Between January 2014 and December 2015, I wrote a series for Beacon on the changing face of Britain, often focusing on specific places both within and outside the UK. A selection of these articles are on this map, along with several for the Register’s Geeks Guide to Britain, three of which have been republished in the book of the same name.
Vaccine dreams: A trip to Oxford to see a biscuit tin, some bed pans and ChAdOx1 nCov-19
The Register, Sep 10, 2021
The Wight stuff: Marconi and the island, when working remotely on wireless comms meant something very different
The Register, May 5, 2021
The Central Telegraph Office was serving spam 67 years before vikings sang about it on telly
The Register, Sep 18, 2019
What made a super high-tech home in Victorian England? Hydroelectric witchery, for starters
The Register, Mar 18, 2019
Blueprint of modern construction can be found in a tech cluster… of 19th century England
The Register, Sep 27, 2018
Life’s a beach – then you’re the comms nexus of the British Empire and Marconi-baiting hax0rs
The Register, Feb 15, 2018
Worcestershire’s airborne electronics warfare wonderland
The Register, Jan 12, 2018
Hotter than the Sun: JET – Earth’s biggest fusion reactor, in Culham
The Register, Sep 25, 2017
This England: a gaunt view from Ghent
SAMathieson.com, Dec 23, 2016
Turing, Hauser, Sinclair – haunt computing’s Cambridge A-team stamping ground (Geeks Guide walking tour of Cambridge’s computing history
The Register, Sep 26, 2016
Inside Electric Mountain: Britain’s biggest rechargeable battery
The Register, May 16, 2016
Bookworms’ Weston mecca: The Oxford institution with a Swindon secret
The Register, Sep 18, 2015 (see also this post)
Rock reboot and the Welsh windy wonder: Centre for Alternative Technology
The Register, Aug 21, 2015
How Spain built itself into a country for tourists
Beacon, Aug 7, 2015
Planet killer: Ex-army officer’s Welsh space-rock mission
The Register, Jul 6, 2015 (also published in Geek’s Guide to Britain book, 2016, ed. Gavin Clarke)
From Tynemouth chic to Whitley Bay, where every day is like Sunday
Beacon, May 1, 2015
Two Warwickshire mansions: the time capsule and the gallery (Charlecote Park and Compton Verney)
Beacon, Jan 2, 2015
The city which tells Britain it is not an island (Amsterdam)
Beacon, Dec 19, 2014
PizzaExpress: Italian food with middle-class British characteristics
Beacon, Nov 14, 2014
Cake, tea and pork pie at Hobbit motorway services
Beacon, Jul 1, 2014
70 years after D-Day, we need to stop mentioning the war
Beacon, Jun 6, 2014
Four Scottish communities purchase their neighbourhoods
Guardian Social Enterprise Network, Feb 22, 2013
A44, A361, A34: Chipping Norton at the crossroads
Chipping Norton News, Apr 2012
‘It’s our David!’ (David Cameron’s West Oxfordshire constituency)
Guardian Politics, Dec 8, 2005