One’s thing for sure, the days of Piers Morgan are well and truly over. A while back he tried to make the Mirror a more serious paper and cover issues in depth. Sales plummeted. No wonder then that the front page is devoted to Leona from the X Factor. Most of the paper is devoted…

‘Let’s see what’s out there’. Jason’s got an interesting quote on planning. Gemma’s new blog is already a place for useful advice like this and this. Love have some sober reflections on the future. Interuption is a word you here a lot these days, Marcus has a post that gives another perspective and is also…

I tried, I really tried. But the headline of yesterday’s Daily Mail didn’t start us off well. The leader screamed, "A lesson in hypocrisy" and went on to describe the alleged double standards of Ruth Kelly (cabinet minister) who’s is sending her child to a £17,000 a year private school. The rights or wrongs of…

I like this post on the Howies blog about songs to makem you run faster, and the selection was good too. I can’t run anymore (thanks to worn out hip cartiledge) but I do swim, so I demand someone makes a decent personal music player for the pool. Or is there one already?

Her indoors has her birthday four days before me, so we had a big birthday bash at the weekend , leaving yesterday as a nice quiet day. I finally got to watch The Thick Of It, which was absolute genius. I got lots of books, CD’s and stuff which was jolly nice. Mrs Hovells is…

So the first experiment in truth. . First of all, it’s a broadsheet, something I’m no longer used to. It felt a bit unwieldy at first, I wouldn’t read it on a train, but it felt delightfully grown up to hold an old style serious paper again. The Telegraph in brilliantly written. Apart from maybe…

Next northern planning summit is in Leeds January 18th. It’s at Arts Cafe and we’ll have grown a bit. 7 While everyone else is having coffee, we may indulge in something a bit stronger. Simon Griffin from Love in Manchester will be joining us, which may mean an expedition over the pennines in the near…

Scott’s got these mini city models in the office. I’ve gone on about architecture before, as has Famous Rob. It’s funny how no matter the high street’s may get homogised up close, the individual character shines through when you step back a bit. It’s just a bunch of shapes, yet you instantly recognise: Paris New…

Before Mr Agassi came along, my favourite tennis player was Lendl. Odd, when there was the delightfully mad John McEnroe or Becker’s Wagnerian serve to choose from, but there you are. I admired about the way he always worked on his weaknesses. He had an endurance problem so he modified his diet to become the…