“Never meet your heroes” - they say. But at his Newcastle book launch earlier today I found @jonawils.bsky.social to be totally charming - he was happy to corroborate (I think) my friend’s claim to have once worked with him in a data centre in Sunderland. I’m reading ‘The power and the glory’ now!

I’ve completely lost my voice - I can’t even whisper without triggering a coughing fit. But I’ve found the Natural Reader app is pretty good - you type or take a photo and it talks. I’ll see how dinner conversation with the kids goes. And then bedtime stories with them.

4 hours of digital queuing. Across 3 different devices. And I have... tickets to my 6 year old daughter's Christmas gymnastics show.

Worse than Glastonbury! But the upside is that given the demand on the website I could surely resell the tickets for about £1,000 each!

TRANSFER NEWS: Effective today I’ve moved from the Mayor’s Office to the Economic Growth and Regeneration Directorate at the North East Combined Authority. 3 months after the transfer window closed, or about a month before it opens, depending on how you look at it.

Here’s my starter pack of North East MPs (covering the widest definition of ‘North East Englsnd’): go.bsky.app/J15BLR3

I’ve attempted to make a starter pack. Here are all the Metro Mayors currently on BlueSky: go.bsky.app/7nsnpAS

I’ve completed my transfer (of followers) from Slytherin to Gryffindor (that’s right, right? Never actually read the books).

So I’m ready to fly…