2026 in Review

13 January 2026

It’s a new year! Time for more adventures and things I want to remember.

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January

A great hike with my friend Neel Mistry and the Weekend Walkers crew
Paying my taxes 😄

Meetups

The Feeling of Computing and Second Renaissance meetups at Newspeak House
Deepening my involvement in the London? Live? Coding? community and pastagang including guest hosting the the January meetup

Art

Ryoji Ikeda’s data-cosm [n°1] - My brain is still pulsing
Theatre Picasso at Tate Modern - A truly vibrant “staging” of Picasso’s work where visitors are invited into the performance
Second visit to Lee Miller and first visit to Turner ‘vs’ Constable at Tate Britain. Rivals in their lifetimes, the exhibition brings together over 170 of their works in a rare tête-à-tête!

Work

I’m helping a government department to build their own contact & event management tool. This month we received external validation of our team’s proposed engineering & data-standards – now we just need to follow them!
I’m now three months into the quest for approval to use Playwright or Selenium to do BDD, spec-by-example, and test-automation.
I got interviewed as part of an effort to create a wider organisational digital playbook
I continue to be frustrated by the failed promises and major limitations of Microsoft Power Platform, at least as far as Canvas Apps go. Want a taste? Ask ChatGPT how to create a customised reusable navbar component in a Canvas App.
In my latest contract with the Government Digital Service, I’m helping to establish an editorial pipeline and a central place for emerging policy and guidance on AI in the public sector. Standing on the shoulders of giants, I’m able to leverage the network of 70+ experts across government, industry, and academia and material from the AI Playbook established by the brilliant Tommaso Spignelli.

February

Work

I spent a day visiting Microsoft and learning about Dynamics 365. It has plenty of bells & whistles but my client needs the basics first. As Ben Terret says “No innovation until everything works”

We said farewell to our product Alessandro Gillies as he returns to GDS.

I’m also doing a few hours a week with the AI Enablers team at GDS (part of the Public Sector AI Adoption team). This month I got to attend one of the in-person events for the 6k+ person cross-government AI community with great talks from Chris Page, Tommaso Spinelli, and Carl Dalby

Gigs & Fun

Another AlgoRhythms in Peckham. I didn’t play this time but it was so great to see so much amazing talent for creating music with code!
A great meet-up with several London? Live? Coding? members at the Barbican to talk about our projects and hang out
An eye-opening visit to the Imperial War Musuem I’d subconsciously avoided this place since moving here 16+ years ago but I’ve been missing out. It’s done to a very high standard striking a careful balance of sensitivity, nuance, gratitude, pride, and honesty.
Another Weekend Walk around Penshurst with lunch at the Rock Inn
Fatboy Slim at Ally Pally - Immaculately produced, it was joyful, silly and energising replete with memes, plenty of new material, a sprinkling of the classic hits, lasers, confetti cannons, air-horns, and indoor flame throwers.
Another great meetup with the London? Live? Coding? community at the Sekforde. It’s a wonderful pub with a fantastic mission!
Demonstrating my new reverb tool at the Feeling of Computing meet-up at Newspeak House. I met so many interesting people like Kat and Agnes.

March!

Spring is in the air. We’ve had some beautiful warm days already. Here’s what I’ve been up to.

Work stuff

After months of procurement and negotiation we finally signed a contract with a delivery partner who will be supplying development and more UX/UR. I’ve spent most of the month getting them onboarding and handing over to the new team so I can roll onto other projects.

I ran a full-day annual planning workshop for the AI Enablers team at GDS (part of the Public Sector AI directorate) to draft OKRs,propose milestones and regular activities, design a kanban system, and agree ways of working as we kick off the new financial year.

Art, music, gigs, jams!

I’m becoming a regular in the London? Live? Coding? scene.

The highlight of the month was playing at the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) in London. Thirteen of us played music and created live visuals over four and a half hours for a few thousand people in the main foyer of the iconic museum. It was an amazing experience and the kind of thing I’ve dreamed of doing since I first set foot in the V&A nearly 20 years ago.

I also attended a great meetup with Creative Coding Craft Space at Canva HQ in Shoreditch. Learned about using Perlin noise in p5.js, TouchDesigner, GLSL shaders, and Python.

I learned about Pico-8, Deno, and Dente.cc. Might it replace Nudel?

I attended and performed at another AlgoRhythms where I met one of my musical idols James Holden. He said live coding was “the most exciting thing to happen to him in years” 😄 I resisted the urge to get a selfie with him but immediately regretted my restraint.

Pastgang held an event called Algoravioli in the basement of a pub in Peckham with no plan, no structure and plenty of open space, projectors, and creative chutzpah. We had people plugging in and out of the projector & sound-system, swapping laptops, and jumping in to do live visuals with tools like Hydra and Touch Designer. It was a great evening and a good reminder of how to get people jamming together.

I also organised & facilitated a very relaxed hangout at the Barbican with a group of artists, live-coders, engineers, and music enthusiasts. It was great fun. One person walking by even stopped to learn about Strudel and play with us for a bit.

My son and I rode the full Central Line from at West Ruislip to Epping!

April

OKR planning for the AI Enablers team at GDS (part of the Public Sector AI adoption directorate)
A tour of the houses of parliament with my family
Going hiking with my son (Reading to Henley-on-Thames, Great Windsor Park, Seven Sisters)
Stumbling onto a Marvel movie set in Windsor Great Park and being told off (politely but firmly)
Walking around the Cotswolds with a friend
Watching NASA conduct a nearly flawless space mission
Wandering around Southbank on a Friday evening and stumbling on live jazz at Tate Modern
Attending another Feeling of Computing meetup

May

Work

Using this cross-government AI Testing framework to design a GOV.UK style AI product testing service
Getting my hands dirty with AWS Bedrock, CrewAI, Pydantic and other AI tools with GDS
Going deeper into the contact & event management space and hating Power Platform slightly less
Visiting the weird & wonderful Civil Service Club with my client & some suppliers
Finally buying my own Cursor subscription and building lots of things (watch this space)