I Thought Facts Would Matter More

I noticed something during my brief spell as a paper candidate for the Liberal Democrats recently, and that is that people don't just hold opinions anymore ... they hold beliefs. Deep ones.

And once those beliefs settle in, facts barely seem to matter, in fact I don't think they do matter.

During the May 2026 local elections I spoke to several people who wanted to vote for Reform UK because they wanted someone who would “stop the boats”. The strange part was that even when you pointed out that local councillors have absolutely no control over immigration policy or border enforcement, it often made no difference at all.

The belief had already locked into place and cannot (always) be rocked.

I saw the same thing online. A Facebook friend confidently posted that “there’s only one party not funded in any way by Israel, and that’s the Greens.”

The problem is that this is simply untrue.

As I pointed out, under UK law, political parties cannot accept funding from foreign governments or foreign states anyway. It’s illegal under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.

When I asked for evidence that the Liberal Democrats were receiving money from the State of Israel, there was a change of goalposts, this time they pointed out that response was that the party has a “Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel” group ... which it does ... it also has "Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine" group too..

Both of which, as I explained in my exchange with them, are internal associated groups made up of members and supporters with particular views on the Middle East. Neither means the party is secretly funded by a foreign government.

But again, the facts didn’t really matter.

That’s the bit I struggle with.  If I’m wrong about something, and somebody proves it properly, I’ll usually back down. I’ll probably try to save face first because I’m human ... but eventually facts win.

For some people though, belief seems to become reality. Even when reality itself disagrees.

And I still can’t quite get my head around that.

Attention Tax

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about interruptions at work; not just obvious interruptions like phone calls, Teams messages, or someone asking “got a minute?” (although they can be a pain too), but the hidden cost that comes after the interruption.

I think most workplaces still treat interruptions as a simple time problem, where if somebody interrupts you for 10 minutes, then supposedly you've lost 10 minutes of work.

But that isn’t really how it works is it. Well not for me anyway!

You'll notice it especially if you’re doing deeper work ... writing, planning, problem solving, analysing data, designing something, trying to properly think something through ... the interruption itself is only part of the damage.

There’s also the refocus time afterwards.

You have to mentally reload the task back into your brain. Remember where you were. Rebuild the momentum. Re-enter the thought process you were already halfway through before somebody derailed it.

Sometimes a 2 minute interruption can cost 20 minutes of useful thinking.

I’ve started thinking of this as an “Attention Tax”.

Every interruption taxes your concentration a little bit. One interruption is manageable. Ten in a day starts fragmenting your thinking completely.

And I think this is partly why some days feel mentally exhausting even if you’ve technically “done loads”, you haven’t spent the day doing productive work, you’ve spent the day rebuilding momentum over and over again.

Modern workplaces almost seem designed around interruption now.

Side note: I remember when I started by career in British Telecom in 1987, been told that when it was still the civil service, managers had flags attached to their intrays, and if a red flag was showing, you couldn't talk to them ... I sometimes wish I had that here. 

Emails. Teams notifications. Meetings. “Quick questions”. Artificial urgency. Constant deadline pressure.

We also seem to reward responsiveness, it's deemed to be a good things if you accept the interruption and rude if you don't, but I’m not convinced we reward depth anymore.

I touched on some of this already in my post about why I hate deadlines, but I think there’s probably a bigger idea buried in all this somewhere.

This is definitely a seed post for now. I think there’s more to explore here.

I Need To Be More Organised

 I really don't know what's wrong with me, I have a wealth of technical and apps available to me, but I still seem to be very unorganised! I don't get it!

Chasing the Flavour in Coffee

So, for anyone who doesn’t know, I review beers, and I’m fairly good at picking out individual flavours in the beers that I review.

That’s why I got a bit excited when my wife bought me a Ninja Luxe Café Premier Espresso Machine bean-to-cup coffee machine last Christmas. I liked the idea of doing the same thing with coffee.
You read these descriptions and they sound incredible. “Mild chocolate with a juicy blackcurrant sweetness and a hint of lime.” or “Rich dark chocolate, sweet honey, and bright tangerine.”

I genuinely wanted to taste that, but I quickly found that I can’t ... everything well, just tastes like coffee!

I’ve tried the usual advice. No milk, no sweeteners, no sugar. I’ve read that the drip method, or the Luxe function on this specific machine, is one of the best ways to bring out those more delicate flavours, so that’s how I’ll do all of these.

I’m going to treat this like I would a beer review, but slower, and a bit more methodical. I’m going to test strength, grind size, temperature, and even the water I’m using.

When I can get it, I tend to stick to Vemondo Barista Oat ‘Milk’ from Lidl, but if not it will alwasy be a comparable barista oat milk.

For those that want to know the details ... where we live the water is classed as Hard, and apparently I have since discovered that this particular profile can suppress some of the brighter and more delicate flavours, so I need to be wary of that.

Calcium: 73.8 mg/l
Magnesium: 24.9 mg/l
Conductivity: 524 µS/cm
pH: 7.5

I’ll keep this post updated as I go. If I crack it, great. If I don’t, at least I’ll know it’s not for lack of trying.

Union Gajah Mountain

16 May 2026
Flavours expected: Chocolate Truffle and Molasses
Strength: Medium
Grind: 20 (Coarse)

Started proper experimenting now. Made it a coarse grind to slow down the extraction and try to get more delicate flavours (possibly the coffee for this actually!). Also I incorrectly tried Evian water rather than tap water. The result was a rich roasty coffee with a hint of nut, it's OK but nothing special. With milk it became smooth with a lot of bitterness, but a bit of sweetness came through.
Score: 5.5/10

Union Gajah Mountain

14 May 2026
Flavours expected: Chocolate Truffle and Molasses
Strength: Medium
Grind: 14 (Medium)

Again, this makes a very nice, strong coffee, but I’m honestly not picking up any chocolate truffle or molasses flavours. Good quality coffee with a slight nutty note when served black. With milk, this turns into a really smooth, creamy coffee with a nice chocolate flavour.
Score: 7/10

Union Yayu Forest

2 April 2026
Flavours expected: Citrus and Bourbon Biscuits
Strength: Medium
Grind: 14 (Medium)

This felt really rich, but I failed to get any citrus, bourbon, or biscuit out of it. It had a strong roast flavour with a little earthiness. Milk dulled the richness slightly and brought out a nice dark chocolate flavour that I really didn’t pick up when I had it black.
Score: 7/10

Rave Colombia El Carmen #50

20 March 2026
Flavours expected: Chocolate Truffle and Molasses
Strength: Medium
Grind: 15 (Medium)

A nice chocolate flavour when I had this black. A very understated coffee, and very easy drinking. With milk, it added a nice semi-sweet chocolate note.
Score: 8/10

Bellarom Coffee Beans

3 March 2026
Flavours expected: Heavily roasted coffee and dark chocolate
Strength: Medium
Grind: 15 (Medium)

Probably some of the cheapest coffee beans on the market. They made a nice black coffee with ash-like notes that I liked, and I did get some really nice chocolate flavour after adding milk.
Score: 5/10

Rave Signature Blend #1

5 February 2026
Flavours expected: Caramel, Almond & Chocolate
Strength: Medium
Grind: 15 (Medium)

A very decent coffee, but to me it just tasted like good coffee. Not too strong or bitter. The milk did bring out a good chocolate flavour.
Score: 7/10

A Story 35 Years in the Making!

I’ve probably carried this idea around for more than 35 years.

It started with a lad I used to work with. I’ll call him Chris… mainly because that’s his name. He always said he had a novel in him. To be fair, most of us think that at some point. The problem, at least for me, is pulling enough connected ideas together to actually make a novel work. I tend to land on smaller ideas. Short stories feel more natural for me to write, that and I can be realy lazy, and writing at least 40-50,000 words is a bit much for me.

Chris had this very simple concept. A man dies, and at his funeral the people there slowly discover who he really was. That was it. Not much to go on I know, but it stuck with me.

Over the years, I’ve kept coming back to it. I’ve often pictured that man as me. The mourners talking, sharing bits, slowly building up a picture. The good things, the missed chances, the ideas that never quite made it. Almost autobiographical, in a way.

But if I’m honest, I don’t think my real life is interesting enough to carry a story like that. And it had to be about me because that's how I've always thought about this story, and tbh, the stories I’ve written recently, and another that I am currently working on now, they all start with something real in my life, a small truth (the crow corner I drive past almost every day, or the old Victorian doll/ghost my wife and I saw at a window one day, a grain of truth that drifts into the story.

And in my head, this story was always the same.

But because I'm not interesting enough, over time the character became someone else. Still rooted in that original idea, but more interesting, more layered, more worth writing about. In Chris’s version, I’m sure the twist was that the mourners started off disliking the man, then came to understand him, maybe even like him.

I could never quite make that wor for me and it always felt a bit flat.

But something clicked this morning.

I’ve got the twist now, and it flips the whole thing on its head.

This isn’t a story where people come to appreciate the man.

It’s the opposite, and I'm kinda looking forward to writing it.