iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 22/09/2026

I've been enjoying getting Claude to help me create right-click Quick Actions on MacOS to do fiddly repetitive stuff. Here, it takes a bunch of generically-named images, describes them and uses the <255 character descriptions as filenames. Result: better default ALT text when I upload to WordPress.

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 11/09/2026

Today on Marketplace. Just £1!

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 25/08/2026

Had something similar last night too when the electronics tutor held up a Nokia 3310 to the room as an example of ancient tech. Dude, that was my third phone 👴

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 25/08/2026

Had an elderly Millenial moment of wistfulness at the forlorn Post Office counter at the back of our grungy ex-WHSmith this morning. I remember when both were beacons on the high street, bustling, exciting places to go. I know rationally how it’s the result of our choices etc etc, but still 😢

A closed post office counter looking forlorn

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 19/08/2026

Today in Weird Things On Marketplace:

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 17/08/2026

There’s an eight inch square of asbestos in my 1970s electricity meter cupboard so after six months’ project management, my driveway/hazmat scene this morning looks like this

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 13/08/2026

I'm on the receiving end of an increasingly unhinged AI-fuelled sales spam email thread. I really liked "P.S. Totally fine to ignore if not a fit." Also, the idea that government procurement has now adopted fastest finger first.

When a government team emails Steph Gray about WordPress work, whoever responds first usually wins the brief. If Steph waits a day, they find another consultant.
Got time for a brief demo?
On Wed, August 12, 2026 12:25 AM, Julie Ja
wrote:
Still worth exploring?
On Tue, August 11, 2026 12:02 AM, Julie James
Hi,
I work at SalesCloser, and we help digital consultancy freelancers talk only to pre-qualified, ready-to-buy prospects.
Steph Gray has 25 years in communications and digital consultancy, but each project inquiry means manually sorting serious clients from casual visitors before scoping work.
SalesCloser books 2x more consultations by auto-qualifying every lead, so your time goes to projects that ship.
Do you have 10 minutes to see how it works?

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 07/08/2026

Saw Princess Di's SL500 at the Stuttgart Mercedes-Benz museum today (next to the original Popemobile - it's quite a museum). She had to reluctantly return it less than a year later, following an outcry from government and unions. I'm not sure how much soft pressure to 'buy British' helps, tbh.

Princess Diana getting into a Mercedes SL500, c1991

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 03/08/2026

Interrailing to Davos today. Can’t not picture this figure of my 1980s nightmares. He probably goes to the World Economic Forum these days, repping AI

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 31/07/2026

The at times glorious, at times calamitous, transitional and experimental Mac hardware of the 1990s, and how it paved the transition to Apple's resurgence in the mid-2000s

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 08/05/2026

Not now, Facebook memory from 8 May 2015. The subsequent twists and turns were a whole lot scarier.

"iPlayer election coverage at Helpful HQ has frozen with John Redwood's face looming over us. It's like a 1994 political horror movie."

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 15/04/2026

A random Facebook feed post from Michael Rosen may just have saved my summer holiday (my passport's valid until January but issued in May 2016...). It's not just 3 months' validity that matters, folks!

Michael Rosen: Ha! I've just been refused entry on a plane from Stansted to Bologna. The expiry date on my passport is August 2026 but the issue date is March 2016. More than 10 years from issue date.
Thems is the regs. Thanks to Brexit. Apparently. Gotta go home. I miss the Bologna children's book fair. Hard cheese, Michael.

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 10/04/2026

While looking for open licensed 18th/19th century views of London this week, I came across this corking view of the Crystal Palace dinosaurs by George Baxter, c.1854. They're a phenomenon now, must have been crazy back then when they really dominated the landscape

Crystal Palace dinosaurs by George Baxter, c.1854

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 10/04/2026

I'm enjoying using Claude artifacts to build myself little tools and shortcuts. I've ended up doing social media as a community centre volunteer, and my new 'Frequent Flyers' artifact helps me crop a usable section from the steady stream of A4 flyers I get sent, and generate an accompanying caption.

Screenshot showing artifact helping crop a flyer, and generate social media caption

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 02/04/2026

A propos of nothing, what's the first thing you listened to music on? Apart from a brief stint with a dubious robot-shaped radio with scary red eyes, this Hitachi did me for my first 7 or 8 years.

Hitachi TRK-510E FM MW Cassette Recorder Radio

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 28/03/2026

Love Olio. Tempted to get this and put it my freezer drawer smeared with strawberry jam to freak out the family

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 02/12/2025

5G routers have come down in price a bit: today I’ve upgraded the shed internet from a 4G external router (8mbps) to a sub-£250 Cudy P5 plus a Maswell 4x4 MIMO antenna, and now see 100+mbps on my little hill in south London…

Cudy P5 router on shed wall, showing 110mbps

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 18/11/2025

I can’t help myself. My children are 17 and 14.

Smiley face on plate made of crumpets and banana

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 27/09/2025

This time last week, I had a little #Railway200 moment, wondering what George and Robert Stephenson would have made of me driving my car onto a train in a tunnel under the sea, to cross the channel in half an hour. Still magical. Happy birthday, trains. 200 years young today.

Cars being loaded onto Eurotunnel shuttle

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 22/09/2025

Today on Steph's random Marketplace finds: get your 1m x 1m slice of vintage French goat art. A stylish montage photo and listing that prompts many questions...

Facebook Marketplace listing: £195 Vintage French Goat painting on wood

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 05/09/2025

Inspiring day at #Fixfest2025 in Hackney, the global gathering of people from the repair movement, from BackMarket to academics, and lots of inspiring Repair Cafe folks. Conversation ranged from Linux kernels and toasters to the realpolitik of EU directives

Most frequent items at repair cafes worldwide

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 06/08/2025

A striking photo of a surrendering Japanese navy commander in August 1945 sent in to Letters to Loved Ones this week: ve-vjday80.gov.uk/letter/ken-b...

Commander Sakai surrendering at Penang, August 1945

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 20/07/2025

Well indeed, thank you! I hope that nugget comes in handy one day for a particularly obscure crossword...

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 20/07/2025

I need to start a Tiktok or something about weird finds on Marketplace. Today's is this mysterious chair with extendable arms... ideal if you're Mr Tickle?

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 26/06/2025

Twitter still hasn't lost its crown for breaking news, I guess 😂 Glad to see the special Inspiration exhibition train made it safely to its launch at Paddington this morning - I'm looking forward to visiting at Waterloo next month. railway200.co.uk/inspiration/

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 25/05/2025

At a packed tent saying farewell to Podnosh #cock

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 11/05/2025

Stumbled on my copy of The Satori Lab’s (RIP) daily reflection questions card, so have put it up in my studio as a little reminder. Good prompts. /cc @benproctor.co.uk @reinikainen.bsky.social @jocarter.bsky.social

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 02/04/2025

Prototyping day today: I've got a client with a ramshackle site of PDFs, for which we're working on the traditional IA. But I'm also curious to see if a bit of AI trained on the PDFs could help users interact with the classic 'publication download page' (and help me write good summary text)

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 29/03/2025

Busy busy at Beckenham Repair Cafe today. Over 50 repairs worked on, from milk frothers to Macbooks

Beckenham Repair Cafe: happy customer back online after I helped knock their over enthusiastic VPN back into shape

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 13/03/2025

AI, schm-AI. Just come across a nicely buzzing Facebook page where the social media graphics are done in Excel. And it works rather well.

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 09/02/2025

B+. I felt this was a synthesis of good thoughts, but given you're one of the leading lights in UK on this sort of stuff, I'm hanging on for your own groundbreaking take on it, that I can learn from 😉 FWIW, here's what AI told me you'd think about AI...

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 26/01/2025

Recovering from a busy morning yesterday at Beckenham Repair Cafe. The local MP and celebrity cat (two different beings, to be clear) both came along too and we hit a 66% fix rate on repairs 💪

Liam Conlon MP (in the black coat) holding Stella, celebrity Beckenham cat

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 10/01/2025

I really noticed the positivity and humour while helping to publish this issue of @communitylivingmagazine.com This stack of box files (title: The rest is in the attic) particularly tickled me, from an online exhibition of the lived experience of carers: communitylivingmagazine.com/how-are-you-...

Stack of box files of carer admin - from 'Tired of spinning plates' article in Community Living magazine

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 08/01/2025

Go for EPDM roof and decent insulation (mine's borderline posh and I regret just re-felting the roof with regular stuff now). A better decision was a little oil-filled radiator on a wifi plug, so I can set it going an hour before I want to work in there.

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 16/12/2024

I was all set to laugh at Gen X throwback @neillyneil.bsky.social but now I appear to have been Influenced by him.

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 15/12/2024

Here's the heat loss calculations. Design temp I think is 50C at -1.95C. One zone, i.e. open loop I think (configuration 10 on the Sensotherm panel)

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 25/11/2024

Delightful few hours catching up with @harrym.com at his workshop, learning how to mill a bit of aluminium I’ve been scared to tackle… and mulling over life.

Original and new rough milled copy of metal chair ratchet

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 20/11/2024

Post you from a different era

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 15/11/2024

Post a picture of yourself to show the newbies what they’re dealing with

Dangerously overconfident middle aged man with a power tool and ear defenders

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 14/11/2024

Proof that in our corner of south London, you can indeed get the moon on a stick

Facebook Marketplace ad: 'The Moon', resting on battens

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 07/11/2024

I'm enjoying it, and it's helping me feel connected to something tangible, where I can be useful. If you can, have a think about whether being a trustee might work for you. And if you're around the Crystal Palace/Penge area and need an awesome, accessible event or meeting space, drop me a line!

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 07/11/2024

I'm mainly getting Palpatine vibes tbh

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 18/10/2024

A few more Govcamp shots of participants roughly 2011-2013... a 'where are they now?' would be quite an eye-opener, I reckon. So many heroes and heroines of public service digital, in - and at least as importantly - around, government

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 18/10/2024

A few randomly-plucked photos from my UKGovcamp Dropbox folder...

It doesn't have to be like this: there are govcamps - attempted meme

Pitching - Hadley Beeman, James Cattell and others

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 18/10/2024

Handed over the hallowed red box file of Govcamp finances to the safe hands of @jacattell.bsky.social earlier, marking the end of my ~13 year shift. Good luck! 🤞 😢

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 17/10/2024

At the risk of adding more to your feed, I'd say there are cats and there are cats. Mine is a surprisingly empathetic, patient and understanding chap, keen to help and look after whoever in the family most needs calming down at any given moment.

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 08/10/2024

First night heated by heat pump. Pretty toasty so far!

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Steph Gray @lesteph.com · 07/10/2024

Dealing with a slightly officious administrator called Ms Blankenship at the moment. It's sent me back down a pleasant Mad Men YouTube rabbit hole...

Miss Blankenship: "It's a business of sadists and masochists: and you know which one you are"

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