2023
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Nearly a Year at Andy’s Man Club – My Honest Reflection
It’s almost been a year. A year of Monday nights, of sitting in a circle, of listening to other blokes talk about things they’ve likely never said out loud to anyone before. That doesn’t get old. Every Monday night at AMC has positives! I became a member almost a year ago, then a facilitator months…
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Sticky Headers – Yes or No? What Users Actually Want
Stop faffing about with what looks good and start paying attention to what actually works. Sticky navigation headers are everywhere because somebody once decided they were the answer to every website’s navigation problem. But are they? Most of them are unhelpful design fluff, taking up screen space that content should occupy whilst pretending to help…
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The Night a Stranger Walked In and Already Knew Me
It was another Monday night at Andy’s Man Club, and I was on sweeper duty. That means standing outside, being the first face people see when they arrive. I do it a lot. I don’t mind it. There’s something about that role that suits me. A new guy turned up. We had a brief chat…
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Have you heard of REBT & is it any use for adult ADHD?
A few weeks back, I stumbled across something called REBT – Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy – and thought, “Is this one of those therapies they recommend for ADHD?” It sounded like the sort of thing that might be on a leaflet from the GP or a mental health service, so I went down the rabbit…
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Still Finding My Feet as an Andy’s Man Club Facilitator
This one’s a bit awkward to write, honestly. I’ve written before about my journey with Andy’s Man Club – what it meant to me when I first walked into a session as a member, and then what it felt like to go through the training and come out the other side as a facilitator. A…
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What EMDR Can (and can’t) Do for ADHD
EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) is a type of talking therapy that was originally developed to help people process traumatic experiences and PTSD. It’s now also being used for things like anxiety, phobias, and other “stuck” emotional patterns we drag around for years. Why I ended up looking at EMDR I didn’t stumble on…
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Don’t Tell Me Who to Be Until You’ve Lived Who I Am
I’m tired of being interpreted by people who’ve never lived a day inside my head. Never walked in my shoes. Tired of the nodding. The sympathetic tilt of the head. The quick inhale that signals advice is loading. “I know exactly how you feel.” No, you don’t. You know how you felt. In your life.…
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Why Zoom Took Over (and Why It Shouldn’t Have)
There was a time when if you wanted to speak to someone, you just… called them. No warning. No scheduling. You picked up the phone, said hello, and had a chat. Simple. Whatever Happened to Just Picking Up the Phone? Then 2020 happened, and suddenly the world decided that even one-to-one conversations needed to be booked.…
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Wanted to Matter. I Ended Up Standing Outside.
We’ve been going about two months now. Andy’s Man Club in Louth opened around Easter, and honestly, for the most part it’s working. Blokes are coming back. New faces turn up most weeks. We’re getting 8, 9, sometimes 10 or 11 men in the room on a Monday night, and men are actually talking. Properly…
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The Algorithm Con – How Social Media Manipulates Us
Algorithms, algorithms, algorithms. That’s all we’ve been hearing about for years now. And here we are, midway through 2023, watching the AI bandwagon race along at full speed, churning out generated content, videos, articles, the lot. Bullshit everywhere, made by AI. And the search results? Completely screwed. Google’s algorithms haven’t caught up. Did they ever?…