That Was The Week That Was – 18th May 2025

Following on from my talk last week in Dusseldorf, this week saw me take a train across the Pennines to the North East of England for the 16th edition of Thinking Digital in Newcastle. Founded by Herb Kim, who I've known since doing a TedX Manchester gig many years ago, I'd heard a lot of great things about this one day conference over the year's, so it was an honour to be asked to speak there.

The hotel was one of these apartment hotel combos which meant my room had a small kitchenette. On arriving I did notice there was a group of builders outside having a drink so I think this place is used a lot by contractors working away from home weeks at a time. The room was modern, clean and all the staff were very friendly. Before heading to the speaker dinner I clicked the kettle on and fished out the tin of Earl Gray tea bags I always carry with me on my journeys.

The night before the conference was a dinner arranged for not just the speakers – which is normally what happens – but also the attendees who had paid the full day ticket price. This was actually a really nice way to meet people attending the conference and learn about why they were attending, many of whom are regulars coming back each year. We had some great conversations about all kinds of things including art and technology, can other animals imagine things and if Dolphins are so intelligent why don't they make or collect art? Or maybe they do and we just don't know?

Normally the night before the talk I'm tweaking slides but on this occasion I'd already delivered the slides for the fifteen minute or so talk. Thet meant I could sleep well and not do the normal thing of waking at 5am to finish the slides. The venue was the impressive Glass House which used to be called The Sage before the sponsors moved out.

The variety of talks was really impressive – from talking about the importance of listening, the science behind Masers to the finding about an investigation into the Dark Web and a Kill List – a website were you could supposedly pay to have someone killed. It turns out it was a giant scam, but the people requesting people to be killed were absolutely real.

Sitting down just before my talk I asked the fellow speaker sat next to me what she was talking about. "I'm the woman who can smell diseases" she replied. And so it was Joy did an amazing talk about her ability to smell ten different types of cancer, Parkinson's, TB and much more. She's now working with the University of Manchester to replicate "Joy's nose" at scale.

The audience seemed to enjoy my talk – of which I overran by a good five minutes – which I thought I may well do. I never write a script or even rehearse – I just kind of know how long it may take me to do the talk and I usually get it right give or take a few minutes. I did enjoy finishing with the story about creating my digital robot project and how the sequel collection was created by making the original robots have sex with each other – algorithmically of course.

I was due to stay a second night but to be honest I wanted to come home. Not because I didn't enjoy my day – I absolutely did – but the older I get the more I want to be back home, even though it's always a privilege to be able to travel. I managed to rearrange my train and manage to make the 6pm train with a few minutes to spare.

On the way back via Liverpool Lime Street, two blokes got on my second train of the evening, sitting just opposite me across the aisle. The whole 45 minute journey they didn't stop talking about what I think was a Lord of the Rings based board game which they had obviously just been playing. And they took it very seriously. They talked about hit counts and orcs, and "wolf" and horses and captains with such enthusiasm it was fantastic to witness. At no point were they mindlessly scrolling their phone. I love anybody who is so into something at that kind of level. It made my night.