Paul Robert Lloyd

This is a low.

Starting March much as I did February by trying something new. This morning I completed my first Aquathon (Tuff Fitty’s Frost Bite event in Littlehampton, a 400m swim followed by a 5km run), finishing with a time of 50:35. I’ll take that!

Just got bitten by a dog, which kinda sums up this Thursday.

6 life lessons I discovered while learning to ski Falling down a mountain strapped to two slender skis feels like an analogy for life.

This post about skiing is not about skiing. paulrobertlloyd.com/2026/054/a1/...

Lovely evening spent in a local pub, drinking beer, eating pie and mash and coming fifth (out of seven teams) in the pub quiz with my fellow quizzer, Becky. A truly wonderful way to start the week.

Fuck me, the conclusion to season 2 of The Night Manager was quite unexpected. Wow.

View of a public square as seen through an open door, that’s in shadow. There’s a decorative fountain, people milling about on foot and by motorbike.

I bloody love Lyon.

Gone skiing.

A bottle of milk and a bottle of cream sat on the ground, in front of a blue door, surrounded by green foliage.

You don’t see this everyday.

Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen's note to Starmer after visiting Chequers yesterday.

This brings back painful memories 😑 I swear their keyboards actively resist typing!

2025 in review Another circuit around the sun and time once again to reflect on a year gone by.

How I spent 2025: paulrobertlloyd.com/2026/004/a1/...

Today I… stayed up to watch the finale of Stranger Things (and wasn’t disappointed), took a morning walk with old friends, spent the afternoon with my godmother and goddaughter and concluded by getting hooked on new series of The Traitors and The Night Manager. Pretty good start to 2026, I’d say.

Delivering a small Indiekit-shaped Christmas present, with a new beta release that includes some quality-of-life improvements alongside localisation for Brazilian Portuguese. Feliz Natal! https://github.com/getindiekit/indiekit/releases/tag/v1.0.0-beta.25

Union Flag Blues: the Branding of Great British Railways In a blaze of publicity, the branding for Great British Railways, state-owned future operator of some of the privatised British railway network, was unexpectedly launched earlier this month, a mere four years after Great British Railways was first announced. In typical British transport policy tradition, the government almost immediately undermined its own efforts to create a unifying visual identity for the English railway network, having long since ceded the battle to brand the British railway network.

#TheBeautyOfTransport is looking at the newly unveiled GBR branding - not just what it is, but how we ended up with it, and how far it will actually spread. It's a long article this time, so plenty to keep you going over the holidays. Season's Greetings!

Categories The personal website of Paul Robert Lloyd

Probably because I’m not that good at self-promotion, but thanks! It’s absolutely a labour of love, and a slow burning one at that. I’ve written a few posts about the project over the last 12 or so years, if you’d like to know more: paulrobertlloyd.com/categories/b...

Getting close to completing the fourth and final section of Bradshaw’s Guide. As of today, you can now find descriptions for all 1338 towns and cities published in the 1866 edition. Next up; adding the final set of routes and stations. https://bradshaws.guide/places

Dark grey hexagonal finisher’s medal sat on a grey and red finisher’s t-shirt.

Completed it mate. www.spartan.com/en/deka/strong

DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH, LANDO NORRIS! WORLD CHAMPION! 🏆

British public’s verdict is in: Die Hard is not a Christmas movie Survey also reveals Britons’ favourite festive film, views on tear-jerkers and family cinema trips

I have re-watched Die Hard and can confirm: it is a Christmas movie (no matter what the British public may think). www.theguardian.com/film/2025/de...

Alana, Danielle and Este Haim projected in black and white.

Este Haim singing below a sign in red text that says ‘Cry’.

Alana, Danielle and Este Haim playing their guitars below a sign in red text that says ‘I quit lying to myself’.

Alana, Danielle and Este Haim druming on stage, projected on a screen behind them.

I absolutely bloody love Haim, and they didn’t disappoint this evening.

Enjoyed drinks and a curry in Birmingham this evening alongside 6 familiar faces to celebrate an astonishing anniversary; 20 years ago this month, 4 web developers met in Walsall, and the Multipack was born. https://lloydyweb.paulrobertlloyd.com/blog/2005/10/the_we_in_web

The concourse at Euston station is now a festival of Rail Alphabet 2. Move beyond that… well, God knows what font has been chosen for the gantries above the approaches to platforms (which still use NR Brunel). One day there might be some visual coherence on the railway, but today is not that day.

Caught up with the Apple Event. Took me 30 minutes to realise I was watching last year’s event.

Rays of sunlight illuminating long bright green leaves.

Probably the last post-work rays of sunlight for 2025.

Twice as nice: Introducing the NHS.UK Eleventy Plugin With the NHS.UK Eleventy Plugin you can focus on writing content instead of writing code.

The GOV.UK Eleventy Plugin is helping teams across central government focus on writing content instead of writing code. So I made a version for teams working in the NHS too. x-govuk.github.io/posts/nhsuk-...

Updating to version 10 - NHS digital service manual In August 2025, we released version 10 of the design system and NHS.UK frontend library with new features, updates and bug fixes.

Something I and many others in the NHS have spent months working on has just gone live, a big update to design system and frontend! 🎉

See service-manual.nhs.uk/design-syste... for the changes.

Not super glamorous work, but it helps improve the foundations for our digital services.

Aha! And consider me intrigued…!

Enjoyed this! And so lovely to see you writing again.

Ha, excellent! Quite good fun as side quests go, isn’t it!