Blog

Week commencing Monday, 8 April 2024

Quantified Self

• This week: Stand 6/7; Exercise 3/7 and Move 3/7. (57%). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 39,179

Life

• A week where my shoulder continued to give discomfort, I stayed at home for much of it. Friday brought news of the scan in a few weeks.
• I had the first of what will become a series of financial pension reviews. Would my pensions work better for me if they were consolidated? This question remains to be answered.
• Avanti West Coast has queried my Delay Repay request, stating they want more information. They keep asking for a copy of the ticket even though the machine at Shrewsbury ate it, and the website says a Collection Receipt is sufficient. Grumble.
• I wish I had said I was going to Shrewsbury rather than asking. In the end, all was well, but for 24 hours, I was annoyed with myself.
• Seeing people in the office is always lovely, but I had quite a gap in the afternoon where I had no meetings. I used the time to walk around and chat with people. It felt simultaneously productive and unproductive.
• Lots of bowls of Vietnamese pho made from the chicken stock we got from last weekend’s roast. Endless nighttime loo visits.
• Related, Boys on the Verge of Tears at The Soho Theatre: a one-act, almost two-hour performance with five actors playing all the parts, entirely set in a men’s toilet. Lots to think about.
• Post-show French onion soup with gruyere cheese croutons was everything I wanted: very thick and rich.
• Three Sundays in a row: tonight, an 80s party night at The Crazy Coqs with a bunch of great songs.

Media

• All Of Us Strangers: After watching it last week it’s been on my mind all week. Friday, I watched the excellent “Behind-The-Scenes Broadcast Special” on YouTube. It’s such an interesting film to think about. And it was filmed in the director’s childhood home, which makes it even more fascinating. The YouTube algorithm served up an interesting collection of clips featuring the film’s stars appearing on The Graham Norton Show.
• Sunday night was the Olivier Awards on ITV. Lots of exciting musicals won, but Sunset Boulevard won the most awards. Tom Francis reprised Sunset Boulevard, starting outside the Royal Albert Hall and walking into the main auditorium (a version of how it was staged at The Savoy, even down to the cardboard Andrew Lloyd Webber. It’s very impressive).
• Apple Music has a new personalised play list: Heavy Rotation and I am loving it.

Week commencing Monday, 25 March 2024

Quantified Self

• This week: Stand 7/7; Exercise 7/7 and Move 6/7. (95%). Total steps: 102,234

Life

• Holidays are relaxing, but the presence of a hot tub vastly improves relaxation.
• Finding, what seems like, authentic paella is harder in Lanzarote than I imagined. Maybe it’s not a thing here.
• Related, it’s definitely not at a waterfront restaurant in Arrecife.
• The Arrecife branch of Zara is not permanently closed as some apps said. It’s moved to the mall.
• Related, I did not indulge in the McDonald’s food. But my resolve may have been weaker if they’d had milkshakes on the menu.
• Walking with toes in the sea is remarkably calming. The foot rinsing showers are super handy.
• A museum told me that the first aircraft to pass over Lanzarote were Zeppelin airships, and they used to drop mail by parachute as they passed overhead.
• Related, the bus should stop at Museo Aeronáutico del Aeropuerto de Lanzarote. I felt like I would be stopped by the police on the walk from the terminal.
• Relatedly, related: Buses run to a different schedule on Maundy Thursday. Even the bus drivers didn’t know when they should go.
• A couple of walks to Playa Honda and beyond took us past the modern airport. I still enjoy watching the planes coming and going while trying to work out where they may be flying to or from (there’s an app for that).

Media

• I was increasingly absorbed by Robert Elms’ London Made Us. “A cab diver stuck in a morass of road works and construction jams once said exasperatedly to me, ‘London is great, but it will be better when it’s finished.’ But of course the opposite is true, London will be finished when it’s finished.” (p291)
• Bryant & May Investigate White Corridor is another wonderful book in the series. Even in Lanzarote, the descriptions of the snowstorm were chilling.
• Beyoncé released Cowboy Carter while we were away. Wow, that’s a long album. Apparently, she recorded 100 songs for it. Thank god she could edit some out. I need to listen it more.
• The only TV I watched while away was The Life And Death Of Lily Savage and I am glad I did. What a great story.

Week commencing Monday, 18 March 2024

Quantified Self

• This week: Stand 7/7; Exercise 3/7 and Move 5/7. (71%). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 50,437

Life

• Finally to see a doctor about my shoulder. Initial diagnosis is a rotator cuff injury. Scans and physio called for. No immediate relief but stronger pain killers prescribed.
• Lots of planning work this week in preparation for my week off: mainly about connecting systems together. Really good engagement across teams.
• “Will we, won’t we?” for the deployment of our new automations went on all week, when I left the office on Friday the team was planning on Tuesday but we had all our sign-offs by Friday evening so I feel less guilty about being away.
• Monday’s pub quiz in Wimbledon was fun and so the four of us have booked again for an April Monday. How Mark identified the celebrities from the poor photocopy of the pictures of their eyes is a great mystery of our times.
• Thursday catch-up with Linda, who is taking a short break from globetrotting on her boat, was lovely. It felt like St John’s Wood was going to be a bit ‘out of the way’ for a Thursday. But not.
• Friday was full of last minute things: holiday Euro cash, foot appointment, Easter egg ordering and then, at the very end, packing. Happy we’d ordered extra on Thursday’s Indian takeaway so that dinner was a fast re-heat.
• Saturday involved leisurely travel to Gatwick as the flight was early afternoon. The airport was pre-Easter packed, BA carrying double the number of Saturday passengers. The lounge was not the screaming-child free oasis I might have hoped for but the wine compensated.
• Airport security at Lanzarote was a breeze, with electronic gates that accepted British passports.
• First evening dinner: duck and chips. The honey rum came with the bill. I paid for it with indigestion.
• Sunday, first full day in Lanzarote, started hot, rained, hot again, slight rain, then too hot. But I was immediately relaxed, had slept well and – as I write – delighted I came.

Media

• Plane tunes were albums from Breland, Kane Brown and Macklemore. Also, last week’s musical discovery, Ada Morghe. An unexpected musical change from what I would have been listening to five years ago.

Week commencing Monday, 11 March 2024

Quantified Self

• This week: Stand 5/7; Exercise 2/7 and Move 4/7. (52%). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/4. Total steps: 54,334

Life

• Monday evening, we headed to the Pizza Express Live (Holborn) to see Ada Morghe, perform a set. Now I am streaming her album, Box, all the time.
• A four-day work week for me. Planning for up-coming work took a big chunk of several afternoons and, as we get closer to the go live of our new integrations, the inevitable gatherings of people to agree on the deployment details took up more time than it should.
• An all-hands talked divisional strategy talk was interesting and I’ve broken down into team-specific talks for next week. The horizon is 12 months which seems far off.
• Friday, PY’s birthday. Lunch was the Hanoi menu at Six By Nico, with the matching number of courses, was superb from start to finish. Initially I thought we’d do the accompanying wine flights but glad we decided against it. It would have been too much.
• On a walk from Wooton Bridge to Newport, we passed a slowly rusting paddle steamer. It’s the PS Ryde, a paddle steamer run by Southern Railway to ferry passengers to the Isle of Wight from 1937 to 1969. They wanted to preserve it but, I guess, nobody had the money.

Week commencing Monday, 4 March 2024

Quantified Self

• This week: Stand 5/7; Exercise 2/7 and Move 4/7. (52%). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 40,344

Life

• It’s not often I am first at the restaurant. I didn’t know which of our group had booked it, so I nearly crossed the road. I was in the right place.
• Related: The old Carreras Cigarette Factory building is stunningly lit in the evenings. I think that’s one to come back to.
• PY went on a work trip to France and seemed to enjoy immersing himself in the art. I had the alarm serviced.
• My arm continues to cause me problems. A colleague joked he wouldn’t speak to me on our in-office day if I didn’t book a doctor’s appointment, so I did.
• Thursday evening Flight Club darts with colleagues and friends. I hit the dart board, which counts as winning. It was nice to catch up with Alex.
• We continue to make progress on the work project. It’s been two weeks of testing, and it is progressing well. A spanner may—or may not—have been thrown into the thing on Friday morning, but I decided not to worry about it (until next week, at least).
• Part of the weekend was updating curnow.org to have a dedicated weeknotes page. While reading some older writing, I also decided to collect film (and other) reviews on a single page.
• Delicious dinner at 40 Dean Street, followed by The West End sing The Oscars where Jack Reitman and Lewis Asquith did a funny version of “I’m Just Ken”. The players sang Happy Birthday to PY ahead of next week.

Media

• Tears for Fears: Scenes from the Big Chair was a great insight into Songs From The Big Chair and I want to listen to the album again.
• I wasn’t fully concentrating on A-ha: The Movie and missed a lot because it was subtitled. But I gather the band gets together, has hits, falls out, and then makes up and makes music again—a pretty standard band story. Or did I miss the subtleties?

Week commencing Monday, 26 February 2024

Quantified Self

• This week: Stand 5/7; Exercise 2/7 and Move 4/7. (52%, very poor). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 48,560

Life

• The Turbine Theatre announced a revival of the Pet Shop Boys musical Closer To Heaven. The theatre will be transformed into Vic’s Club for the show. I loved this musical when it played in 2001. It will be interesting to see what the theatre can do with it. Tickets are not cheap.
• I went to a Generative AI conference organised by Google UK, which focused on the business aspects of AI. What made it enjoyable was the panel from companies actively using AI in their business, including a case study from formaula-e. The message across the day was consistent: the pace of change is means you need to move fast to keep up.
• Related: The food during the breaks was delicious.
• Relatedly related: nice catch-up with my boss in the bar downstairs afterwards.
• The summary of this post was generated by ChatGPT.
• Thursday: I attended a collaborative workshop, and feedback on our v1 integration was positive in another meeting. It was nice to be in the room for both of those.
• Saturday: A lovey brunch at a new (to us) cafe and a train down to Shanklin and a lovely gin by the sea. Sunday: Lunch with PY’s Dad at a very posh garden centre.
• Reading about The Isle of Wight Distillery’s plans to move into Ryde Arena on the same day they withdrew the application. It’s utterly ridiculous that such a site goes unused.

Media

• Watched the last episode of the current season of Slow Horses. Disappointingly, I felt it rushed to the conclusion. There was jeopardy in the early part of the episode and a lot of shooting, of course, but it squeezed the ending into the last few minutes and it would’ve been better – or at least more satisfying – to play it longer.
• Went back to Ted Lasso. We’re way behind and only starting season 2. My favourite line: “Low Fat Custard that doesn’t make you sad” Ted Lasso, S2 E2.
• Archive on 4: Motorway City is a fascinating history of urbanism. The current political climate means there increasing protests from a large number of residents opposed to the pollution they are living with and those who feel any changes to existing road systems is an anti-motoring stance.

Week commencing Monday, 19 February 2024

Quantified Self

• This week: Stand 6/7; Exercise 4/7 and Move 5/7. (71%). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 54,470

Life

• When the day starts with “Have you got 2 minutes?” You can tell something is up, and I was only having my first coffee of the day. It wasn’t the best news, but it was resolvable.
• It was good that a call with a financial advisor from the bank turned out to be less “hard sell” and more practical advice. I wish I had the money to implement the suggestions.
• A message from James, who says BT has sold the iconic Tower to be turned into a hotel. I joked that I hoped it would have good WiFi! I think that line could’ve gone down better. The Tower’s not an official secret anymore.
• I had drinks with Esteban on Wednesday evening. We concluded at a decent hour so I could get home and to bed in preparation for the office the next day. Instead, I had indigestion and didn’t sleep: getting up was cruel.
• Thursday to The Island. We were greeted upon arrival by another round of water coming in through the ceiling and an inability to raise anybody from the upstairs flat. It resolved itself the next day, but the sound of dripping into a bucket added to my inability to sleep.
• We discovered live music at The Star on Friday night but missed the cider and sausage festival. We made up for it by returning on Saturday night, when there was another band, and we consumed cider and sausages. 
• Walking by the sea, as we did on Saturday, reminds me why I like this place. We saw lots of rainbows.
• Sunday’s return involved a rail replacement bus service from Worcester Park. It worked better than the other times we’ve had to do it, but being pointed in one direction and then made to walk back to where we started because the various bus drivers couldn’t agree on where we should stand soured the experience. When we went out later, we ended up with the same driver on the same coach heading to Wimbledon.
• On Sunday night, we had very different live music, with the sounds of Carole King and James Taylor, as we returned to The Crazy Coqs for more cabaret-style entertainment. Again, it was brilliantly done; the house was packed, and everyone was very much up for the music.

Media

• Finished Christian Wolmar’s history of British Rail (the nationalised years up to privatisation). He makes a good case that, over the life of BR – especially from the end of the Beeching cuts to privatisation – the organisation was a lean, well-run public service and that the sell-off that was to come didn’t really improve on the business in the last years of its existence in public ownership. Worth reading to put that part of BR’s history into perspective.

Week commencing Monday, 12 February 2024

Quantified Self

• This week: Stand 3/7; Exercise 2/7 and Move 4/7. (43%). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 46,088

Life

• Not tracking: I’ve always hated the need to have the cookie notification on this site to be in compliance with GDPR. I am not sure how many personal sites bother but I always did. Thinking about this recently, I decided to remove all the trackers and cookies because they only served two purposes: providing stats on the site and enabling comments (with the associated need to block comment spam). I don’t get many comments and I hardly look at the stats. So, I worked out how to remove the lot. I feel it’s better.
• I do like it when I discover leaders in other organisations ‘weeknoting’. A lot of the people I follow are in the public sector? Where are all the private-sector ‘weeknoters’?
• Maybe the saddest news of the week, especially for those of us who grew up with the Afternoon Boys: Steve Wright: Radio 2 presenter dies. Lovley tribute from Chris Moyles. Listened back to his vintage Radio 1 episode: a great insight into his love of radio.
• TfL announced their naming plans for the Overground network. It will become 6 individually names lines. I asked ChatGPT to name a fictional line that might run through Raynes Park, “a London Underground line named after Raynes Park could be called the “Green Arc Line.” This name could symbolise the lush green spaces and parks in the area, such as Cottenham Park, while also referencing Raynes Park’s position within the arc of suburban communities southwest of central London”. I thought it was quite good.
• Beer near the office with colleagues was good on Thursday. For some reason I became acutely aware of the dirty tube trains on the way home. I don’t think the one I took was especially bad.
• Pancake fun seems remarkable similar year-on-year: 2021 | 2022 | 2023. Also, Shrove Tuesday will be on 14 February in 2040. It’s never happened in my lifetime.

Media

• This week I learned that humankind has understood the planet warming impacts of CO2 in the atmosphere for a lot longer than you would imagine. Perhaps not so woke, eh?
• Enshittification’ is coming for absolutely everything, Cory Doctorow (or here if the FT link is paywalled)
• Finished Season 2 of The Morning Show. It did pick up at the end but the last episode was odd with the COVID-isolation show. Still, we have another series to get into at some point but other things to watch before that.

Week commencing Monday, 5 February 2024

Quantified Self

• This week: Stand 5/7; Exercise 4/7 and Move 4/7. (62%). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Plant diversity: 39. Total steps: 46,626

Life

• Lovely to catch up with Cornelia for our revised Thirsty Thursday (on a Tuesday) meet-up. Lots of talk about cooking. We seem to be converts to the slow cooker way. And a catch-up beer with Frank on Thursday back on Grey’s Inn Road.
• I read more about companies tightening their belts in the current economic climate. I wonder how that will impact the push to ‘return to the office’ when, again, it’s proven to have no impact on productivity and a negative impact on people?
• Did I miss it or has there not been a lot of discussion about this being the 30th anniversary of the opening of the Channel tunnel? Has it been a wasted opportunity? I love travelling Eurostar.
• It was also the 20th anniversary of Flickr. I couldn’t explain how my first photo had been uploaded before the service was even launched until I remembered Yahoo used to own it and Yahoo Photos was merged in at some point. Meta data retained, I assume.
• As a Product Manager in my day job, given I have feedback on your product, and I leave a feature request, is it good enough?

Media

• To the cinema, to see Poor Things. Lovely screening room at BAFTA where I’d never been. Stunning building. But the film? Another beautifully shot movie (see, 2023: Asteroid City). In the colour parts I could only describe it as steampunk Victorian through a fish-eye lens. Wonderful. The story weird, horrific and compelling. A child in an adult body questions the world. Outstanding performances: Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef and an incredibly funny Mark Ruffalo. But, somehow, too disturbing to be great.
• More episodes of The Morning Show and, after the last couple of episodes had missed the feel of the ‘newsroom’, this episode felt like the show was back to its old self.
• I saw Kara Swisher at an event once. She was as you’d imagine. Thank god somebody’s watching the tech giants: Over Three Decades, Tech Obliterated Media.
• Stephen Fry, reviewing Apple’s new Vision Pro: “Technology is a verb, not a noun; a process, not a fixture”.

Week commencing Monday, 29 January 2024

Quantified Self

• This week: Stand 3/7; Exercise 4/7 and Move 4/7. (52%). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Plant diversity: 27. Total steps: 55,705

Life

• The pain in my shoulder is getting worse. I’m sure it’s just a frozen shoulder but I should get it looked at.
• Related, I was nervous about doing Tai Chi because of the discomfort. It wasn’t as bad as I expected.
• Another office day on Thursday. Lots of catch-up discussions and, finally, we managed one of the team meetings in a room together rather than spread out around the building on video calls.
• Saturday, six mile Red Squirrel trail from Merston to Sandown with a stop at the lovely cyclists cafe. Not too wet underfoot meant it was a lovely afternoon.
• Sunday, a walk along the sea front, brunch and more sea views. It’s good for the soul. Peered though the fence at the former Harcourt Sands Holiday Park. Not much happening but then found an Isle of Wight Guru blog about it and accompanying You Tube video. Sad when so much prime Seafront land is not available to anybody to use.
• Apple announced compliance with Europe’s Digital Markets Act this week. There was lots of commentary and all of it quite interesting; critiquing their approach or broadly justifying it. Personally, I buy iPhones because of the restrictions Apple puts in place. I don’t want – even the merest possibility of – a virus-laden mini computer. That’s Apple’s offer. There are other choices if you want them.
• Related, James is trying out the Apple ecosystem after years in the other world
• I haven’t done a Kickstarter for a while. Poem/1: AI rhyming clock looks like a lot of fun.

Media

• How did Stephen Fry know the winner of the 2016 US election: a Spotify playlist. Well, maybe.
• Another greatest hit for Crunch and Roll: Simon Ross had me laughing on the train home while Dick Stone entrained on Thursday’s journey to Portsmouth.
• I’m starting another series. I need to learn to finish the ones I am part way through. I am late to The Night Agent but enjoying it so far.
• Season 2 of Isle of Wight: Jewel of the South started this week and it’s a lovely as the first.

Week commencing Monday, 22 January 2024

Quantified Self

• This week: Stand 3/7; Exercise 2/7 and Move 3/7. (38%, what’s going on?). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Plant diversity: 42. Total steps: 39,165

Life

• The number of rental bikes being left in the middle of a pedestrian street is increasing and it’s hard to think of a solution that works. This one across the pavement on Sunday.
• A number of blockers have been rearing their head on the project I am working on. Tuesday, we decided on a minor change which we hoped took all the concerns away. Then some of them came back. Systems integration is not fun.
• Dinner with Mark B on Wednesday night – instead of my Tai Chi class – was a lovely, if slightly expensive, fish curry.
• I was going to go to a team dinner on Thursday but it switched to Nando’s which, at the time, I wasn’t too bothered about. Wish I’d gone now.
• Instead, I was in the pub coming up with ideas to better share our team communication which I didn’t follow-up on on Friday.
• Sunday, up to a rooftop in the city of London. It was a room with wooden floors and floor-to-ceiling windows. Nice views of Tower Bridge and St Paul’s cathedral but a very soulless experience.

Media

• Bread, diet-personalisation, milk, mushrooms and ultra-processed foods: Professor Tim Spector’s 5 foods I got wrong.
• Watched a number of things about the 40th anniversary of the Apple Macintosh computer. This by Stephen Fry was a different take.
• I tried to watch Last One Laughing Ireland after having seen a short interview with Graham Norton about it last week. The premise is good but I don’t think I watched enough to get into it. Comedians trying not to laugh meant their humour wasn’t that great at times. Maybe I’ll try again.
• I listened to a couple of episodes of Strike Force Five, a podcast that several of the hosts of American late night talk shows did during the writer’s strike last year. The aim was to raise some money for their staff who wouldn’t be working because of the walkout. I thought it might be interesting to hear them all chat in a way that competing TV hosts wouldn’t normally do. What came out most was that they all seem to get on really well.

Week commencing Monday, 15 January 2024

Quantified Self

• This week: Stand 7/7; Exercise 4/7 and Move 6/7. (81%). Morning walks: 1/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Plant diversity: 43. Total steps: 58,211

Life

• I didn’t know that: the book on British Rail that I have been reading says that Upper Crust, a sandwich retailer seen at most big mainline stations, was a concept developed by British Rail when it was still a nationalised operation.
• Related, p256, “Staff, however, when travelling around the network were entitled to reductions at station buffets for tea and sandwiches, but oddly not coffee, which at the time was perceived as a foreigners’ beverage.”
• Time Traveller’s Wide, Apollo Theatre. I hadn’t seen the book. The stage effects are good but I can’t remember a single tune.
• Thursday red wine at an overpriced bar. More at a cheaper place. Wrong train back meant a late-night trip across the bridge to the return platforms at Surbiton.
• My healthy eating habit goes well when I am at home and not well Friday night at Compton St. Brasserie (too warm inside); Saturday Lunch at The Rushmere (great soft shell crab but service was patchy) and dinner at The Ivy with a view of Tower Bridge (lovely classic menu).
• Sunday evening, Elvis was more enjoyable than I thought it would be. And the audience were up for it too!

Media

• Zoe: Why unhealthy carbs are making you sick. Eat better.
• ITV: The Pembrokeshire Murders. A great true crime drama where you know who the murderer is in the first half hour but they need the rest of the time to prove it.
• The New Yorker reporting on a British story I hand’t heard: The Disturbing Impact of the Cyberattack at the British Library
• Industry news in The Guardian: Jobs will be next’: TV ad slump prompts more fear among staff
• Freshman grew up in Telford: Crunch & Roll: Nigel Freshman

Week commencing Monday, 8 January 2024

Quantified Self

• This week: Stand 4/7; Exercise 5/7 and Move 5/7. (66%). Morning walks: 1/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Plant diversity: 19. Total steps: 64,746

Life

• Definitely back to full-throttle at work. Last week was a slow ramp-up. I needed it as I’m just feeling myself after my COVID infection a few weeks ago.
• Mr Bates vs The Post Office continues to dominate a lot of the news. Quite incredible for a TV show these days. I saw great commentary on rachel.blog: “That is what makes it so terrifying. It could have happened to any of us.” She says a lot more, some of which I would like to have said, although I would not have said it as well. Read it here.
• Buried on a PWL 90s playlist was a song called ‘Pink Champagne’ by Shakin’ Stevens. People of a certain age will remember his songs from the 80s but I had no recollection of this one. It’s not a bad song – reminiscent of his earlier hits- but didn’t mark a return to the Top 40 for ‘Shaky’. The next day, I dug out Green Door: that did reach the top of the charts (for 4 weeks, pop-pickers!).
• Related, I have one of those suitcase record players. It has a frustrating habit of skipping when I can see there’s no scratch (and, even, sometimes in a place it’s previously played OK). Wednesday, I went online and found the issue – it’s to do with the little block of plastic that raises the needle when you moving it. And the suggested fix seems to work.
• Thursday, was an office day which meant lots of chatting.
• The weekend was on the Isle of Wight. Saturday, a walk to Merstone along part of the former Sandown-Newport railway that closed in the mid-50s. Sad that there is no line into Newport today.
• Sunday, 6.5 miles up Bembridge Down. Views are stunning and the sun shone. Ploughman’s at the pub.

Media

• But first, this … is a lovely programme from counting down to the new year with the BBC Radio 4 announcers and hearing what happens behind the microphone. I can’t help wishing they’d left the new year ‘bongs’ in place on the BBC Sounds version.
• Netflix’s Good Grief is the directorial debut from Dan Levy of Schitt’s Creek fame. It follows Marc, who has lost his husband and how he copes with love after death. I enjoyed it.
• Trying to pick up The Morning Show again. Almost everybody is unpleasant in Series 2. I am struggling to find likeable characters.