Craig Grannell

Welcome to Springboard Or, if you're a previous subscriber, welcome back

🚨 News 🚨

Today marks the relaunch of Springboard, my free newsletter on Gaming, Tech, and Mental Health!

Details: darylbaxter.com/posts/welcom...

On the plus side, in the unlikely scenario they do get relegated, they’ll still be a big 6 club, albeit a “big 6 in the Championship” club.

Weekend column gives AI and LinkedIn a kicking. So I imagine that’s probably not going to go down terribly well on LinkedIn.

I’ve not been to one of his gigs, but I’ve seen bits and pieces online, and they look like a kind of bonkers controlled chaos. I’m really curious to see *how* this song – and his usual performance – translates.

In a sense, it would be healthy for a big club to go down, given how many times we’ve seen various ones try to enact a system that would make that impossible and detach them from the rest. It’s also good to see that one of the promoted clubs appears to be safe this season.

Also: looking forward to angry gammons slamming the song in tiresome op-eds once they get wind of the lyrics.

🎶
I’ve always been a fan of aviation
I’m jumping on a plane to another nation
And all my pounds, they feel counterfeit
I need some euros to count on it
🎵

Was trying to remember an artist earlier that also gave me similar vibes – that mix of modern, thumping beats, retro sounds and humour. Vitalic! (So many this UK song will even go down well in France too.)

They’ll probably be jammy enough to end up fourth from bottom, probably a point above Forest or ahead on goal difference.

It is now firmly lodged in my skull. Quite the ear worm.

This one has a certain energy that I feel will go down well across a chunk of Europe, not least in Germany. It’s also self-deprecating and yet also pretty cool. Shit timing, mind.

Kinda feels like if Howard Jones and Scooter had a baby. Which should be ideal for Eurovision. That said, despite this song being objectively superb, the UK will probably still come near last, as ever.

Like, sure, Kraftwerk were one of the key European pioneers of music with synths. But then early Human League reimagined it as grimy inner-city Sheffield. Later, Prodigy and their ilk took that old kit and made it scream. Among all that, KLF injected fun and silliness into everything they did.

Yeah, the vocals in this video have an Albarn vibe. What I like about this is that it’s funny, fresh and has some bloody oomph to it. THIS feels British, in a way that so many of the country’s entries rarely do. People so often forget how this country is a hive of innovation in electronic music.

Same. I know there are all sorts of issues with Eurovision this year. But that isn’t going to stop me loving this entry. It’s the kind of thing the UK should be doing rather than the vapid, boring, nothingy pop songs we usually end up with. (This guy live is also something else.)

The Sinclair ZX81 – and six of the best ZX81 games | Stuff Sinclair’s breakthrough home micro still shines over four decades later. We look back at the ZX81 and six of its best games.

www.stuff.tv/features/ran... :D

Not surprising there are a bunch of Lib Dems in this clip. No shock to see the Green and SNP MP backing PR too. But great to see a couple of Labour MPs onside as well.

I like the look of Acme Weather and hope it moves beyond the US. Although Carrot Weather is my go-to now post-Dark Sky, more competition is a good thing. But it’s been weird to see folks fall over themselves about the multi-forecast model, as if that’s a new thing. eg weatherian.com …

Wild that for as long I can remember there’s been endless hand wringing from the American comics industry about its decline and what they can learn from Manga etc etc etc, meanwhile 2000AD just be out here sticking judge helmets on dinosaurs and balling

I wish a company would do modular and a spinner/trackball combo.

Best budget retro gaming handhelds in 2026 to emulate classic consoles and video games Console yourself with gaming having moved on from 1985 with these 5 top-notch nostalgia-fuelled retro handhelds

Best budget retro gaming handhelds in 2026 to emulate classic consoles and video games – now updated with the Retroid Pocket 6. www.stuff.tv/features/bes...

Fair. Pseudographics T. rex, then. (Alas, it’s gone now, due to Stuff deciding that a new smartphone is more important. Tsk! Etc!)

Stuff home page with ZX81 feature and ASCII T. rex

Why, yes, it is my fault that there’s a huge picture of an ASCII T. rex on the front page of stuff.tv. Why do you ask? :D

The National Videogame Museum Has Acquired A "Mythical" Nintendo PlayStation "The OLDEST known existing Nintendo Playstation hardware artifact"

The National Videogame Museum Has Acquired A "Mythical" Nintendo PlayStation. (Image: @nvmusa)

Green/LD coalition with 322 seats (Green 175, Lib 147). Con 111, Ref 105, SNP 36, Lab 31, Plaid 24, others 13.)

Labour would rather aim for everyone outside the triangle – and those people HATE Labour. It’s an insane strategy. It’s *vanishingly* unlikely to happen, but I’d laugh my arse off if 2029 gave us something like this:

There’s a fucking massive opportunity for a ‘triangle’ anchored west and slightly south on the electoral compass. It would be a bit economically right-wing for Greens. A bit liberal for Labour. A bit economically left wing for Libs. But the area itself would encompass a boatload of UK voters.

They’ll get a kicking at the locals. Lose loads of seats to Reform and the Greens. Maybe some to the Libs (although I imagine they’re more like to gain from Con). And the calculation will be the same: “be more authoritarian”. Idiots.

No, it is the children who are wrong This week: Keir Starmer has decided that he blames the voters. Also: some golden age anti-car propaganda; and some new maps of British living standards.

"Where’s the soul searching about why voters might have defected to a challenger from the left? Why, in God’s name, did anyone think it was a good idea to imply a large chunk of Labour’s coalition is, in fact, stupid?"

Newsletter out. Bit angry.

It varies by brand. If there’s anything in particular you have in mind, let me know and I’ll provide any relevant pointers. (For Retroid specifically, though, I’ve always just bought direct.)

MacBook Neo: a budget Apple laptop we wanted with a key flaw we didn’t Apple’s budget laptop has surprised me, in a good way, but there’s something lurking in the specs that makes me nervous

MacBook Neo is the budget Apple laptop we all wanted – with a major flaw we really didn’t www.stuff.tv/features/mac...

Probably too many. But sometimes it still has issues when there doesn’t seem to be that much going on. But eg WordPress can grind things down, as can Slack.