Steph Gray

A lovely post by Madeleine - I'm so glad you found the letters as moving as I have. "Being in the middle of all these lives, bought it to life. The boring, endless days. The cold, hunger, longing. The joy and adventure. The children born and lost. The hope for the future."

Do you know of any shed previously owned by a famous person?

Would like to do a new feature on famous sheddies and their spaces.

Pilsner label: “we aren’t just a brewery, we’re a community”

it’s everywhere…

Help us improve Open Government Licensing guidance The National Archives oversees the UK Government Licensing Framework, helping both public sector information providers and people who re-use this data to understand their rights and responsibilities. ...

If you’re interested in open government data, please read (and repost) www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/blogs/digita...

I think it just adds 30 seconds of whatever setting you last used. But I've not tried it out yet, much to the fury of the good people of Threads.

Steph Gray (@lesteph) on Threads Really hoping the “a bit more” button on the new toaster is the usability masterstroke I hope it is. I’ll report back.

Posted a snap of my new toaster on Instagram last night and woke up to a screenful of messages on Threads from strangers irate that I've taken too long to report back on what I think of it. Is this social media in 2026?

www.threads.com/@lesteph/pos...

Down south, even a small area of roof retiling with new membrane and battening was £2k so I’d be inclined to worry about that low quote. But then I’m a Londoner.

Well, it made me look it up and now it can't be unseen.

If you can, get a machine that does some of the chilling too (we have the Cuisinart) not just one that churns unless you have a lot of freezer space

Do the hard work to make it short.

Unexpected events and prosocial behavior: the Batman effect - npj Mental Health Research npj Mental Health Research - Unexpected events and prosocial behavior: the Batman effect

I imagine the designers of this research project were either on a dare or drunk: www.nature.com/articles/s44...

h/t @whatleydude.com and the ever-excellent Five Things on a Friday

Overcoming the ‘everything everywhere all at once’ of content Content people don't have to fix everything, everywhere, all at once. Really.

There's a section in @lapope.bsky.social's recent newsletter which is really sticking with me this week. It's in the context of content design but I'm trying to apply it to following the news and social media - Control, Influence and Concern:

lapope.com/2026/01/16/o...

A client is so proud of their site being archived in the UK Government Web Archive - as virtually all UK gov domains are - they'd like to press release the news, to the pleasant bemusement of The National Archives. It's all rather lovely. (And absolutely right: the UKGWA is a magnificent thing)

"Emptier nest" prep... trying not to think about it too much here 😢

Another round of charity X-odus – January 2026 An update into the charity sector’s use of X in January 2026. Use it to help benchmark your use.

ICYMI over the weekend, here's my latest look at charities on X and how this has shifted this month.

So autocorrect, in my ongoing chat with 'Ashley', how likely is it I will want to open my message with 'Morning Asshole'?

Greenland YouTube video by Jesper Makes

I mainly follow Jesper for the woodworking but this gentle video taught me a lot more about Denmark’s relationship with Greenland than I knew before: youtu.be/iRFIUG6mB4o?...

EV chargers, now there's a UX nightmare (where to tap the card, which session you're managing, which cable ID you're activating... still, that's a special one. Maybe inspired by the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy ship with black buttons on a black background?

Will the government reduce its reliance on Elon Musk's X? Welcome

More from @markpackuk.bsky.social on his question about the government use of X: government will carry on prioritising X for government comms, despite the evidence about X's promotion + protection of unlawful activity. It no longer pays to advertise there
lordseyeview.substack.com/p/will-the-g...

I remember reading this a few years ago and loving the idea of a hardware virus spread by cables: thedailywtf.com/articles/the...

Sorting through old cables, my teenager wouldn't believe me at first that we used to have a cable connecter called 'Firewire' in the noughties

I used to love Twitter, even if I had to really reign in my shitposting when I got elected. It used to be genuinely useful professionally too. It has long ceased to have any positive net benefit, either individually or societally, and anyone in public life who thinks otherwise is kidding themselves.

Ah yes, we’ve played that one at Ludoquist, the board games cafe in Croydon. Was good fun, and often guessed surprisingly close to the square

Sorry to hear that - sounds like an extended nightmare for you, and I can relate to the extended anxiety these things bring on. Hopefully 2026 will be a brighter year for you all.

When do most people have the day off? It's not the day you think.

This on public holidays around the world is fun - I learned that Nepal has over 30 public holiday days/year, and presumably very little gets done in Sep/Oct there...

www.not-ship.com/when-do-most...

/via @puntofisso.bsky.social's newsletter (worth subscribing to even if you're not a 'data' person)

Donate to Duvet Know It's Christmas, 2025, organized by Rhodri Marsden Unbelievably, it's the 15th year of this thing. What is it? Improbably, the nig… Rhodri Marsden needs your support for Duvet Know It's Christmas, 2025

Unbelievably, #DuvetKnowItsChristmas generates such good will on social media that over the years we've raised somewhere approaching a quarter of a million quid for homeless charities. If you can spare a bob or two, sling some to Centrepoint, and here's the link: www.gofundme.com/f/duvet-know...

I have full guardianship of an elderly relative in France and - though the legal route took a while - I've not had any trouble at all since with online portals, requesting docs come to me in the UK, or getting answers by phone. It's most impressive - even without using FranceConnect single login.

An unfurled sleeping bag on air bed in a room with boxes

It’s starting… #duvetknowitschristmas

How to get things in perspective by making a timeline of your year and looking back at the journey you’ve been on #reflection #mentalhealth #2025goals #coaching TikTok video by Steph

As we get all reflective and #wrapped at this point in December, here's my little technique for looking back over year - my first (and so far only) TikTok:

www.tiktok.com/@lestephg/vi...

A thread of how to say “nobody asked you” from around the world, starting with this one…

A Lithuanian way of telling someone to mind their own business is ne tavo kiaulės, ne tavo pupos. It means “not your pigs, not your beans.”