Throughout Primary school and High school, my uncle Geoff used to take me to watch the Dragons play at Jubilee Oval in the NRL. Well – it was the ARL back then, not the NRL. And Jubilee Oval was still Jubilee Oval, not whatever it’s been renamed (and renamed…) to since.

We always followed a similar routine, and I think that’s probably what makes the memory of it so nostalgic.

We’d meet up after church on a Sunday – he’d already have his Dragons gear in the car, I’d have my jersey ready to go. First stop, without fail, was Red Rooster at Carlton. I’d always get the Hawaiian Pack, back when they still did the banana fritters (instead of just giving you two pineapple fritters).

Then somehow we’d snake a street park on the other side of Carlton South Public School, walk through the school grounds, and come out at the gates. Every time. Knowing what I know now about finding parking near any kind of event, it feels like a minor miracle how often that worked..

Walking in, you’d always hear it before you saw much of anything. “Doubles on the main game! Doubles on the main game!” The bookies working the crowd for those who wanted to partake. And you’d grab a Big League magazine on the way – because this is before the internet, and if you wanted to know the team list or follow what was happening in the comp, you needed the magazine. That was just how it worked.

We’d usually arrive partway through the reserve grade game and catch the back half of that. Uncle Geoff would get a bit awkward about the cheerleaders – I think he was quietly worried about where my eyes were wandering, which, looking back, is pretty funny.

Then the main game. The Dragons in that era were a scrappy side – Scott Gourley, Noel Goldthorpe, Neil Tierney. Not always pretty, not always a win. But it didn’t really matter.

Then there was Skull – a bloke who’d been banned from Dragons games for being racist, who would somehow always find a spot to perch up above the fence line, peering through the barbed wire at the game. And there was always Happy Dragon, the mascot, running the fence line and high-fiving every kid he could reach.

Red Rooster, magical car spots, Sunday afternoons and the Red V.

Really fond memories.

The post <span class='p-name'>Red Rooster & the Red V</span> appeared first on Jordan Gillman: On life and WordPress.

The other week our CEO gave us all some homework to do within work time.

Homework assignment this week: I’d like you to take an hour or two out of your work day, so yes you’re being paid to do this, and visit a museum. If you come across something cool, add it to this thread or blog it! Exposure to the best works and history of others helps us elevate our craft. (I’m kind of excited to see the global variety of museums people visit.)

Internal Slack channel at Automattic

I was pleased to take a little time and visit Wollongong Art Gallery and was struck by a couple of things. And how they might relate to work on (and with) WordPress.

There was plenty of great, and thought provoking art as I wandered the rooms – but a couple of things stuck out to me as something of a relevant theme. Thinking about making spaces for creative collaboration and remixing…

This piece by Lizzie Buckmaster Dove took place in a local suburb called Coledale – where shall worked with local community members to collect the pieces of broken concrete from the local ocean pool and arrange them into a living piece of circular art. (fyi @andrewflemingwp + @reidhollylouise)

This piece took a reproduction of famous Australian painting Shearing of the Rams and painted over/around it to form an absurdist scene. Working with the traditional and remixing it.

This exhibition from performance artist Kate Mitchell provided two opportunities for visitors to the gallery (in particalar, children) to participate in two of their projects:

• Decorating postcards with art to depict something ‘they’re happy to say goodbye to from 2025’. They’ll be sent to the artist – who will then burn them ceremoniously in a performance piece.
• Decorating bunting flags with art that reflects a positive quality they want to encourage people to embody in 2026.

Making space for collaboration, remixing, and creativity.

Working on a platform like WordPress (and WordPress.com specifically) means trying to create a space that facilitates others to create. And reflecting on these artworks makes we wonder – how do we make WordPress a platform where others can collaborate with one another creatively? How can we encourage remixing and reworking? And is it something we can have built intrinisicly into the platform.

What do you think?

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You may have noticed, to the right of this post, I have a small section showing the music track that is ‘Currently Playing’. There’s also a link in my main menu to About > Listening which shows a longer feed of what’s been playing.

That feed is coming from Last.fm – a fantastic service which can track the music you play from a range of sources. I use it to track the combo of Spotify + my iTunes music library – and have been doing so since 2005 (woah – I’m old).

In previous iterations of this site I utilised a plugin (one of a few) that had Last.fm widgets – but those didn’t support newer block themes. So I was out of luck.

But then, bolstered by the success of playing with Telex to create a custom Block, I decided to see if I could vibe code a plugin to recreate the functionality I was looking for. Spoiler Alert – you know it works, because you can see it working on the page

The Tools

To attack this I used:

• Claude for brainstorming and planning
• Claude Code & Cursor for development
• WordPress Studio for local testing

Planning

Once I’d decided this was something I wanted to build – I headed to Claude to start some research. From previous experiments (and advice from colleagues) I had learnt my lesson that things always work better with a plan. My intention was to brainstorm and the have Claude help produce a PRD (Product Requirements Document) to use as the basis for the development.

First of all Claude helped me research existing plugin options (all widget based, no block-based solutions) and what data was available from Last.fm’s API (thankfully lots – and publicly). Then with a bit of a brainstorm it helped me define what I’d like the plugin to do (fetch and cache the feed, a block for ‘Now Playing’ and a block for ‘Recently Played’).

Next we worked together on a PRD – with Claude prompting me (and making suggestions) on technical decisions like caching, namespaces, error states, and other things I 100% would not have thought of myself.

A bit of back and forth and I ended up with a fully formed PRD ready to inform the development of the plugin (you can check it out here).

Building

Next up it was time to hand the PRD over to Claude Code.

I started by starting a brand new site in WordPress Studio, and then set up a folder in /wp-content/plugins/ with the PRD inside it. Then I fired up Claude Code and asked it to build a WordPress plugin based on the PRD.

Claude Code got to work planning, and then building. And from the first pass – it was a pretty good effort! I activated the plugin and the basics definitely worked as expected. At this point I made my first commit to GitHub and worked back and forth describing bugs and shortcomings to Claude Code (some CSS specificity issues, additional layout options) and it would propose a solution and then work away at it.

After a bunch of back and forth – things were working how I wanted.

A second opinion

To make sure Claude Code wasn’t stuck in its own feedback loop confirming things that weren’t right – I opened up the folder in Cursor for a second opinion. I asked Cursor to review the code compared to the WordPress Coding Standards, and check the methodology and approach.

There were a few small tweaks to be made – and the plugin was ready for submission to the WordPress plugin repo.

The finished plugin!

Fast forward through a bit of back and forth – and the plugin is now available on the WordPress Plugin Repository If you’re interested in contributing or reporting any issues, it’s also on GitHub.

Plugin Features

• Settings page for Last.fm API key, username, and default album art
• Now Playing block to show the currently (or latest) track
  • Styling options for image and text

• Recently Played block to show a list of most recently played tracks
  • 2 layout options: List or Grid
  • Styling options for image and text

Try it out!

I’d love for you to try it out and let me know what you think!

The post <span class='p-name'>Building a Last.fm WordPress block plugin with Claude</span> appeared first on Jordan Gillman: On life and WordPress.

I’ve been thinking lately about writing down some stories from my childhood. Not because they’re particularly dramatic or unusual – kinda the opposite, really.

I grew up in a pretty average middle-class Australian home. Eldest of three kids, Dad worked while mum home-schooled us (until public schools), kinda conservative – but nothing drastic.

On paper, there’s not much there that screams “tell me more.”

But here’s the thing – I have these little snippets and moments that have stuck with me. Things I reflect on sometimes…. The way music played a part in growing up. What it was actually like being homeschooled with my siblings. Camping trips, School Musicals, after-school jobs. All the weirdly specific memories that probably only matter to me, but feel worth writing down somewhere..

So I’m not trying to write some grand coming-of-age narrative here. It’s more like… cleaning out a drawer and finding things you forgot you kept. The little treasures that remind you of something.

Some of it might resonate. Some of it might just be me talking to myself. Either way – I figure it’s worth getting down the details before they get any fuzzier.

So this is the start of that – a loose series of posts about growing up. No particular order, no overarching theme beyond “stuff I remember.”

Consider yourself warned…

The post <span class='p-name'>Growing Up Average (and why I’m writing about it anyway)</span> appeared first on Jordan Gillman: On life and WordPress.

I thoroughly enjoyed Thursday Murder Club when I first read it. The combination of a good old-fashioned murder mystery (in the vein of Agatha Christie) along with the subtle and quaint British humour really resonated with me.

When I saw the casting for the film adaptation I was incredibly hopeful – and I do have to say that all four main characters were brought to life on the screen particularly well. And I’m always a fan of David Tennant playing a villian.

Sadly the characterisations were a little more one-dimensional than the book – something to be expected in a film adaptations, but disappointing nonetheless.

And a significant plot change involving one of the minor characters (I won’t go into it – you can ask Reddit about it) was definitely disappointing in the way it minimised their complexity and autonomy in the events that took place. From what I understand it also suggests future adaptations would need to diverge from the source material.

All in all – it was an enjoyable and entertaining 2 hours – but suffered the same fate as many a book adaptation in the past. It was never going to be as good as the book itself.

The post <span class='p-name'>Film: Thursday Murder Club</span> appeared first on Jordan Gillman: On life and WordPress.

It’s been a long while since I read this book (I started this draft 6 years ago) but it seemed worth publishing to share the quotes – which I think are still super valuable.

Permission to Feel by Marc Bracket was a really important book for me at the time – I’d grown up, and maintained through my teens and twenties. a definite attitude of ‘stiff upper lip’ and just get on with it. This book was the first thing that really made me realise the importance of being able to recognize and name feelings instead of just denying them. It’s not something I’ve mastered – but this was the beginning of trying.

At any rate – these quotes still resonate…

Quotes

“And when we can’t recognize, understand, or put into words what we feel, it’s impossible for us to do anything about it: to master our feelings—not to deny them but to accept them all, even embrace them”

“Feelings are a form of information. They’re like news reports from inside our psyches, sending messages about what’s going on inside the unique person that is each of us in response to whatever internal or external events we’re experiencing. We need to access that information and then figure out what it’s telling us.”

Emotions are Information

“Imagine how it must be for children. The same constant flow of feelings, running the gamut from crushingly negative to euphorically positive—from the moment they wake up in the morning, through the entire school day, to the moment they fall asleep. Except that children haven’t learned yet how to manage their emotions—how to suppress and compartmentalize whatever’s inconvenient at the moment, how to channel useful feelings for maximum benefit. They experience everything so intensely—boredom, frustration, anxiety, worry, excitement, elation.”

“Strong, negative emotions (fear, anger, anxiety, hopelessness) tend to narrow our minds—it’s as though our peripheral vision has been cut off because we’re so focused on the peril that’s front and center.”

“Negative emotions have a constructive function: they help narrow and focus our attention. It’s sadness, not happiness, that can help us work through a difficult problem.”

“Whenever we notice that we’re suddenly having difficulty paying attention, or focusing, or remembering, we should ask ourselves: What emotion information is there, just beneath the surface of our thoughts?”

“In reality, our emotions largely determine our actions. If we’re feeling something positive—confidence, optimism, contentment—we’ll come to one conclusion about what we ought to do. If our emotions are negative—anxiety, anger, sadness—our decision may be quite different, even though we’re working with the same set of facts.”

“Anger’s influence isn’t what you might expect: researchers found that when people are angry, they tend to believe that individuals are at fault when things go wrong. When we’re sad, we’re more likely to blame external circumstances. Interestingly, anger makes people more optimistic than does sadness, possibly because angry people feel in greater control of their lives”

The post <span class='p-name'>Book: Permission to Feel</span> appeared first on Jordan Gillman: On life and WordPress.

I went into Good Fortune optimistically and curious about two things: Aziz Ansari stepping behind the camera for his directorial debut, and Keanu Reeves playing a role unlike anything I’d seen. I was pleasantly surprised

The premise is simple enough – Gabriel (Reeves) is a well-meaning but clueless angel who is dissatisfied with his current task – stopping people from getting in accidents while texting and driving. He decides to take matters into his own hands and body-swaps a struggling gig worker, Arj (Ansari), with a wealthy VC (Seth Rogen) to prove that money doesn’t solve everything. Spoiler Alert: it kind of does, at first, and that’s where the fun begins.

I have to admit it started slow and took a little while to grab me. Keanu’s performance initially felt wooden, but as the film progresses you realise that is by design. Gabriel – an otherworldly being who doesn’t quite understand humans yet, and as he grows and learns, the performance takes on more dimension. By the second half of the film, everything clicks into place. There are some genuinely lovely moments of growth and connection between the characters.

I did, find the class commentary is a bit heavy-handed (which sounds like it was a common criticism). The gig economy + unionisation / tech wealth comparison isn’t exactly subtle. But the film earns it by showing both sides with empathy, and wraps it all up with an ending that’s both funny and disarmingly sweet.

If you’re after a comedy with heart and a cast clearly having a great time, I’d definitely recommend it.

The post <span class='p-name'>Film: Good Fortune</span> appeared first on Jordan Gillman: On life and WordPress.

Things have been pretty quiet around here for a while. I’ve realised that I was placing a lot of pressure on writing ‘important’ or ‘meaningful’ content here rather than feeling free to just blog. I’d played with the idea of posting shorter rambles on a separate site – but that ultimately ended up being just another place where I didn’t blog.

So I’m making an effort to feel ok about this site become the place I share whatever, whenever. Sometimes those will be big thoughts, or things I want to spread broadly. Other times it will be less spectacular. And that’s ok.

To facilitate (and encourage) that – I’ve made a few tweaks to the site…

• I closed down my separate ‘ramblings’ blog and imported the (small handful of) posts to this site.
• Switched out the homepage to list some featured posts (for those I want to highlight) and then list out the most recent posts with a little less fanfare.
• Including my microblogging from notes.jordangillman.blog in the sidebar along with last.fm listening and latest reading.
• Updated my About and Now pages and tidied up the top nav.

And hopefully this is the first of many, more regular, more train-of-thought, posts on here. I’d love to have you along for the ride…

The post <span class='p-name'>A new year site cleanup</span> appeared first on Jordan Gillman: On life and WordPress.

I’ve been hearing good things about Telex, the AI Gutenberg block-building tool that my work (Automattic) built, for a while now, and I finally decided to give it a try.

Telex lets you describe the kind of Gutenberg block you want in plain language, and builds it for you. You can prompt, re-prompt, and refine until you’ve got something tailored to your needs. There are some impressive demos floating around, but I wanted to see how it handled a real use case of my own.

When I moved away from Goodreads, I lost my “currently reading” display on this site. I’ve been wanting to bring that back—something simple that shows the cover of whatever books I’ve read, along with a rating and a sentence or two of my thoughts. It seemed like a good test (and a bit of fun) to try out with Telex.

To get started I pretty much just described what I wanted, and Telex got to work. It even helped craft my prompt into a slightly better prompt.

The block it produced searches automatically for the book cover based on title and author, with a manual fallback option. It includes fields for a rating and a short review, displayed in a neat modal window. The initial design was pretty vanilla, but functional and clean.

From there, I kept prompting: adjusting the spacing, improving how it handles different image sizes. All of it just through natural language. Then I downloaded the plugin file, installed it on my site, and it just worked.

You can actually see the result—I’ve got a page on this site now showing my recent reading, built entirely with this block. Total time investment: maybe 45 minutes.

I have to say – even from that short little test, Telex is an impressive tool. It brings WordPress/Gutenberg block creation to everyone and I think we’re going to see some really creative things built with it. Why not go give it a try?

The post <span class='p-name'>Trying Out Telex: Building a custom Gutenberg Block with Natural Language</span> appeared first on Jordan Gillman: On life and WordPress.

I’m not up for a full 2024 retrospective – but would love to share a list of things I loved in 2024.

Music

I’ll admit that I didn’t come across a great deal of new release music this year – instead listening to old favourites. But there were still a few highlights:

• Fanning Dempsey National Park’s album was a welcome surprise.
• No Obligation by the Linda Lindas showed increased maturity, but was still gutsy and catchy as anything.
• Was pleasantly surprised by The Great Impersonator by Halsey.
• If Only by smol fish has some great, catchy vibes.

Here’s my playlist of 2024 (songs I’ve collected as the year goes by). There’s a fair bit of looking back going on…

Books

I read a lot more this year and loved it. A habit I hope to keep in 2025. Some highlights included:

• Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow was probably my favourite book of the year. Enjoyable to read, thought provoking, and heartfelt.
• I’ve been plouging through Mick Herron’s ‘Slough House’ series of books – and absolutely loving the misfit group of MI5 rejects.
• I received a recommendation for Blake Crouch’s books and have really enjoyed their mix of hard science/thriller writing. Upgrade, Dark Matter, and Recursion were all incredible.
• I also devoured the Ernest Cunningham series from Benjamin Stevenson. Good old fashioned murder mysteries that break the fourth wall and have a lot of fun with the genre,

Television

Generally speaking I prefer television series over movies – but have had a little less time for them this year. Nonetheless there have been some definite highlights:

• Shrinking is clever, and funny, and the cast is amazing.
• Man on the Inside was a late inclusion – but possibly my favourite TV of the year. Michael Shur has knack for writing shows where you really care about the characters, and can tell they care about each other. And Ted Danson is just fantastic in it.
• Dropout continued to impress – with Game Changer and Make Some Noise on high rotation.
• We stumbled into TaskMaster for the first time – and have been enjoying both the Australian and New Zealands flavours.
• Guy Montgomery’s Guy Mont Spelling Bee is near impossible to explain. But so much fun to watch.

Movies

There’s not been too many movies that really jumped out at me this year – but here’s a couple of recent ones.

• Heretic was great. Brooding, weird, and thoughtful. And I’m loving Hugh Grant’s reinvention as an unusual character actor.
• Everyone should see The Wild Robot. Visually spectacular, and such a lovely heartfelt story.
• Monkey Man was brutal, but great.
• Really enjoyed Civil War.

Podcasts

I never have much time for podcasts – but had a few favourites:

• Lonely Island and Seth Meyers Podcast – it’s great to listen to these guys interact, but I’ve particularly enjoyed the insights into the craft of comedy writing, and film making.
• Strong Songs continues to be a favourite – I love finding out more about how songs are constructed and made
• Smartless is always funny – but I tend to only listen to episodes with guests I like.

And I guess that’s it. There is so much great, funny, interesting stuff being made by clever folks. I’m really glad I got to enjoy some of it this year.

Feature Image by Stas Knop

The post <span class='p-name'>Stuff I loved in 2024</span> appeared first on Jordan Gillman: On life and WordPress.