Some time ago, I was recommended an electronics book called The Art of Electronics, by Harrowitz and Hill. Even more recently, while I was complaining about the £50 cost of it, a friend suggested that I use that great big building called the Edward Boyle Library. Imagine my surprise when I walked in, and saw books that you could take away with you, for free!

So this is the thousand-plus-page book I’m struggling through now. I’ve gotten through the difficult opening section with a vague understanding of linear circuits and impedance, entirely in the abstract. Chapter 2 is entitled “transistors”, and at first glance seems much more hands-on. I’d better get a wiggle on, because jobs are already piling up for my non-existent electronics engineer/electrician skills. Added to projects page: clapper light-switch for bedroom; 2 timed-extinguish light-switches for bathrooms; changing bedroom light fitting; setting recessed lighting in the upstairs rooms; checking an outdoor light; and wiring up the garage for—what else?—light.

And good day to you, sir or madam, and thank you for taking the time to visit my site. The stilted tone of language is a throw-forward to when this site has content, a personality, and a reason for coming that isn’t exclusively pertinent to your obedient author. Eventually, my new and humble shop-front will be dripping with style. Steampunk style. That is the aesthetic du jour, and the Victorian Gentry tone is, in a manner of speaking, the default voice. I’m not yet good enough at anything to risk a more earthy such one.

And that is the heart of the purpose of this journal! I am a young academic who finds himself useless at anything not directly involving paper. Only recently have I become handy with a drill. Electrical wiring I leave to others (although Edison electric light bulbs are, mercifully, within my limited ability). So here I document my stand against the world of physical things, with breadboard and transistor; cutting board and scalpel; drill and dremel-tool. Inspired by the giants of construction and art and style, a very limited number of whom I link to on the sidebar, I throw off the shackles of limp uselessness and seek to become a man of substance and visceral physicality: a kind of man called a Maker.

A new year has just come by (which, considering the amount of time this has been happening, shouldn’t be a surprise by now). If, in a year’s time, I have built something useful and complex, and something useless and pretty, I will be happy with my progress.

My best wishes to you, dear reader, in your own New Year. May it be as fruitful and as exciting as you wish to make it.

Your obedient servant,

Mr Andrew Jericho-Platt