Weeknote 20/2025

I’m watching the Women’s FA Cup final while writing this. Lucy Bronze, who is my daughter’s hero and now at Chelsea, could win her 23rd domestic trophy. After spending a few hours writing a Colophon this morning, going to the gym, and cutting down tree, I’m taking it easy. “I’ve got a heart condition, you know!” is my new favourite ‘get out of jail free’ card.

Talking of football, this week has been all about it:

• My team, Sunderland, won the second leg of the Championship playoff semi-final with a last second header from Dan Ballard. Absolute scenes ensued.
• After demolishing the opposition 6-0 to win the County Cup, my daughter’s team won the treble, as the only other team that could catch them in the league lost. To have done that playing a year up is incredible. My daughter didn’t play the full match as she badly sprained her ankle last week. She did, however, put through a fantastic goal to assist one of the goals!
• I was delighted that Eberechi Eze scored the winning goal in the Men’s FA Cup final yesterday for Crystal Palace. His BBC interview is a great example of believing in yourself and picking yourself back up in the face of rejection.

As I mentioned last week, I’ve stopped running for the time being. So, in addition to weights, I’ve completed three sessions of 30 minutes walking up a hill on the treadmill, ensuring that my heart rate doesn’t go above 120bpm.

It’s exam season at the moment for my son, so I’m trying to be as supportive as possible while also keeping out of his way. Although it’s “only” 26 years ago, it’s really difficult for me to remember anything other than my grandmother’s death on the morning of my European History exam. Everything is a step to something else, and in my case it was to the University of Sheffield, where I met my wife.

Hannah and I got together on May 14th 2000, both aged 19, at the Stephenson Hall ball. That was 25 years ago, and so we went out to celebrate on Wednesday night to a Vietnamese place which received a rave review from Jay Rayner, the food critic. Given that in another 25 years we’ll “only” be 69 years of age, there’s a good chance we could celebrate a half-century together!

Work-wise, I took Thursday afternoon off to go to the Thinking Digital conference. That gave me half a day less to get done what I need to on the BBC AI Literacy and AIUK Community Platform projects. On the former, I’ve been working on a framework for AI Literacy that would chime with the Public Service Media values. On the latter, I’ve been figuring out with Laura the data flows and doing some initial analysis of the survey results coming in from activists.

The six of us that came together to put in a think piece for a UNESCO call about AI and the Future of Education: Disruptions, Dilemmas and Directions have organised an online roundtable at the start of June to discuss our work. Places are limited, and you can register here. Although we can’t publish the exact version of our think pieces until we hear back from UNESCO, I noticed Helen Beetham has shared some reflections on the development of her submitted piece.

We met with Kerri and Gillian from the Digital Credentials Consortium this week to discuss preparations for an upcoming DCC summit in The Netherlands. Laura and I are facilitating the two-day event at the end of June. I’m greatly looking forward to it, even more so given that I haven’t seen Laura in person for around 18 months, and there’s potentially the opportunity to go back to the TonTon Club and play some Japanese arcade games again!

I had a few interesting conversations, both at Thinking Digital and online for projects and just catching up / giving advice to people. I always enjoy having a chat with people, so feel free to book a virtual coffee.

The first few months of this year have been tough for me, both mentally and physically. Not having enough work in January and February, along with developing a (still undiagnosed) heart condition have affected my mental health. So, although I’ve kept going and shown up for other people, there have been dark times, only some of which I’ve shared with friends and family. I need a holiday, but as ever there’s that little voice at the back of my head says that I don’t deserve one.

Next week, I need to finalise arrangements for an expert roundtable for the BBC AI Literacy project to get feedback on a gap analysis and the framework I mentioned that we’re working on. The week after, I’ve decided to take half-term off work as there’s both a Bank Holiday in the UK and we’ve got a family wedding at the other end of the country. That little voice at the back of my head can get lost.

Image: Sunderland defender Dan Ballard scores the winning goal / by DBAN via this Bluesky post