Neil Robertson

I'm not a snob, but I might be out of touch with certain things in the world. I took my family to McDonalds on a Friday at around 6pm. It had been a long day and it was easier to buy junk food. We opted to go into the restaurant rather than drive through. It's easier to contain the mess with two kids. We order the food at the self service kiosk, and get table service. All the time we are ordering people are shuffling past us, the kiosks are located right by the entrance so it is impossible no...

I'm a minimalist, not to a cult like level where I live out of one small bag and have entirely empty rooms in my house. I'm practical about it, I have the stuff I need and try to keep excess to a minimum. One area I feel i have succeeded is my smart phone. I use an iPhone 15 Pro. This device is multi use for me, it is A phone / messaging device A sat nav A camera A quick note taking device A torch A calendar An alarm clock An audio recorder An online bank An ebook reader A music player / au...

I have all the things I needed, now all I had to do was put the shelves on the wall. A relatively simple DIY task. It is only simple if you have the tools and know how to do it. Tools are relatively cheap and YouTube makes everyone an expert (apparently). I had the placement all marked out on the wall, the first of eight brackets, for four shelves were about to go up. I pick up my drill, select a drill bit, and begin pounding the wall, I make a hole. It looks like crap. I had the tools, the ...

Working in an office day job, for a company, medium or large, is not what it once was. Only six or seven years ago working in an office was a drag, but it was a communial drag. You came into the office with your colleagues, put the time in, did your job, had conversations, even a bit of laugh. You got through it. There was a general obedient disdain for senior management on the upper floors, it was the pecking order. Today, office work is bad. Baron in fact. Most people work at home claiming t...

I don’t want stuff; I have spent the last six months clearing out the large majority of my possessions. I found my stuff was making me miserable. Too much clutter causing me stress.  It is a strange feeling to realise that the stuff you own is taking up valuable space, living rent free, psychologically and physically. Making the commitment to convert to a life of minimalism is a long process, getting rid of stuff is only the beginning, I didn’t think six months down the line I would still be b...

The last of the social media apps were banished from my life several months ago. This final one being WhatsApp. The messaging platform was the connection between myself and 95%+ of my social network. As keen as I was to do this, there was a sense of apprehension about going through with it. It felt like I am intentionally removing myself from modern society.   I spent time thinking about the consequences of all this. It has taken me a number of years to get to this point. It all started with...

I have compiled a list and short explanation of why it is better to hold onto the cash than splash it. It's totally subjective, and whatever I buy I try to work out if I really need it and if it has value in my life. Here we go.... A new phone. The one you have in your pocket is most likely suitable for what you need it for. Device manufacturers have done a fine job in convincing you your current device is useless while actually offering nothing new. New books, especially if you have unr...

The latest iteration of the Raspberry Pi started to ship at the end of October 2023. The Raspberry Pi 5 had been anticipated for a while. The Rapberry Pi 4 has suffered from supply issues that haven’t been it’s fault, but more importantly it has been lagging in the performance area against it’s rivals.   The SBC (single board computer) market has seen fantastic growth in the past few years. Partly due to the previously mentioned Pi supply issues, forcing people to look for and try other offering...

I have a little car, it’s a 2015 Volkswagen Up! It is the best car I have ever had. Reliable, cheap to run, easy to park, useful as it has five doors. Comes complete with sat-nav, heated seats and air-con. A zippy vehicle with modern features.   As nothing in this world is perfect, it does have one or two drawbacks. It isn’t the fastest vehicle, acceleration wise. It can keep up with traffic and can do the stated speed limits but getting there can take a tad longer.   Getting larger items in t...

Try not to use vulgar language. Be grateful for what you have and stop wanting more. Tell the truth. Don’t preach about being good or bad. Don’t point out other people’s faults. State the facts. Try to be empathetic with people with when discussing their issues. Use technology, don’t let technology use you. Try not to be frivolous with money, it is hard to earn and too easy to spend. Let the people you love know it. Be respectful. Stand your ground. Do not raise your voice. Listening can be far...

Debt is money you owe for something. A product and or service. You purchase something on the agreement you pay what it owed over a defined amount time with interest added. Debt does seem like a dirty word and it is strange how everyone is okay with that.   Debt isn’t all bad and if managed well helps with your financial status by means of credit scoring and shows other lenders you are trustworthy to lend to. Given the opportunity everyone would avoid debt, even the good stuff. Paying for some...

Before I realised learning the guitar takes effort and makes your hands bleed, here is a rough routine I devised for regular practice.   Practice sessions should be between fifteen minutes and one hour per day. Thirty minutes being the most optimal.   Practice the same time everyday if possible.   Do a five minute finger warm up before shredding that axe.   Practice tuning. Practice chords. Practice chord transitions. Practice scales.   Use a metronome, being out of time is the worst and a ba...

“Sit down and watch this movie” my Dad used to say. I’m 12 years old and adorn the sofa with my presence waiting for the movie to start. It’s a western. An old western. I hated and still hate westerns. John Wayne seems to come to mind. I’m sorry if I offend anyone, but he was the most wooden actor of all time. Just awful. I was 12 and could see that. He wasn’t the only one, there were others equally as dreadful. I detested the storylines, the acting, the mere fact that these movies existed. Th...

I grew up in the 90’s and had a Super Nintendo. It was glorious, Super Mario World was epic, the pinnacle of 16-bit graphics. I never completed the Super Mario World Game. I have never completed any video game. Throughout my life to date I have had a range of consoles, a lot of Sony devices all the way up to the PS4. In recent times I have obtained a Nintendo Wii and Switch a Microsoft Xbox One S. Older handhelds like the DS in various forms. I have a desktop PC with a mid-tier gaming capable...

January 2023 and as it is the month of declaring things I must do to create the new and improved “me”, I decided to learn the acoustic guitar. It can’t be that hard, loads of people play the guitar. I can do this! I go to a shop that sells guitars and instantly realise I want the awesome one that costs more that I should spend. YouTube videos tell me that I shouldn’t buy those £50 Amazon guitars. They are the worst. To have any chance of learning the guitar I must have something that is const...

One of my favourite corporate data collecting organisations is Amazon. I have been a Prime member for years. I liked them so much I usually just paid for my subscription for the year in one hit. I ignored the fact that their employees probably aren’t treated the best and that their boss went on a joy ride to touch the fabric of space in a cowboy hat. My love for Amazon was next day delivery and free returns. You can’t beat it. I can order something today have it tomorrow and then if I decide...

It is 1999 I am 18 years old. I am on one of my regular trips to visit a local music store. I go there frequently. I am a typical lover of music and I have varied tastes. I go through the doors of my independent record store and along with others I look in the various sections, flicking through the CD cases and seeing the cover artwork as it passes by. I occasionally pause and select an album that I am interested in. I check flip the album over check the track listing. I have found another alb...

Computers are getting smaller, faster and more power efficient. The computing power of our devices is starting to reach the limits of what is possible. Over the last twenty years we have seen enormous leaps in processing power.   For a long time the classic desktop computer was the pinnacle of home and office computing. In the beginning they were the only option. They offered the most processing power. They became customisable and upgradeable. In households across the planet as the internet rev...

Over the past twelve months or so I have been noticing a different type of payment trend that has become available and gaining popularity when paying for goods and services on-line. Klarna and PayPal offer a way to pay for items in smaller amounts, typically the most common options are being able to divide the purchase cost into three payments over a specified amount on time. Large high street retailers seem to be backing this new payment method giving shoppers in-store convenient ways to spre...

This goes back to a difficult time when everything seemed hard, but banks in particular kept sticking the knife in. I think these times are coming around for a lot of people again. I wrote this as a rant. Dear Santander For the past thirteen years you have provided me the opportunity to (eventually) own the property I live in. In the beginning it was daunting, the commitment to pay the seemingly enormous sum of money each and every month. Looking ahead towards the end of our relationship to...

Never has my personal life been so tangled with a company. In the beginning Google shined bright. Don’t be evil was the mantra. They kept bringing out new services and apps I could use. They provided competition in the mobile markets and lowered the cost of computing and made it easy for everyone in the form of Chromebooks.   My Gmail account was my main personal email account. Chrome was my only browser. I would only use Google Maps and Google Drive. I was a fan boy and I didn’t even know it...

As far back as I can remember I have always been a tech geek and had the desire to own computers and a massive range of consumer technology. As I grew older the technology has moved on and the devices I once desired in the past have pretty much been replaced by a smart phone. I had been experiencing nostalgic pangs from YouTube. I had been served up content that showed me technology from the 1980's. YouTube content creators making videos about old technology was really interesting and I ended...

I looked at myself in the mirror, topless, and watched a ring appearing around my waist, a ring of chubbiness, with matching moobs that I could cup. I’m forty two and my health has been on mind. I am not the most active chap on the planet and if there is a short cut for doing anything physically demanding I will usually seek it out and adopt that method.   This desire to look better has been with me for a while, and I have tried rather lazily to do something about it, but I found that takes har...

This materialistic throw away world where nothing lasts for than a couple years is not ideal to help preserve our planet. From a consumer point of view the constant barrage of buying the next best thing is always upon us.   There is encouragement in certain areas to not buy the latest “thing” but generally the marketing tells us to buy the latest.   I have been a sucker for this and sometimes still am. I was notorious for buying and returning stuff on Amazon, this clearly shows I don’t need the ...