The Building Blocks of Better SEO

A short, practical guide to the layers that help product pages rank better in Google.

I was recently asked to look at SEO for a couple of product ranges for our New Zealand business. Nothing unusual there. Product SEO is one of those jobs that sounds simple at first, then quickly turns into a pile of small, connected jobs.

You can’t just add a keyword to a title, write a quick paragraph, and expect Google to suddenly fall in love with the page. Sometimes that helps, but proper SEO is built in layers. Some layers have a bigger ranking impact than others, but they all support each other.

The image below is a simple way of thinking about it.

1. Helpful, high-quality content

This is usually the biggest piece. A product page needs to be useful to the person landing on it. That means clear product details, practical descriptions, specifications, FAQs, and anything that helps the buyer make a decision.

For construction and trade products, this might include sizes, materials, use cases, compatibility, pack quantities, safety information, installation notes, and the type of customer or job the product is best suited for.

Google’s own guidance talks about creating helpful, reliable, people-first content, rather than content written mainly to manipulate rankings. That’s a useful test for product pages. Would this page genuinely help a buyer, or is it just a thin page with a few search terms sprinkled in?

2. Authority and trust signals

Good content works better when the wider web gives Google reasons to trust the site. Relevant links, trade mentions, customer references, reviews, supplier relationships, and brand mentions can all help build confidence around a business.

For a B2B construction product range, this doesn’t have to mean chasing hundreds of random backlinks. A link or mention from a relevant merchant, trade customer, industry partner, buying group, case study, supplier page, or local business profile may be far more useful than a pile of weak directory links.

Google also says links help it discover pages and understand relevance, so internal and external linking still matter when they’re natural, crawlable, and useful. 

3. Site architecture and internal linking

Even strong product pages can struggle if they’re buried too deep or disconnected from the rest of the site.

A sensible structure helps both users and search engines understand what the business sells. Categories, subcategories, product ranges, and supporting guides should link together in a way that feels obvious.

For example, a temporary fencing page might naturally link to construction barriers, pedestrian barriers, road cones, safety signage, and relevant support articles. This isn’t just an SEO trick. It helps customers move around the site and find related products.

4. Keyword research and search intent

Keyword research isn’t about stuffing pages with phrases. It’s about understanding how customers search.

In the New Zealand market, people may use different language from UK customers. They may search by product name, use case, category, regulation, or problem. That matters. A page targeting “temporary fencing” may need different wording from one targeting “site fencing”, “construction fencing”, or “crowd control barriers”.

The aim is to map each page to the right search intent. Product pages should target buying or specification searches. Guides and FAQs can target research searches. Category pages can sit between the two.

5. Technical foundations

The technical side doesn’t always feel glamorous, but it can quietly hold everything else back.

Pages need to be crawlable, indexable, fast enough, mobile-friendly, secure, and easy for Google to understand. Titles, headings, meta descriptions, image alt text, clean URLs, canonical tags, redirects, and structured data all play their part.

Google’s Search Essentials highlight the need for crawlable links, indexable content, and words that people would use when searching for your content. In plain English: Google needs to access the page, understand the page, and see that it matches what people are looking for.

Supporting signals

There are also smaller supporting signals that can help strengthen the overall picture.

Social mentions probably won’t transform rankings on their own, but they can increase visibility and lead to trade mentions, customer links, and brand searches. Schema markup can help search engines understand page content. Image optimisation can bring traffic through image search and improve page performance. Analytics helps show what is working. Regular updates keep pages accurate and useful.

None of these should replace the bigger layers, but they’re worth doing properly.

A simple SEO process for product ranges

For a product range, I’d keep the process fairly straightforward:

1. Check whether the page can be crawled and indexed.
2. Review the current title, H1, headings, meta description, and URL.
3. Research how customers in that market actually search for the product.
4. Map one main keyword theme to each page.
5. Improve the product content so it answers real buyer questions.
6. Add useful internal links from related categories, products, and guides.
7. Look for genuine trade, supplier, customer, or partner mentions.
8. Add or improve images, alt text, FAQs, and schema where useful.
9. Track rankings, impressions, clicks, and enquiries over time.
10. Review and update the page when the product, market, or Google guidance changes.

The main point

SEO works best when all the layers are in place. A technically sound page with thin content won’t do much. A brilliant guide that nobody links to or can easily find may also struggle. A page packed with keywords but written for nobody in particular is unlikely to build trust.

For product SEO, the best starting point is still simple: make the page genuinely useful, make sure Google can understand it, and connect it properly to the rest of the site.

That won’t guarantee rankings overnight, but it gives the page a much better chance.

Should Age Checks Start With the Phone?

There’s been a lot written in the popular press about children accessing social media platforms and pornography, and about the need for these platforms to carry out some form of age verification.

There’s also the wider question of whether underage children should have certain features throttled back on their smartphones, or whether they should be allowed to use these devices in exactly the same way as adults.

I do agree that social media platforms and websites have a responsibility to be more vigilant when it comes to protecting children. That feels obvious enough.

But I do wonder if we’re missing a trick with the devices themselves.

Surely it can’t be too difficult for age verification to happen on the phone itself, tied to the device and the person using it. The phone could then carry that age status with it and decide which sites, apps, and platforms it is allowed to connect to, or which features should be restricted.

That wouldn’t mean social media companies, adult sites, app stores, or messaging platforms get to wash their hands of the issue. They still have a role to play in keeping children safe.

But device-level age verification could add another layer of protection around the content children see, the messages they receive, and the platforms they can access.

I’m sure there are privacy, security, and practical issues I haven’t thought through yet. There probably always are with this kind of thing.

But as a seed of an idea, I think it’s worth looking into.

We;; this turned into a very timely post, within about four hours of me putting this post live, the BBC News reported that "Starmer tells Apple and Google to ban nude images on children's phones".

The article was a little bit interesting, as before I read it (and not being a fan of Apple products), I didn't realised that Apple has already age-verified its UK users and even offers a blocking service for several of its own apps including iMessage; so the technology is out there, we do just need the tech companies to step up to the plate and help protect the youngest in society.

We Basically Invented Google (kinda)

In the mid-1990s, I worked in the Marketing Department at BT in Leeds.

We were based at Butts Court at the time, and one of my mates there was Jason, better known as “Caratacus”.

For some reason, the two of us had got into the habit of thinking up questions during the morning. Not useful questions, necessarily, just odd little things we suddenly wanted answers to.

Who was that actor in that film? Where did a certain phrase come from? Who sang a particular song? What was the capital of somewhere obscure? The sort of thing that would now be settled in about four seconds on your phone, before anyone had even finished arguing about it.

But this was the mid-90s. The internet existed, technically, but not in any useful way for two lads sat in an office in Leeds trying to settle a lunchtime curiosity.

So we had our own system.

At lunchtime, we’d nip round the corner to Waterstones and start looking through the books until we found the answer.

Reference books, film books, dictionaries, atlases, encyclopaedias, whatever looked like it might do the job. We didn’t buy them, obviously. We just used Waterstones as a sort of analogue search engine with nice carpets.

And the thing is, it worked.

Ask a question. Search the available information. Find the most likely source. Check the answer. Report back with entirely unearned confidence.

Basically, Jason “Caratacus” and myself invented Google a couple of years before Google officially existed.

Admittedly, our version involved walking around the corner, manually browsing shelves, and trying not to look like we were treating a bookshop as a free research department.

But the core concept was there.

So yes, I’m not saying Larry Page and Sergey Brin stole our idea.

I’m just saying that if they’d been in Waterstones in Leeds in about 1996, they might have seen the future.

The Palms of Ocracoke (Mild Horror)

This story started while I was on holiday in Spain, staring at the palm trees opposite the Bali beds we had by the pool.

Right at the top, where the fan-shaped leaves meet the trunk, the crowns looked strangely dark. For a second I thought I saw movement up there. It was probably a bird. Probably.

But then I started wondering ...  what if something lived up there? Something humanoid, but not quite human. A spirit, maybe. Someone lost. Something waiting.

That tiny thought became The Palms of Ocracoke.

Nobody on Ocracoke liked being near the palm grove after dark.

The strange thing was that even on still evenings, when the sea air had completely died away, the fronds at the very tops of the trees still seemed to move.

The villagers had plenty of explanations for it. None of them good.

Some said a demon lived among the crowns of the trees. Others claimed to have seen something small and human-shaped moving through the darkness above them.

Whatever the truth, most people gave the grove a wide berth.

Maeve never paid much attention to the stories.

Fear had lost most of its meaning 15 years ago.

During a violent autumn storm, a sudden flood had torn through the island’s low gullies. Her 7-year-old son, a bright, spirited boy with a shock of red hair, had vanished in the deluge.

His body was never found.

The village assumed the current had swept him out to sea. Maeve had spent the years since waiting for a knock on the door that would never come.

On the 15th anniversary of the storm, Maeve walked into the palm grove for the first time.

The mud sucked at her boots. The air was thick with damp earth, salt, and rotting vegetation. Above her, the palm crowns shifted in the dark, even though the air was still.

She kept walking.

At the end of a narrow gully, the trees seemed to gather closer together. Their trunks leaned inward, as though they were listening.

Then something moved above her.

Maeve looked up.

In the crowded crown of the nearest palm, the shadows twisted. A small figure stepped out from behind the trunk and stared down at her.

Maeve didn’t scream. She didn’t run.

She looked at the figure and felt a strange, sudden ache in her chest.

“Please,” she whispered into the dark. “Don’t be afraid.”

The figure froze.

Then a sudden rush of wind swept down from the fronds.

It struck Maeve.

There was no violence in it. Instead, a flood of memory, fear, and grief burst through her mind.

The spirit entered her and was instantly overwhelmed by the weight of her sorrow. For 15 years, he had been a lost and lonely thing in the dark, acting out only because he wanted to be seen. Now, through her, he understood the hole he had left behind.

He felt her sleepless nights. Her refusal to leave the island. Her fierce, stubborn love that had never faded.

And Maeve felt him.

She saw his final moments on the day of the storm. The roar of floodwater tearing through the gully. His small hands gripping the slick bark of a palm tree as the water rose around him. The awful snap of wood. The suffocating rush of mud and debris that buried him before he could cry out for her.

He hadn’t been washed out to sea.

He had been here all along.

Trapped between worlds. Terrified. Homesick.

Maeve wrapped her arms tightly around herself, holding the spirit within her as though she were holding him as a child again.

Tears streamed down her face, but she smiled through them.

“I’ve got you,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry. It wasn’t your fault, my sweet boy. It was just the storm. You can rest now. Momma’s here.”

She gave him everything she had left. Every ounce of love, forgiveness, and peace she had carried through all those years.

And at last, the boy stopped fighting the pull of the afterlife.

The cold fear that had gripped his soul for over a decade began to thaw.

He let go.

By morning, the fog had lifted from the grove.

The villagers found Maeve on her knees in the mud at the end of the gully, calm and tear-streaked, staring at the earth between her hands.

There, pushing through the damp soil, was a tiny palm sapling.

It was unlike any other tree in the grove.

While the rest of the palms were deep green, the very top of this young plant, where the fan leaves were just beginning to form, carried a bright, unmistakable shock of crimson.

Maeve gently touched the red frond.

“He’s home,” she whispered to the quiet forest. “He’s finally home.”

The village never feared the palm grove again.

In the years that followed, the old stories changed. People no longer spoke of demons in the crowns of the trees. Instead, they spoke of the boy who was lost, the mother who found him, and the strange little red-crowned palm that grew in the place where love had finally reached through the dark.

The People of the Airport Baggage Carousel

Got to love an airport baggage carousel, everyone stands there pretending to be relaxed, while quietly scanning a conveyor belt with the intensity of a police stakeout. I’ve started naming the different groups of people you always seem to find there, mainly for my own entertainment.

The Gatekeepers
They stake out their claim at the start of the conveyor belt like guards. For them, the holiday hasn’t properly started, or ended, until they are the very first person to touch a handle.

The Commando
He turns a routine task into a mission. Sharp elbows, intense eye contact, and absolutely no regard for the social contract of personal space, and definately no manners as he (yeah it's usually a 'he') pushes he way to the front and takes you out as he manhandles his luggae from the belt.

The Over Packers
Sweet, over-packed, and physically outmatched by their own belongings. They are usually a frail older couple who rely entirely on the unspoken airport rule that someone stronger will eventually step in to do the heavy lifting for you.

The Second-Guessers
They suffer from temporary luggage amnesia. Every ruddy suitcase that rolls past sparks a full marital debate about whether they bought a new bag before departure. Come on, you only said goodbye to it in Manchester a couple of hours ago, surely you can remember what it looked like!

The Snipers
They hang back perfectly calm. They don’t move until they spot the target, then they step in, execute a clean retrieval, and vanish towards the exit before anyone else has even noticed them.

I think I’m probably a Sniper. At least, that’s what I tell myself.

I'm sad about dying

I don't think I'm afraid of dying.

My personal belief system tells me that life doesn't simply end, and I believe I'll be reborn in some form, somewhere.

But I do sometimes feel sad at the thought of my final days.

I honestly believe that I'll know the very last time I see the people I love; my beautiful wife and my amazing daughters. When my mind wanders in that direction, I find it very sad and painful. Even just writing this brings a ruddy tear to my eye!

I think, particularly as a parent, these thoughts hit harder than the very thought of death itself.

Not because I'll be gone. Not because I know they'll carry on without me. Simply because I'll know that I'll never see them again.

I think it's strange that I can make peace with my own ending far more easily than I can make peace with leaving the people I love behind.

I am always hopeful that:

1. I am a long way from my final days.

2. I'll learn to come to terms with the end, and not find it quite as sad as I do now.

Developing my Digital Garden

I have to say that I’m pretty happy with this digital garden as it stands right now.

It does what I want it to do. It gives me a place to write, think, and put ideas out into the world without overthinking them. [What is a Digital Garden]

But… I keep getting ideas.

Not big, grand plans. Just little things that I might add, change, or experiment with over time. Some of these will happen soon, some later, and some probably never.

That’s the point, I think. This isn’t a finished thing. So with that in mind, here’s a running list of where this might go next.

Things I’m Thinking About

Newsletter
Some people might want updates when new posts go live. I’ve been looking at Buttondown, and it feels like it would fit nicely without turning this into a “marketing” thing.

RSS feed
This is an easy win. I just need to stop putting it off and actually switch it on properly.

Planted and tended dates 
I like the idea of explosing the date any post is created (Planted) and modified (Tended), it would just give the reader and idea of the age of the piece and nothing else. Now Live. Not going to lie, it took a lot of time to get the Tendered date sorted, which was actually my error as it seemed to be giving spurious dates, but I forgot that I changed some labels around 😂 

Comments
I’m in two minds about this. This space is mainly for me getting ideas out of my head, but I know some people will want to respond. Digital gardens don’t always lean that way, so this might stay off. Definately staying off, I don't want Comments on this, it's my space.

Analytics
I don’t want to get obsessed with numbers, but I do want a rough idea of what people find useful. If something connects, I’d like to build on it rather than ignore it. Live

Bidirectional links
This is a big part of the digital garden idea. If a post links to another post, or something links back in, I’d like to show that connection. It helps ideas feel joined up rather than scattered. I still have no idea how I am going to achieve this.

A “Now” page
A simple page that shows what I’m doing or thinking about right now. No polish, just a snapshot. Now Live

Best of the Garden
A small, changing list of posts that are worth a read. Not everything, just the ones I think have something about them. Live - they are on the homepage as "Pinned" and "Best Of".

Topic pages
Turning some labels into proper pages, so related posts live together in a more intentional way.

Updating old posts
Going back and adding notes to older posts when my thinking changes. Less “publish and forget”, more “publish and grow”.

I might also move towards a simple structure where posts are tagged as #seed (a quick idea), #sprout (something taking shape but not quite there yet), and #flower (something I’m happy to call finished).

It feels like a natural fit for a digital garden, and it would give me an easy way to find posts that need a bit more work.

Short notes
Not everything needs to be a full post. Quick thoughts, ideas, or links with a bit of commentary. Live in sense that I have started writing shorter posts ... germs of ideas (or indeed seeds)

A proper search page
Blogger already has search, but giving it its own page would make it feel more like part of the site. Now Live and part of the core navbar.

Blogroll / interesting people
A page of sites and people I rate. Feels like a nice nod to the wider web.

Changelog
A simple log of changes to the site. Small tweaks, experiments, things that worked and things that didn’t.

This isn’t a roadmap. It’s just a list of things that feel interesting right now.

If you’re reading this in the future, you’ll be able to see which ones actually made it.

 

 

Van Halen Were Basically a Novelty Act

I love rock music and metal, but I’ve always carried around what feels like a slightly controversial opinion about Van Halen.

To me, they often felt like a novelty act.

Not in the sense that they lacked talent, because that would be (partly) ridiculous, but in the way they presented themselves. The spandex. The songs designed solely to show off Eddie Van Halen's guitar skills. The massive hair. The goofy onstage antics. David Lee Roth bouncing around like some chaotic circus ringmaster. At times they felt less like a dangerous rock band and more like a cartoon version of one.

They definitely has the style over substance thing down to a fine art.

Sometimes they only seemed a couple of steps removed from Bad News.

And yet I do understand what Van Halen brought to the genre.

Eddie Van Halen changed rock guitar forever, and it wasn't just technically. The tapping, the tone, the production ideas, the sheer energy in his playing. Rock guitar after Eddie sounded different because of Eddie.

Then there’s the fact that I realise that novelty acts tend not to dominate arenas for over a decade. They don’t release multiple huge albums. And they definitely don’t survive replacing an iconic frontman with somebody completely different (or at least I'm struggling for an example of when they do).

Van Halen somehow pulled off one of the hardest tricks in rock history when Sammy Hagar replaced David Lee Roth (Iron Maiden did it and just about got away with it IMHO).

Van Halen changed style massively, became more polished, more melodic, and arguably more consistent. I’d even say they became a better band under Sammy Hagar, although I know that opens up another argument entirely.

So maybe the truth is that Van Halen were both things at once.

They looked ridiculous. They acted ridiculous. Their songs are just ridiculous, and parts of the whole thing were pure theatre.

But underneath all of that was one of the most important rock bands ever assembled.

And maybe that’s why they worked so well, even though I don't like them!

I HATE My Handwriting

I really do hate my handwriting.

I often look back at things I’ve written and I can’t make heads or tails of them. It’s my own writing, from my own hand, and even I sit there trying to decode it like I’ve found an ancient scroll in a drawer with ruddy hieroglyphs all over it .

I blame my old school. I’m of an age where we had to write with fountain pens. Not only that, but we had to go through our Penmanship grades. I did get my Grade 1 Penmanship, by the way, so at some point in history I was officially good at this.

The problem was that we also had to write in italics. So today, my handwriting has these very angular and slanty, and ittends to be an extreme slant. It looks like the words are trying to leave the page before I’ve finished writing them.

Apparently, according to handwriting experts, this sort of slant can suggest someone is impulsive and has a penchant for oversharing ... which is probably fair.

I also apparently have a large “upper zone”. That means the taller parts of my letters usually go higher than they should. This is meant to suggest someone who thinks a lot, has creative hobbies, and has big future aspirations or goals.  I mean, I do write beer reviews and make videos, so I’ll take that bit.

Less kindly, big upper zones are also linked with being slightly disconnected from reality, with a bit of a head-in-the-clouds mentality.  Cheek.

The truth is, my handwriting just isn’t attractive. It never looks relaxed. It never looks casual. It looks like it has been trained too hard and has never quite recovered.

And when I try to fight against that old style of writing, which I do quite a lot, it ends up looking even worse. The original shape is still there underneath, but now it’s annoyed.

So I’m stuck with handwriting that I don’t like, can’t easily change, and can barely read.

Still, at least I’ve got the Grade 1 Penmanship certificate floating around somewhere ... so winner 😀

Air Fryer Chickpea Protein Flatbread

I used to make a easy microwave Dukan Bread, but I found that microwaving it and then grilling it was a faff; so I developed this simple high-protein chickpea flatbread made in the air fryer. It is somewhere between a flatbread, a soft naan, and it works for me.

The main trick is letting the batter rest before cooking, because that helps it hold together properly (before this I found it could crumble a little).

Ingredients

• 100g drained tinned chickpeas
• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp oat bran
• 1 tbsp Greek yoghurt or cottage cheese
• Pinch of baking powder
• Salt and black pepper
• Garlic powder, smoked paprika, chilli flakes, or herbs (all optional)
• Light oil spray for the baking paper

Method

1. Add the chickpeas, egg, oat bran, yoghurt (or cottage cheese), baking powder, and seasoning to a blender.
2. Blend until smooth. The batter should be thick but pourable. If its too thick, add a little water, or more yoghurt/cottage cheese.
3. Leave the batter to rest for 10 to 15 minutes. This helps the oat bran and chickpeas hydrate, which makes the flatbread less likely to crumble.
4. Line the flat section of the air fryer with baking paper and spray lightly with oil.
5. Pour the batter onto the paper and spread it into a thin, even layer. Aim for about 0.5cm thick.
6. Air fry at 180°C for 10 to 14 minutes, until the top looks dry and the flatbread feels firm when gently nudged.
7. Do not flip it too early. If the underside is only just cooked, leave it a few more minutes.
8. Once cooked, rest it for 2 to 3 minutes before lifting from the paper.

Notes

If it crumbles, it probably needed more resting time or a few more minutes to set. You can also add another teaspoon of oat bran, or a teaspoon of plain flour, if you want a firmer texture.

If it feels too dry, add an extra spoon of yoghurt or cottage cheese next time. A teaspoon of olive oil in the batter also gives it a softer finish.

Estimated nutrition for the full flatbread is roughly 260 to 320 calories, with around 16 to 20g of protein, depending on the yoghurt or cottage cheese used.

Safe Jobs in an AI and Robotics World

This is way too late for me, but a recent conversation got me thinking about safe jobs in an AI world ... I'm talking short to medium term here!

Not safe forever. I’m not sure anything gets that badge anymore. But jobs that AI and robotics will struggle to take over easily.

Like I said, this is far too late for me. I’ve already made my questionable career choices. But it might be a useful little list for my grandson one day, assuming he doesn’t end up doing something wildly impressive that I don’t understand.

But some jobs are harder to replace than others. The safest ones seem to be the ones that need human judgement, awkward hand skills, trust, empathy, or the ability to walk into a messy real-world situation and figure it out.

In a world where you can now buy chips from a vending machine, is any job truly safe? 

Electrician

This feels like a strong one. Every building is different, every fault has its own little personality, and the work often happens in tight, awkward spaces where a neat little robot arm would probably give up and ask for a career change.

AI can help with diagnosis, planning, and testing, but someone still needs to turn up, understand the problem, and do the job safely.

Plumber

Leaks rarely happen in convenient places. Pipes are hidden, floors are awkward, old houses have their own ideas, and customers tend to be quite keen on not having water coming through the ceiling.

That mix of physical skill, problem solving, and mild panic feels hard to automate.

Carpenter or joiner

Machines can cut, measure, and repeat. They are brilliant at that. But working with real wood, real houses, and real wonky walls still needs a human touch.

Good joinery is part skill, part patience, and part knowing how to make something look right when the building itself is slightly arguing with you.

Care worker or nurse

AI can help with admin, monitoring, and records. It can support care, but it can’t properly be care.

People need reassurance, kindness, judgement, and another person who can read the room. You can’t automate a steady voice at the right moment.

Emergency services

Police officers, firefighters, and paramedics deal with unpredictable situations where decisions matter quickly.

Technology will help them. It already does. But real emergencies are messy, emotional, physical, and full of human judgement.

Electric vehicle technician

This one feels like a good modern trade. Cars are becoming computers on wheels, but they are still physical things that break, wear out, and need skilled people to fix them.

Someone who understands electrical systems, diagnostics, software, and hands-on repair should have plenty to do.

Robotics engineer

If the robots are coming, someone has to build them, repair them, improve them, and stop them doing daft things.

This is probably one of the clearer “work with the change rather than against it” options.

AI trainer

AI does not magically know everything. It needs training, checking, correcting, testing, and improving.

The people who understand how these systems behave, where they fail, and how to make them more useful should be in a strong position.

Builder, roofer, plasterer, or other skilled trades

Construction sites are not clean little factory floors. They are full of weather, noise, dust, awkward access, missing materials, late changes, and people asking whether it can be done by Friday.

Robots will help with parts of construction, but replacing a skilled tradesperson on a real site feels like a much harder job.

Teacher

AI can explain things. It can mark work. It can create lesson plans. But teaching is not only the transfer of information.

Good teachers spot when a child is struggling, manage behaviour, build confidence, and know when to push and when to pause. That is deeply human work.

Creative work with real taste

I say this as someone who works in marketing and copy. Basic content is already under pressure. Generic words are cheap now, and they are getting cheaper.

But original thinking, taste, humour, timing, instinct, and knowing what will land with real people still matter. The safer creative work will be the work that feels harder to copy.

So what makes a job safer?

The safest jobs are not really AI-proof. That sounds too neat. They are jobs that are harder to automate because they involve real people, real places, real human judgement, and real consequences.

If a job happens entirely on a screen, follows a repeatable process, and does not need much human trust, it is probably more exposed.

If a job needs skilled hands, emotional intelligence, responsibility, or the ability to adapt when things go wrong, it stands a better chance.

So if I was starting again, I don’t think I’d chase what looks easy. I’d chase what is hard to copy.

Best Way To Get AI to Sound Like A Human

OK, I've been working with AI for quite a while now, and honestly I love it for writing content.

But one thing still stands out ... what's the best way to get AI to sound like a human instead of a polished marketing robot?

This is the current base prompt I use. It works reasonably well across most AI tools.

I will keep adding to it and updating it because AI writing styles keep evolving. What sounds human today probably becomes tomorrow's obvious AI pattern.

I've tested variations of this across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Copilot, and while none of them become perfectly human, this sort of structure definitely helps calm down a lot of the obvious AI writing habits.

"Write like an experienced human writer, not a marketing template or assistant.

Vary sentence length and structure naturally. Mix short, medium, and longer sentences. Let the rhythm feel uneven in a human way.

Use plain English, active voice, and concrete wording. Prefer everyday phrases over jargon, buzzwords, or corporate language.

Humans like contractions (hasn't, wouldn't, and couldn't etc), so add a good mix of these types of word were appropriate, as they make communication sound more natural and fluid.

Avoid clichés, filler, forced transitions, and predictable paragraph patterns. Do not make every paragraph the same length or end with a neat concluding sentence.

Use contractions naturally. Address the reader directly where appropriate.

Keep a calm, confident tone. Avoid sounding overexcited, overhelpful, or overly polished.

Cut unnecessary words. Rewrite awkward phrasing instead of adding explanation around it.

Use specific observations, grounded examples, and occasional conversational phrasing where it improves flow.

Avoid repetitive grammar patterns, repeated connector words, and overly balanced sentence construction.

Do not use em dashes.

Prioritise clarity, rhythm, and readability over sounding impressive.

Ordinals when written as numerals should always have a suffix: '-st' ('first', '21st') '-nd' ('second', '32nd') '-rd' ('third', '103rd') etc

If a sentence sounds robotic when read aloud, rewrite it."

The interesting thing is that no single prompt can fully force AI to sound human. You still need task-specific modifiers underneath it.

Things like:

"Write academically"
"Write casually"
"Write for UK tradespeople"
"Write for beer enthusiasts"
"Write for busy business owners"
"Write for someone aged 18"
"Write like a newspaper column"
etc.

A Move to Spain

My wife and I never really talked about moving abroad. It never crossed our minds.

Life was here in the UK. Family was here. And now there’s a grandson in the mix too. That should have been enough to keep us rooted... but something suddenly changed.

I guess recent family events have a way of doing that. They changed the way we thought about life. Both my wife and I suddenly realised that life is for living. It has to be fun and enjoyable, and maybe a move abroad could do that for us.

We could stay in Yorkshire, or in the UK at least, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But the reality is our family is already dotted all over the UK. It’s not like we’re all on the same street.

My wife watches a lot of A Place in the Sun, and the life you can have out there, especially in early retirement, looks pretty idyllic.

And if any of our kids turned around tomorrow and said they were off to live abroad, we wouldn’t hesitate to back them.

It was while we were holidaying in Salou, Spain, at the Costa Durada Hotel, in September 2025 that we both suddenly twigged that Spain could actually be our place in the sun. A new home, maybe.

It ticked a lot of boxes for us. A good and cheaper holiday base for the kids and grandchildren, PortAventura World right next door, only around a two-hour flight from the UK, and roughly 7 to 9 hours of sunshine a day for much of the year. In summer, it regularly hits 10 to 12 hours a day. Great.

Within a couple of days, we had drawn up a draft five-year plan. That plan is below, but I've also added for download in my Google Drive.

We went to A Place in the Sun Live in Manchester earlier in 2026. It was good. Useful. Also a bit of a blur. Too many talks, too many options, too many people telling you slightly different things.

We came away with more questions than answers, but probably a little more eager to look into it properly.

The A Place in the Sun guides have been a massive help too. They don’t make the move look effortless, which I actually like. They make it clear that Spain is still possible after Brexit, but there is paperwork, planning, tax, healthcare, visas, and a fair bit of patience involved.

That feels more useful than pretending it is all sun loungers and cheap wine.

Spain stayed on our radar. It’s familiar, it’s proven, and there’s a big expat community, which makes the whole thing feel less like jumping off a cliff.

But at the same time, neither my wife nor I want to just recreate the UK in warmer weather. We want a mix. A bit of familiarity, yes, but also the language, the culture, and the everyday differences. We would like to become more integrated into Spanish life.

The loose idea is simple. Rent first. See how it actually feels when it’s not a holiday. No pressure, no big commitments straight away.

I personally think I’d get bored just sat in a Spanish home watching the sun rise and set every day, so maybe we need something that keeps us busy and generates a small income.

Something flexible. Copywriting makes sense for us. It fits around life rather than the other way round, and we’ve done it before as a small business.

We’re not rushing into this. Five years feels about right for us. Long enough to do it properly, not just react to a feeling. Long enough to get plans, figures, and ideas properly into motion.

What follows is the plan as it stands. It will change over time as we get things sorted.

I have also started putting together a simple downloadable five-year moving plan checklist for anyone else thinking along similar lines. It doesn’t replace proper visa, tax, legal, or property advice, but it gives you a year-by-year framework to scribble on, tick off, and adapt.

Download the generic five-year Spain moving plan checklist

The Shape of the Move

This isn’t planned to be a clean break. Certainly not from the beginning.

We want it to feel like we’re easing ourselves into it.

We’ll rent in Spain first. A couple of months to start with, maybe longer if it feels right. Just to see what everyday life looks like when the novelty wears off a bit.

Back here, the house stays. At least for now.

While we were at A Place in the Sun Live in 2026, we spoke to a wealth manager who pointed out that a house in the UK can still drain cash. Yes, it’s an asset, but we would have to pay someone to manage it for us. We would also have repairs and maintenance to pay for, even though virtually everything is brand new, including the roof, doors, windows, bathroom, and kitchen.

He recommended selling and using the cash to live off.

I must admit, the most appealing part for me is keeping it. But the thought of strangers living in it and not keeping it as I would like does bother me.

All that said and done, right now, we are still thinking about renting it out. Keep it as an asset. Keep a bit of security behind us. If it works, great, it helps fund things in Spain. If it doesn’t, we’ve still got options for returning.

Our Perfect Property

• At least two bedrooms and two bathrooms (need a bath)
• Good garden space (bonus)
• Terrace and/or solarium
• Pool (either private or shared not too bothered)
• Parking 
• Size - above average. Something over 85 square metres
• Aircon and heating, a heat pump would be perfect.

Our Perfect Location

• Somewhere thats busy but not too busy
• No more than 20 minutes drive from the coast
• We would like a small ex-pat community, but we also want that traditional Spanish community
• Need easy access to an airport

The Plan as it Stands

These are my working notes.

2026 - Property and Budget Groundwork

Mortgage paid off in August ... finally. That still feels good to say.

Where might we move to?

We had looked at Salou a couple of times now. We are actually out here now at the H10 Salou Princess, which is why I decided to write this. We like the area, and there is PortAventura World on the doorstep, airport is handly, lots to see and do, which is useful for when family come to stay. But it is perhaps a little too busy, and if we are being honest, as it's very popular, the prices of property do reflect that.

As of May 2026, minimum of 70sq.m, 2 bed, air con, balcony, parking and the use of a pool, you're looking between £145k - 210k.

In the Province of Murcia the prices tend to be between £85k - £470k, yeah a wider range of prices, but lots available in what appears to be more affordable (granted, we need to see what these properties are like!), so ours next trip will be further south, to take a look at the area around Murcia (between Cartagena and Águilas).

From here, it’s about building a proper buffer. Moving costs add up quickly when you start looking at them properly. Deposits, removals, visas, legal costs, translations, insurance, and a bit of breathing space on top.

We did find out that transporting the dog to Spain could cost us £3,000 alone (apparently she'll neeed her own pallet in the hold).

Passports valid for 10 years checked and OK.

We’ll start clearing out the obvious clutter. Nothing dramatic. Just stop holding onto things we don’t need.

I also want a rough handle on finances. Pensions, savings, and how they behave if we’re living somewhere else. Not deep detail yet, just enough to avoid getting caught out.

And we’ll keep an eye on local rental values. If the house is going to work for us as a rental, it needs to stack up financially.

We also need a proper Spain living budget. Not holiday spending. Normal life spending. Food, utilities, healthcare, travel, insurance, dog costs, car costs, eating out, and the boring things that keep life ticking over.

2027 - Health, Legal, and Reality Checks

This is where it starts to feel a bit more serious.

Healthcare is a big one. We need to understand how it works in Spain, what we need in place, and what it actually costs. Private health insurance will need proper research, especially by age, cover level, exclusions, and any waiting periods.

We also need to understand how healthcare changes at State Pension age, including whether an S1 form applies to us later. That one feels important.

Same with tax. I’d rather ask HMRC early than guess and regret it later. We also need proper advice on Spanish tax residency, especially if we keep the UK house and rent it out.

One thing we are already learning is that becoming tax resident isn't always as simple as spending 183 days in Spain. Where your income comes from, where your assets are, and even where your spouse lives can all play a part. Definitely one for proper advice rather than guesswork.

Visa rules will probably change between now and then, so this is more about staying up to date than locking anything in. The non-lucrative visa looks like one possible route, but the digital nomad visa may also be worth looking at if we keep some kind of remote copywriting income going.

We need to check what each visa allows, what it rules out, what income we need to prove, and whether any work has to come from outside Spain.

We also need to understand Spanish wealth tax and inheritance tax. From what we have seen already, these can vary by region, so where we live may matter more than we first thought.

That feels like proper advice territory, not “read a few blogs and hope for the best” territory.

We’ll also start learning Spanish. Slowly. Probably badly at first. But it’s part of it.

And we’ll spend time in Spain outside of peak season. Not the shiny version. The normal version.

2028 - Line up the Move

This is when it starts to feel closer.

We’ll begin speaking to estate agents in Spain and properly looking at rental options.

At the same time, we’ll get a feel for the cost of moving everything over. Or whether it’s even worth it.

We also need to check the driving licence rules, including whether our UK licences need exchanging and what happens if we become Spanish residents.

We’ll need to make sure money moves easily between the UK and Spain. Income, pensions, rental payments, and any savings. It all needs to work without becoming a monthly headache.

We also need to look into Spanish banking, currency transfer fees, and whether our UK banking apps, pensions, and mobile numbers will still work smoothly once we are spending longer periods abroad.

If we end up buying later, we need to understand NIE numbers, Spanish bank accounts, notaries, lawyers, property taxes, and all the official steps that come with buying or registering properly.

We also need to get important documents organised. Birth certificates, marriage certificates, and anything else likely to be needed for visa or residency applications. Some may need translating and apostilling (legally authenticating an official document so that it is recognised as valid in Spain).

We also need to understand Spanish urbanisations if we look at resort-style areas or managed communities. Community fees, rules, shared maintenance, pools, gardens, and any restrictions around rentals could all make a big difference.

This is also when we need to look properly at removals. Since Brexit, taking belongings into Spain is not as simple as just hiring a van and driving over. We’ll need proper quotes, customs advice, inventories, insurance, and a decision on what is worth taking.

And then there is dog transport. The £3,000 figure sounds high, so we need to compare options. Specialist pet transport may be worth it, but we should also understand what can be done ourselves, what paperwork is needed, and what Hela would cope with best.

And this is where the proper clear-out happens.

Hela needs sorting too. Vaccinations, paperwork, travel requirements. All of it.

2029 - Decision Year

This is the one that probably matters most.

We’ll spend a full month in Spain. Not as visitors, just living. Shopping, cooking, getting bored, dealing with normal life.

That should tell us what we need to know.

We’ll also decide what happens with the house. Rent it, or sell it. Right now it’s roughly £175k value and about £1,000 a month rental, but that’s just a guide and needs checking closer to the time.

If we keep it, we’ll need proper numbers. Letting agent fees, maintenance, insurance, tax, empty periods, and the emotional side of someone else living in our home.

Visa applications start here. Residency. Bank accounts. Documents. Translations. Apostilles. All the paperwork that turns an idea into something real.

This is also where we need to get organised with wills and estate planning. UK assets, Spanish assets, inheritance rules, and what happens if one of us dies first. Not cheerful, but necessary.

2030 - Move Year

If it still feels right... we go.

Move into a rental, or something more permanent if it lines up.

Sort the UK house properly so it’s not something we’re worrying about from a distance.

Then comes the official stuff. TIE, padrón, healthcare registration, local paperwork, banking, insurance, and whatever else we have missed along the way.

One thing the guides repeatedly stress is not leaving the paperwork until later. Registration, residency documents, and local administration seem to start almost as soon as you arrive.

And then just settle.

Find a vet for Hela. Register with a doctor. Work out where we actually like going for a coffee. Find the local shops. Meet people. Keep learning Spanish. Start building something that feels normal.

Where My (Our) Head’s At

It still feels a bit strange writing this down. Some days it feels exciting. Other days it feels like a lot. Sometimes it feels like too much.

The thought of leaving family, the kids, and a grandson is difficult. But like I said earlier, we wouldn’t stop any of our family moving away. They are already in different corners of the UK as it is, and we know they wouldn’t stop us.

But we keep coming back to the same thought. We’ve spent years doing what we should do. Working, paying the mortgage, building something stable, bringing up a family, and doing the right stuff.

And all that has been right.

But this feels like something we want to do.

This isn’t locked in. It’s not a perfect plan, and it doesn’t need to be. I’ll keep adding to this as we go, changing bits when reality gets in the way, or when something better comes along.

At the very least, we’ll still have a decluttered home, some brilliant memories, more trips to Spain under our belts, and hopefully a bit more Spanish than we have now.

How’s it Going?

Progress is slow. Very slow.

It’s currently May 2026, and here we are again in Salou. Possibly our last visit here for now, just to see if we generally like the area and to take a look in estate agents’ windows.

Property here is a little more expernsive that other areas we have looks at, we have decided that our next trip is likely to be down in Murcia (between Cartagena and Águilas). 

Still don’t know the ruddy language.

But we do like the area, so it is still on our shortlist.

Next, we’ll probably look at southern Spain, most likely around the Murcia region.

We also have a cruise lined up for November 2026, which takes in Vigo on Spain’s northwest coast, so our next proper Spanish move trip may have to wait until 2027.

Where Does My Traffic Come From?

I’m a marketer by trade, so I can’t help being interested in where traffic comes from and what people do when they arrive.

This digital garden is built on Blogger, and I like Blogger for what it is. It’s simple, familiar, and lets me publish without turning the whole thing into a project. But Blogger’s own stats are ridiculous.

You can publish a small article, make a cup of tea, come back, and suddenly Blogger tells you ten people have visited it. I’m never convinced those figures are real. Sometimes it feels as though Blogger adds a visit every time I merely think about a post.

Google Analytics sits at the other end of the scale. It’s powerful, but it feels far too big for this site. Using it here feels like running a combine harvester through my digital garden.

So I use Umami.

It’s simple, clean, and easy to set up. I can see which posts people are reading, which ones are being ignored, and which pages are quietly doing better than expected.

That helps me make better decisions.

If a post gets attention, I can refresh it, expand it, or write something related. If people seem interested in a topic, I can give that topic a bit more care. Not because I want to chase numbers for the sake of it, but because it helps me understand what people find useful, interesting, or worth their time.

I still take care writing every post. Even the little ones.

But it makes sense to give more attention to the posts people actually read. A digital garden still needs a bit of tending, and Umami helps me see where the green shoots are.

My Fantasy Dinner Party Guest List

I’ve always kept a list on my phone of people I’d invite to a dinner party.

Now that I’ve got this digital garden, it felt like the right place to share it. It’s a bit of a mixed bag. Some are still with us, some are long gone, and a couple aren’t even real… but they’ve earned their seat at the table all the same.

I don’t even know if there are rules for this kind of thing. Should it be a set number of guests? Should it only include people who are alive and could actually turn up? Or is the whole point that there are no rules?

I’ve got no clear answer yet, so for now I’m just letting it grow. I’ll figure out my own rules as I go… or maybe I won’t.

Here’s the current guest list:

• Derek William Dick (Fish) – for the great singalong
• Warwick Davis – grounded, funny, and quietly wise
• Stephen Fry – effortless intelligence and warmth
• Norman Wisdom – nostalgia and so funny
• Stan Laurel – gentle humour, perfectly timed
• Richard Branson – big ideas and bigger stories
• Paul Daniels – a touch of magic at the table
• David Nixon – classic showmanship
• Bobby Ball – warmth and one funny guy
• Paul Gascoigne – unpredictable, but unforgettable
• Sandi Toksvig – sharp, kind, and brilliantly funny
• Tim Allen - for his wit, entertainment stories and I'd like to talk politics with him as I'm particularly interested in his Libertarianism views.
• Richard E Grant – energy, honesty, and joy
• George Best – talent and tales in equal measure
• John Cooper Clarke – sharp words, delivered perfectly
• Dick Van Dyke – pure charm
• Bruce Wayne – because why not
• Charles Hawtrey – chaos, comedy and my grans fave
• Lee Mack – quick wit, no pause button
• Fred Dibnah – stories from a different world
• Ade Edmondson – a bit of edge
• Steve Harris – the stories and a quick lesson
• Karen Carpenter – a voice you’d want to hear live
• Steve Pemberton – clever, dark humour
• Audrey Hepburn – grace and perspective
• Buster Keaton – silent, but says everything
• Tom Hanks – easy company
• Herbert Henry Scaife – my great grandfather; I’d just love to meet him
• Steve Davis – calm, thoughtful, unexpected humour
• Freddie Mercury – presence that fills a room
• Paul Heaton – grounded, sharp observations
• Grayson Perry – perspective and honesty
• Monty Don – calm and balance

I suspect this list will keep changing. New names will come in, others might quietly drop out.

That probably says more about me than it does about the guest list.

I might do a seating plan at some time, that will be fun! 

AI just can't write copy

I’ve been using AI for a while now at work, and one of the tasks I have tried to use it for is to help me with website descriptions for our construction products.

And if I’m honest… it keeps missing the mark.

It gets close sometimes. The structure is there. The words are there. But it rarely feels like something that would actually make a customer stop, think, and buy ... and that’s when it clicked for me. AI doesn’t struggle because it’s slow or badly trained. It struggles because it simply isn’t human.

It has no empathy. No lived experience. No real sense of what it feels like to be the person reading the page and deciding whether to trust you or not!

So instead of sharp, persuasive copy, you get something else. Safe. Repetitive. A bit hollow.

You can throw better prompts at it. You can guide it, tweak it, refine it. I’ve tried all of that. But it still falls into the same patterns, because that’s what it’s built to do.

AI has been developed to spot patterns in data and leans into them. It writes in a rhythm that feels right on the surface, but it doesn’t really mean anything. There’s no intent or passion behind the words, and for me, thats the fundamental problem. Good copy isn’t just about sounding right. It’s about understanding people, then choosing words that nudge them to act.

That part still needs a human.

That said, I don’t think AI is useless. Far from it.

It’s great for getting started. It helps with structure, rough drafts, and getting ideas down quickly. It speeds things up, especially when you’re staring at a blank page.

But the real work still happens afterwards. That’s where tone, judgement, and experience come in. That’s where something average turns into something that actually works.

It’s also why proper copywriting still matters. Not just words on a page, but words that reflect your business, your brand, your customers, and the way you want to be seen. That kind of work is hard to fake.

If you’re interested in that side of things, there is more chat over at Yorkshire Writers. It’s just two of us, writing in a way that sounds like real people, because that’s what readers respond to.

AI has a place. I use it most day ... but writing copy that connects with people… that still comes down to people.

PSPO Zones for All

Last summer we had a terrible time on our main road; cars, motorbikes, and even quad bikes were roaring up and down the road at all hours. At times it genuinely felt like certain people were using it as their own personal race track.

I mentioned it to our local Liberal Democrat councillor and, to be fair, within days they had contacted the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police and managed to get the road designated as a Public Spaces Protection Order (PSPO) zone.

PSPO zones are designed to tackle anti-social behaviour in specific areas. They can cover things like nuisance driving, public drinking, begging, intimidation, and other behaviour that affects local residents. Breaching a PSPO can lead to fixed penalty notices, fines of up to £1,000, or even prosecution.

From what I understand these zones normally last for three years, although they can be renewed if the problems continue.

But it did get me thinking...

Why do we wait until residents complain before action is taken? Should busy residential roads, shopping areas, and city centres automatically have some form of PSPO protection in place from the start?

I’m sure there’s a cost involved in creating and enforcing these zones, but in our area it genuinely seems to have worked. The road is noticeably quieter and calmer now.

So if they work this well, why not use them far more widely?

I Hate Deadlines

I honestly don't think there are enough negative words to get across how much I hate deadlines.

Especially short deadlines. Usually I get these at work when someone else hasn't passed a task to me as early as they could have done, or they’ve overpromised on a delivery, usually to a customer, or someone else hasn't done something so it suddenly falls to me.

These last-minute or urgent tasks seem to be getting more and more common. They can, and often do, leave me feeling completely drained. I can go home physically and mentally exhausted, with no energy to do anything personally fulfilling.

Now don't get me wrong, sometimes these last-minute tasks can be a challenge, and that can actually be exciting. I love that side of my role. I've moved away from a strategic role to a more tactical one, so I do enjoy these sorts of tasks ... just not too many urgent ones in the same week.

Anyway, my conclusion through all this is that I hate deadlines. I know we need them, but only when they are used properly.

I remember being told many years ago that deadlines should really only be used when something genuinely bad will happen if you miss them. Not just because someone says, “I sent you an email last week, have you done it yet?” “No.” “Well, could you look at it today for me please?” ... why? Just because you asked me to do something ast week and I haven't yet, well perhaps in the list of tasks I have to complete, YOUR task isn't important!

And don't even get me started on the term "ASAP". That word should be banned because almost everyone uses it wrongly.

I actually find deadlines work best when they are external and carry real consequences. If you miss them, you damage the reputation of the business, lose income, or severely embarrass both the business and yourself. Again though, not when someone else has overpromised something to a customer or supplier.

Do you also find that deadlines are often set arbitrarily by people with very little technical context, or by people who don't really understand your role and what's involved? I do!

I tend to find that a task takes as long as it takes. Setting an arbitrary deadline, especially a tight one, usually just means the work won't be as good.

As part of my thinking (or ranting) about time and time management at work, I've also written about what I'm currently calling Attention Tax.

Fairemail for Android is a GREAT app

I probably don’t sing the praises of software enough, no probably about it, I definately don't!

Some software is awful. Some is bloated, overcomplicated, and seems to exist mainly to make simple jobs harder. But every now and then you find something that quietly does exactly what you need it to do.

FairEmail has been one of those for me.

Over the past couple of months, I’ve been getting around 100 spam emails a day landing in my inbox. Not my spam folder. My actual inbox.

Some of them were painfully obvious. Sender names like “C0stc0”, “0maha Steaks”, and every strange variation in between. The sort of thing you’d look at for half a second and know straight away it wasn’t right.

But technically, they must have been well put together, because they were getting through Heart Internet’s SpamAssassin filters with a spam score of around 1.3. Their spam recognition target at the time was 2, so these emails were being treated as fine.

They clearly weren’t.

I wanted to get it sorted quickly, so I downloaded FairEmail. It took a little bit of getting used to, but once I understood how it worked, it made the whole problem much easier to manage.

I could permanently delete spam emails with very little effort. No dragging things around. No fiddling. No repeatedly seeing the same rubbish sitting there, annoying me. That alone was enough to make me feel a bit more in control of the inbox again.

I was so pleased with it that I paid the £6.99 for the Pro features. Not because I had to, but because it had already proved useful enough to be worth paying for.

Once I’d got the spam under better control on my side, I contacted Heart Internet as well. To be fair to them, they looked into it and I think they were a little surprised that so many emails were being flagged as fine when, to any normal person, they obviously weren’t.

They then made some changes across their eight email servers and it worked.

The number of spam emails getting through to my spam folder dropped by around 75%. That is a massive improvement, especially when it had been feeling like a daily battle just to keep on top of it.

Now, with Heart Internet filtering things better and FairEmail helping me deal with the few that still slip through, I might get one or two spam emails reaching my inbox each day.

That’s fine. I can live with that.

It’s easy to complain when software or services don’t work properly. I’ve done plenty of that. But it’s also worth saying when something does work.

In this case, FairEmail did its job, Heart Internet responded properly, and my inbox is usable again.

That feels like a cracking win to me.

The Young Mans Haircut

I spent some time this weekend at a Turkish barber. I’ve always admired the craftsmanship in these places btw, there is a specific kind of intentional care they bring to the cuts that you rarely find in traditional salons.

​Anyway, toward the end of the cut, the barber paused and asked whether I usually style my hair up in a quiff or down over my forehead. When I told him "up," he smiled and noted that wearing it down would make me look younger.

​Being in my late 50s, the idea of "looking younger" isn't a primary goal of mine, in fact, I think trying too hard to recapture youth often looks a bit daft. However, the comment sparked a bit of digital curiosity. I decided to use AI to generate a version of myself with a younger mans hairstyle just to see the contrast.

​The result? It confirmed my instinct. While the AI could change the hair and smooth the edges, I much prefer the reality. There’s a certain comfort in looking like the age you actually are.

The Original Cut

AI Version 1

AI Version 2

AI Version 3