cash

What business owner or director looks at this, and their team clearly working for a manager (or head coach or whatever nonsense) and says, time to sack them after 12 years of poor team performance? It all reeks of fragile male egos, and Jim Ratcliffe and Jason Wilcox, sacked the wrong person #MUFC

Climate investment is growth opportunity of 21st century, says economist Lord Stern says fossil-fuelled growth is futile as the damage it causes ends in economic self-destruction

..."the cost of achieving the net zero target is far lower than the cost of inaction... but if you’re saying that the political discussion is so difficult it cannot possibly be overcome by rational argument, then we’re in for a very hard time.” www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Building a shared understanding of services Lucy Hartley, Head of Service Strategy, Ownership and Performance, and Lisa Jeffery, Design Manager, reflect on the work being done to build a shared understanding of services within Defra’s Digital, ...

Excited about the work we are doing across Defra and in the Environment Agency. It's a massive effort to coordinate and transform services across land use, sustainable development, water, #circulareconomy and all areas and #policy, delivery and #servicedesign defradigital.blog.gov.uk/2025/07/31/b...

Is AI takes the jobs, then will AI have to pay the taxes?

Hamleys toy shop founded 1760. United States founded 1776. Good pub quiz question.

From what I saw from my sofa, Doechii won Glastonbury this year.

And Kneecap. All our love and support boys.

Looked like one of the best years, 2025. Hope everyone had a great time and found some shade. #Glastonbury

Great to see the London Design Biennale 2025 at Somerset House and UK Gov design projects and methods amongst the art and ideas from around the world, and with such a focus on planet and the environment. Given us lots of ideas and inspiration and targets for our work.

Iran, Beyond the Headlines with Maziar Bahari Podcast Episode · The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart · 26/06/2025 · 1h 33m

Wow, if you want to understand Iran and what's happening in an hour and a half. Even with an informed and empathetic explanation of why Trump feels like the 2 countries (Israel and Iran), "don't know what the fuck they're doing" from Maziar Bahari. Super journalism
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

Thatcher, Farage and toe-sucking: Adam Curtis on how Britain came to the brink of civil war Chaos, distrust and so many sex scandals … Ahead of his epic new series Shifty, the great documentarian charts the UK’s slide towards Whitehall’s worst nightmare

I think this could be my favourite Adam Curtis take and analysis on how we are where we are. Stuck in a dangerous pantomime www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio... - also a brilliant interview with Adam on 6 Music earlier this week

My wonderful mum died in December and her colleagues are raising money for cancer research. Thank you Steyning team! fundraise.cancerresearchuk.org/team/steynin...
Mum hated not being able to work anymore and loved all her patients. She did the most anyone could to care for everyone. #Paynursesmore

Haha, I think I had the same day last week. Service or a capability though?

‘Nobody wants a robot to read them a story!’ The creatives and academics rejecting AI – at work and at home Is artificial intelligence coming for everyone’s jobs? Not if this lot have anything to do with it

"We keep moving like zombies towards a world that nobody really wants to live in". I am already tired of reading AI-created content at work. If it's not wrong, it's not even very good. But we must not let it take our art.
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

‘Buy less!’: why Sewing Bee’s Patrick Grant wants us to stop shopping The Sewing Bee presenter is a designer and clothing manufacturer who is also fiercely anti-consumerism. He discusses how he balances his beliefs with his business

“Every government I can remember has fallen back on the idea that if we can just get the economy growing, everything will be great...that’s complete nonsense..We’ve had a growing economy for the last 50-odd years and most people don’t feel any better off at all.."
www.theguardian.com/fashion/2025...

It'd cost a lot less to rent my 2 year old a flat around the corner than it does for her to go to nursery and a childminder 4 days a week. Both parents have to work and nobody can afford more children. I don't think people want "wealth" but that's an extinction event isn't it, amongst all the others

I don't know if there's awards for this but the cover of The Observer today is stunning. Compelling visually and in writing.

Please could someone ask Radiohead to reform in time to play Eden Project 4 July. Thank you. I don't want to cancel the whole trip now we can't see Kneecap. Thom, Jon, Ed, Col, you'll love it, if you've not been before.

I like being called a radical left lunatic. I don't feel radical taking the kids to school, working, picking the kids up from school, working, taking the kids to school, working...not buying a Tesla and feeling content we've got the online food shop into a good weekly groove. Should be more radical

Dramatic fall in London’s levels of deadly pollutants after Ulez expansion People in capital breathing much cleaner air, with significant improvements in capital’s most deprived areas

..and breathe, some good news - www.theguardian.com/environment/... - really happy for my home town. Not least, my asthmatic family members that still live there.

Elon Musk and Texas governor celebrate firing of worker over pronouns in email signature Billionaire Trump ally and Greg Abbot tweet about Frank Zamora, who was let go after refusing to remove pronouns

The Bigots are running the Funny Farm. They haven't thought long term and how it can't work but in the meantime, it is going to take a lot more class acts like Frank Zamora.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Feels like a world based on the continents in 1984 is forming. 3 massive states compete in a constantly changing set of battles that are, in reality, a stalemate

Today was the first day I needed to ask an AI chat if I was speaking to a person or AI. It was maintenance and repair diagnostics service and I was 75% sure the content was AI generated but that 25% feels important and scary and slightly embarrassing.

Er...should someone mention that you don't make public services more efficient by only focusing on making them more efficient. You make them more efficient by designing them so they work better for people that need them. Looking after the people that work in them more helps a lot too. Ok Thanks. Bye

UK student invents repairable kettle that anyone can fix Gabriel Kay hopes his design can help tackle the problems caused by discarded electrical goods

So great product design (yes I still call it #productdesign) student projects like this are getting picked up! Nice one and congrats Gabriel Kay, De Montfort and www.greengrads.co.uk www.theguardian.com/environment/... Nice kettle too! Teach people to fix things again.

So this is your chance everyone… patients, carers, paramedics, doctors, nurses, medical teams, carer teams, pharmacists, volunteers, charities, community groups, local government, entrepreneurs… all of us to share our thoughts, experiences, insights, wisdom #Change #NHS
www.england.nhs.uk

It is very exciting and a privilege to be a part of this. Exactly the place I think we wanted service design to be in when I started out. It's also a great check point and test for decades of #servicedesign theory and practise and for the good of the services and environmental outcomes we need now.