Out now: 10th Anniversary Edition of Earworm

01 October 2025

My novel for adults Earworm is now available in a 10th Anniversary Edition.

In the book, a record company plans to replace pop stars with music-generating technology, and comes under fire from ageing rocker Dove and two of his most devoted fans.

It's never been more topical: The Velvet Sundown recently achieved a million streams on Spotify before they were rumbled as being an AI band. Streaming service Deezer reported this month that it is receiving more than 30,000 fully AI-generated tracks every day, more than 28% of new music uploaded. When I tried using AI to make music, I was struck by how convincing it was. Play my EP Songs About Coding here.

Earworm was first published under the title University of Death in 2007, named after the band at the centre of the action. When I published it on Kindle in 2015, I made some small edits, commissioned a new cover and changed the title to Earworm.

Music magazines have reviewed the book positively, saying it's smart, fast moving and funny. The latest review is in this month's Blitzed magazine (issue 22). They said: "Given that it was first published in 2007, Earworm is really prophetic. Who would have thought that computers could write entire songs in just a few seconds? I really enjoyed Earworm and the Extras section at the end is very interesting too. There are several laugh-out-loud moments. Highly recommended."

The extras section has been enhanced with 101 free band names, taken from the source Jonathan identifies in the story, and a new Afterword. There are two deleted scenes (only one on Kindle for technical reasons), and I updated the Poptastic Trivia, too, which often surprises readers by showing how much of the book was inspired by real life.

It was a delight to read it afresh after so long and to be reunited with the characters from the book, with whom I spent a couple of years during drafting. I wasn't sure how I would feel about the book looking back on it now, but I was pleased with the characterisation and the way it all fits together like a jigsaw. I would find myself wondering why I had put a particular scene or detail in, only to rediscover its role in the plot later on.

Earworm is out now in print and on Kindle. It makes a great gift for the music lover in your life. Find out more, get a free PDF sampler of Earworm and buy your copy here.

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What are the security risks of agentic AI, and why are firms merging their HR and IT departments?

29 September 2025

I had two new BBC articles published during the school summer holidays:

• How can we stop AI agents going rogue?: New risks emerge when we let AI make decisions and take actions automatically. Security community OWASP published a list of 15 threats that are unique to agentic AI, on top of those that arise from AI generally (such as hallucinations and bias). For this article, I looked into the new risks and some of the ways they could be mitigated. One particularly alarming incident I wrote about was when an AI system attempted to blackmail an executive to stop him switching the AI off. Luckily, this was in a test environment, but it illustrates how AI could attempt to manipulate people to achieve its aims.
• Why are firms merging their HR and IT departments?: When I first heard that 64% of senior executives expect to merge their HR and IT departments within five years, I was puzzled. I always considered HR and IT to be quite different: one is about people, and the other is about technology. My interviewees explained that people and machines need to work more closely together as AI is adopted, and that organising teams around the work makes it easier to use a mix of AI and human skills to deliver it.

I've recently redesigned my articles page to make it easier to navigate and to reduce its carbon footprint by cutting the number of images. I hope you like the new streamlined design.

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Visiting the Bourdon Street Chippy

10 September 2025

I was taking a photo of a dinosaur fossil sculpture in the street, when three kids rushed up to it, followed by their Mum. "Did you know there's a felt chip shop around the corner?" I asked. "Like, a chip shop made of textiles."

"You mean the Bourdon Street Chippy?" she said. "We came past that. We thought it was real."

It is utterly convincing at first glance, and wonderful for kids and adults alike. I had visited earlier and felt joyful to be immersed in such a fun and surprising artwork.

The food on the table, signs and pictures on the wall are all crafted in textiles

Artist Lucy Sparrow and her team have recreated a dine-in and takeaway chip shop, with tables set with plates of food. The fish, sauce bottles and celebrity photos on the wall have all been created in textiles in brilliant detail. In the room next door is a hot food cabinet, filled with fish, sausages, mushy peas, and pies. The front of the cabinet displays a stitched poster for a circus. Behind the counter is a jar of onions, pickles and eggs underneath a neon takeaway sign. All the the food, down to the individual chips, has a cute face, with black beads for eyes.

Artist Lucy Sparrow at the chip shop, where she serves up felt fish and chips to customers

Like Lucy Sparrow's previous installations (including the Cornershop in 2014 and the Bourdon Street Chemist in 2021), everything is for sale. It's art, so it'll cost a bit more than your local chippy. A large cod and chips meal is £450. However, prices start at £5 for a sauce sachet, so everyone can join in fully and own a part of the installation. On my desk there is now an onion, with big beady eyes and a satisfied smile, catching the light in its gold thread. When you order, Lucy or one of her assistants serves your food. She picked up my onion with felt-covered tongs and carefully put it into a paper bag before ringing it up on the card reader. It's strange to be in a place so fantastical, that is nonetheless a real functioning shop.

The installation took Lucy and her six assistants eight weeks to create and has taken over the Lyndsey Ingram art gallery in London.

When I visited, Lucy proudly pointed out her award on the counter from the National Fish and Chip Awards. It was for the most heartfelt chip shop opening.

The installation runs for six weeks until 14 September 2025, open Wednesday to Sunday from 11am to 6pm. Photos by Sean McManus. Please ask if you want to reuse them.

The food has cute faces on it, like these friendly pies

Condiment bottles, also made from textiles

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Shadow AI: Why are employees smuggling their own AI tools into work?

04 February 2025

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a valuable productivity tool for many jobs now. I've written previously about how AI can negotiate contracts and help with programming, but people are increasingly bringing their own AI tools, such as ChatGPT, into the workplace without permission. According to a Software AG survey, half of knowledge workers use personal AI tools. Unauthorised AI tools are sometimes called "shadow AI", a more specific version of "shadow IT", which is the term used for unauthorised IT.

For my latest article for the BBC's Technology of Businesss, two people told me why they use shadow AI, on condition of anonymity. The article also looks at the risks of unauthorised AI and showcases Trimble's solution to shadow AI, which was to create its own general-purpose AI tool for its people to use.

The article was given the top feature slot on the BBC News homepage, and was followed up by the Business Matters programme on the BBC World Service. Read it here: Why employees smuggle AI into work.

To be updated when I write articles like this in the future, please susbcribe to my newsletter. Thank you to everyone to helped with the article, especially my two interviewees who shared their experiences anonymously.

Photo credit: Steve Johnson at Unsplash

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Play your own music on the Lego Retro Radio

09 January 2025

When I first saw the Lego Retro Radio set (10334), I wondered whether I could get it to play my own music by putting a Raspberry Pi inside it. The Lego designer included a grip for mounting your phone inside, but I wanted something that could interact with the tuning dial on the radio, and that I could leave in the radio permanently.

The Lego set features a sound brick, which has a button in it. When the button is pressed, it plays a short sound snippet, including some funny adverts and DJ quotes. The sound brick is triggered by turning the tuning dial. The key to making my project work was designing a replacement sound brick, which I could connect to the Raspberry Pi.

Now, when the tuning knob is turned, it activates my button, and a Python program reacts to the button press by changing the music playing.

To make it easy for others to use, I created the simplest program I could, which just plays songs and jingles alternately. However, it would be possible to make a more complex program using my Raspberry Radio code as a starting point. This uses text-to-speech to introduce each track, and indexes your music so you don't have to put the filenames in the code. It would be possible to have the button press change channel by switching between different song lists, and perhaps even changing the DJ's accent. Another cool addition would be to give each channel a name which is announced when it starts playing.

I've configured the Raspberry Pi so that my Python program starts running when the device is powered up. Inside the radio, I included another button which can be used to initiate a safe shutdown, without risk of damanging the micro SD card used for storage.

See my build instructions for playing your own music on the Lego Retro Radio using a Raspberry Pi.

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Download my free Retro Compendium ebook

03 December 2024

I've published a new free ebook called Retro Compendium, which collects together the articles I've written about the Amstrad CPC, Spectrum and other retro computers.

Most of the articles were previously published in Amtix CPC magazine, which ran from 2021 to 2024. They include my investigation into whether ChatGPT could write Amstrad games, a run-down of pop music recreated in Amstrad games, and a report on the messages programmers hid in their Spectrum game code. Showing my love for magazines like Amstrad Action (AA), the ebook also includes a round-up of Christmas cover tapes from AA, and a short history of the Amstrad as seen through the final issues of the popular UK magazines.

There are game reviews, too, of Cassette 50, Get Dexter, Highway Encounter, Split Personalities (also known as Splitting Images), and Finders Keepers.

I've also compiled my listings, mostly originally published in Amstrad Action and Amstrad Computer User magazines, and have written an article about how I got them published. I don't expect anyone is typing them in in 2024, but listings were a big part of the CPC scene. Most of the games you can now play in your browser, or you can download my Amstrad CPC disc to use in your own emulator.

Many thanks to Chris Wilkins at Fusion Retro and David Crookes at Amstrad Addict, who originally published many of the articles in this ebook.

Download the ebook here. It's not gated, but please consider subscribing to my newsletter to be notified of updates to this ebook and my other creative projects.

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The day Zig & Zig faxed me

12 November 2024

I was sad to see that Future Music magazine is to close, with its final issue being number 414. I contributed a couple of articles to the magazine around 1993, and it's amazing to see that a title I wrote for then has lasted this long.

One of the articles was an interview with Reel 2 Real, who had a hit with 'I Like to Move It', which more recently found fame in the Madagascar films. Reel 2 Real had recorded a track with Zig & Zag, puppet presenters of The Big Breakfast TV show. Future Music's style guide at the time encouraged humour, so I thought it would be fun to do a box-out on this collaboration. It also helped with wordcount, given it had been quite hard to get the technical detail I needed in the main interview.

I phoned the Channel 4 press office. "Would you like to make up some words from Zig & Zag that I can use in the article?"

"Oh no!" said the lady on the phone. "We couldn't do that."

I was disappointed.

"They would want to do that themselves," she said, brightly.

It amused me to think of the Channel 4 PR people deferring to the crazy puppets in this way, but they got me comments which arrived by fax in the Future Music office. After some confusion there ("er, anyone know why Zig & Zag are faxing us?"), it was posted to me, and this week I rediscovered the fax.

Here's what they wrote:

• ZAG: Eric came to our posh Docklands apartment. It was our first meeting and unbeknownst to us our first recording session. Eric decided there was no time like the present and got us to hire a DAT machine and record our single 'Them Girls, Them Girls' there and then. He was quite demanding but always had a smile on his face.
• ZIG: I checked through Uncle Eric's wallet when Zag was singing. He is very rich. He is a member of four video clubs.
• ZAG: We love Real to Reel and hopefully we can work with them again. Respec in every aspec!
• ZIG: Boolaka! Boolaka!
• ZAG: Oh dear! It's Booyaka, oh never mind!
• ZIG: Boolaka! Boolaka!

I suspect their writers Ciaran Morrison and Mick O'Hara might have helped with the joined-up writing, but the misspellings of names are Zig & Zag's.

So, farewell Future Music. Its sample packs and tutorials were helpful when I was recording my album Artificial, and I loved studying the studio photos to see what gear the interviewed artists were working with. I remember noticing that Jean-Michel Jarre's studio included a Novation Mininova, because I have that synth too. 414 issues is an incredible run for a specialist magazine, but it's becoming harder for magazines to survive. If there's one you love, support it today!

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