thedunnthing.co.uk

Ramblings and Musings from a UK quinquagenarian.

Month: July 2025

What I’m listening to (w/e 27/07/25)

July 26, 2025 /

Obviously, completely gutted that we lost Ozzy this week. Ironically…. I’d only posted my favourite Black Sabbath Ozzy albums a week or so ago before he died.

I’ve put all the first 7 Sabbath albums (Ozzy) through their paces this week.

As mentioned elsewhere, my favourite is Volume 4 – the very first Sabs album I bought back in 1984.

For a lot of folks, Sabbath are all about the first 3 albums – and for obvious reasons too, you’ve got all the big hitters: Black Sabbath, NIB, Paranoid, War Pigs, Iron Man, Sweet Leaf, Children of the Grave (plus many more classics) but there’s something about Volume 4. Tomorrow’s Dream, Changes (which has brought a tear to my eye this week, I can tell you!), Snowblind, Supernaut….. cracking! RIP Ozzy.

Ozzy in full flow with Black Sabbath 1975

Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and Sabotage are my next favourite albums, a huge advancement in their songwriting abilities and instrumentation. What’s been really amazing this week is I’ve just remembered the influence that Sabbath had on my guitar-playing years. In fact, I played guitar in a band called Sweet Leaf (me, Alan Carson, John McMullen, Simon Davis), and also Spiral Architect (taken from the Sabbath Bloody Sabbath album) with Alan Carson and Dave Ware. Happy, noisy, boozy days indeed!

Ten Summoners Tales – Sting

Also listened to one of my 90s favourites “Ten Summoners Tales” by Sting. Such an amazing album, the bass work on Saint Augustine in Hell reminds me of just how good this guy is on the bass! Other standout tracks for me are “Seven Days” and “Something the Boy Said”. The other album I love of his is Brand New Day. Again, wicked bass line at the end of “Fill Her Up”. Mad.

I’ve never been much of a David Bowie fan (love the hits, as most people do), but after he died I immediately purchased Blackstar. Wow. Blows me away every time. Bowie was physically in pain doing this album and it’s lyrically and musically just so interesting. The title track is just proper left-field. That and Dollar Days are my favourites on this very listenable, very poignant swan song from Bowie.

What to listen to next, i wonder….?

Notesnook blows Evernote away!

July 26, 2025 /

Wow! I signed up to use Notesnook this week. Notesnook is a privacy-first note-taking application. I wanted something to complement my other privacy-based tools.

This application is really what Evernote wished it could be. It’s brilliant.

I used Evernote for 11 years and was even pleased with the Home dashboard when that was introduced a few years ago. And the guys at Bending Spoons are working hard to make Evernote a great product (less so with Tasks or Calendar IMHO – it’s a note-taking app). However, the inability of me to use this at work (blocked), and the frankly crazy pricing overhaul has caused me to look elsewhere. I guess there’s fairly elastic demand with existing Evernote die-hards so they’ll make their money…. but not from me. I should perhaps be using OneNote at work (we’re a Microsoft shop) but there’s just a je ne sais quoi bit of friction going on there. It just doesn’t feel right to how my brain is wired.

Notesnook image

With Notesnook, all notes are E2EE (end-to-end encrypted), and there’s a range of security and privacy features that can be tweaked to keep those Big Brothers eyes from a-snooping.

Notesnook is sensibly priced, in fact I can claim a considerable discount as a (mature, somewhat decrepit) student – a tenner a year. I basically get all the features you’d expect to see in Evernote (notebook-based) but with block-style functionality a la Notion, and bi-direction linking a la Obsidian.

I’m absolutely loving it. I don’t think it will replace Obsidian as my PKM but all my personal note-taking requirements are covered.

Notion-like blocks can be created in your notes.

In the image above you’ll notice a very Notion-like block-based creation tool. I also love the Callout facility as well just to emphasis quotes or other useful bits of information in your note. It also has (under the Notebooks tab) an Evernote-esque layout (something I’m really used to) but whereas Evernote has “stacks” of notebooks, they can instead by layered in Notesnook. Suits me better.

I did consider Standard Notes with its security/privacy features, but the inability to use Markdown and “super note” functionality without forking out $90 for the year sort of put me off. Still cheaper than Evernote, mind.

I’d definitely encourage digital note-takers to give Notesnook a look. As an organisation they seem well positioned to have an excellent future (the roadmap looks particularly encouraging – encrypted workspaces sounds great) and even if you’re not a student, the annual fee is sensibly priced at around £50 for the year to get all the pro features. For great functionality and privacy in a note-taking application.

For now, I’ll continue to play and see what my final use case will be.

Here’s some links to the other mentioned apps:

GarDunn Studies

July 21, 2025 /

I wanted to get away from the grind of tech-based study recently so I’ve signed up for a Horticulture Basics course offered by ADL.

I’m really pleased with the format, with a massive shout out to Cara Gage for getting me enrolled and sorted so quickly.

It’s become immediately useful, I’m studying lawns at the moment – handy as I’ll be getting some in a few weeks!

The course material is good – it’s all online, and I’ve been assigned a tutor to help me with any issues. Assessment is through assignments, along with a final end of course exam.

I’m well used to online studying having done a degree and postgrad through the Open University . I’m really looking forward to doing something vocational again (last time was with the OU doing an Astronomy course – which was awesome).

The topics I’ll covering include:

  • Lawns
  • Plant Biology
  • Vegetables
  • Propagation
  • Soil and Horticultural potential
  • Fruit
  • Weeds
  • Flowers
  • Trees and Shrubs
  • Plant Protection
  • Ecology

If all goes well and I get good assignment feedback, I’ll almost certainly consider something more formal like the RHS Level 2 Theory exams (and if that goes well, the Level 3 ones)! This isn’t so I can become academic … it’s purely that I want to know what the hell is going on with my garDunn!

For more details of the Horticulture Basics course from ADL, please visit here.

Books I’m reading

July 20, 2025 /

July 25

Desperation (Stephen King)
The town of Desperation is proper dark!

Unruly (David Mitchell)
Rating the Kings and Queens of Britain up to the end of Queen Elizabeth I.

Ultralearning (Scott H. Young)
A great read, an instruction book on how to get better at learning and studying.

Ranking Ozzy Black Sabbath Albums

July 20, 2025 /

I’ve been a fan of Black Sabbath for about 30 years, with the Ozzy era being my favourite (I also love the first 2 solo Ozzy albums – Blizzard of Ozz and Diary of A Madman, Randy Rhoads was incredible).

Ozzy’s health and voice are no longer what they are, and the concert at Villa Park on July 5 was a fitting farewell to Ozzy as a performer.

It’s caused me to revisit the first 8 studio albums, as well as 2013’s “13” offering – here’s how I’d rank them….

  1. Volume 4
  2. Sabotage
  3. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
  4. Technical Ecstasy
  5. Paranoid
  6. Masters of Reality
  7. Black Sabbath
  8. Never Say Die
  9. 13

They’re all amazing albums – but this is my personal preference. Oh, and Live At Last (not included as it’s not a studio album) is awesome too!

Social Media. In the bin. Again.

July 19, 2025 /

I’ve decided to get rid of social media. Again.

X/Twitter is pure vitriol. Bluesky is seemingly heading that way.

The only account I really thought of keeping was LinkedIn, but Meta have messed me around with requesting driving licence/passport verification despite me having had an account up for a few months. So out it goes.

Other Meta-related accounts (Facebook, Instagram, Threads) are going that way also. the only Meta app I’m staying with is WhatsApp, purely because family/friends/work colleagues are using it.

I’d prefer to use Signal…. maybe I’ll convince them all one day.

I’ve also removed Medium and Goodreads – no beef against either, I’m just not using the accounts enough to justify use of my (frankly precious) time.

The one site that’s staying? That’ll be YouTube. I’ve got a nicely curated range of channels (on subject relevant to this blog!) that I subscribe to, so that’ll do me. I might even have a go at making my own YouTube videos in the future.

My current channels I’m subscribed to are : Bullet Journal, Cal Newport, Carl Pullein, Gardening with Alan Titchmarsh, GTD focus, JashiiCorrin, Learn Horticulture, Next Action Associates, Rachelle in theory, Rewilding Jude, The Grey Gardener.

© 2026 thedunnthing.co.uk

Theme by Anders Norén — Up ↑