I used to look for patterns in the books I read, as though each book was itself a chapter in another book, one that would tell the story of the year. But honestly, who would make up the story of last year? Not the news, but my own story, where I had my second son and lost my mother to cancer in the same month.

That being the story — less an arc and more a downpour, less a journey and more an explosion, less a beginning/middle/end and more a big bang and black hole — the books ought to…

I’ve been working — or at the very least, sitting at various desks, typing — for about 18 years. Before I had a career, I thought what I would do was write literature, or at the very least, serviceable novels. Then I spent a few years as a technology journalist, and another few as an editor. By the time I was 30 that had plateaued. I’ve worked in Product Management for nearly a decade since then, and I’ve actually been fairly successful. I lead a great team, and the product we work on reaches hundreds of millions of people.

But…

1.

It is fairly common in England to see small plaques set into the front of older houses with chiselled numbers saying when they were built. 1906, 1871, 1832. In Cartmel, a little village at the southern tip of the Lake District, home of a couple of very good restaurants, there’s a little whitewashed stone cottage, and in black paint above the door, the date of its construction: 1776.

At the same time as the Declaration of Independence was being signed in North America, under the cloudy skies of Northern England, somebody built this small house, putting stone after stone on…

I’ve had trouble sorting out what I read last year. The books themselves aren’t sorted. We moved in November — so they’re still all piled up in the corners of the house, like snowdrifts. Paperbacks I’ve not seen for a decade or more are sitting right at eye level, while my copy of one of the best things I read in the last few months, Lincoln in the Bardo, has disappeared without trace.

So I’ve only got the list I made to tell me what I read, and it strikes me as completely all over the place. …

On the occasion of the Rolling Stones’ 30 year anniversary, a journalist asked laconic drummer Charlie Watts, “what had it been like to spend three decades working with the band?”

“Five years of hard work,” he replied. “And 25 years of hangin’ around.”

Now Charlie Watts put the slink into Sympathy for the Devil and the pop into Satisfaction, so you can forgive a man a lot of hanging around when that’s what happens when he’s working. But if, in your next monthly catch up with your manager you announced you’d replicated this productivity ratio in the office — five…

Early in the summer last year, we went on holiday to the south of France. The lanes around the house smelled of lavender and olives. We ate outside on the veranda, looking out over wooded hills, the day’s dry heat like smoke in the air.

There was a swimming pool, a neat Topaz jewel, the same bright blue colour as the sky. …

I always seem to read the same number of books a year.
A lot of things change, but not this. I’ve been recording it for ten years or so, and it’s always 24 or 25. It’s not one every two weeks; I cram at Christmas and in the summer. Maybe now my body just knows that’s the target, and I just lean towards it.

This year was a character study.
Of myself and my son, who turned one right at the end. “Everything is a phase,” someone told me. I watch my son, and even though he’s tiny, there are already…

1. The Guardian’s membership drive. Launched in September last year, it’s distinctive and fits well with their overall strategy but how does it compares with a more traditional subscriptions approach? Especially interesting given the price is high, and comes as the Times is pursuing bundling big name services and hardware (Spotify, Nexuses) in order to justify the cost.
2. Will 2015 see the emergence of any other media company besides Buzzfeed and Vice with a business model not based around standard IAB ad formats and lots of page views?
3. Who comes out ahead from the shift to Programmatic buying of ads?
4. Facebook…