Blog – Hello Curns

Yearnotes 2025: reflections and revisiting

Personal year review: travel, music, writing

A six-image collage from 2025 showing travel moments across Europe and South America: St Paul’s Cathedral in London at golden hour; a smiling man in a life jacket on a speedboat near Iguazú Falls; the Buenos Aires Obelisk framed by large green letters; a bundled-up selfie in front of a glacier in Argentina; the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao beside the river under a clear blue sky; and the Eiffel Tower glowing at night in Paris. — Snapshots from Paris, Spain and Argentina, 2025

Where do I begin when looking back at 2025? I try to summarise the year as a way of celebrating the good stuff. Daily or weekly writing is often weighed down by the minutiae of life; summarising a longer period can pick out themes or big moments.

My Instagram feed has often been a good summary of the year. At the end of December, I briefly talked about my Instagram Top Nine for 2025, but this time around, I don’t think the feed is representative of the year as it has been in the past. Maybe the Stories highlights are better, but the thirty stories are only a little improvement.

So, in the main, I am sticking to the same format as last year because I have not yet found a more inventive way to present it.

Moving

I have to face reality. I have lost a lot of motivation to exercise, and as I’m ageing, that is bad. My step count was down 11% from last year (and 15% from the year before), and I moved 1,225.5 miles (256,482 kcal). I am trying to do better in 2026. I want all those numbers to be up in next year’s report.

Places

Yes, I am the person still checking in on Swarm. The year in review isn’t great. But I did get to Paris, Spain (and the Guggenheim Museum), and Argentina, where I had one of the best meals ever at Fogón Asado.

2025 in music

This year, I discovered that Apple Music does not count music played via its Sonos integration. That’s a lot of music Apple’s not reporting on, nor featuring in my recommendations. Somebody should tell Tim Apple that you can’t have a music service making recommendations based on historic listening without knowing everything I listened to from that service. He probably doesn’t care. I guess ‘Money, Money, Money’ is top on his recommendations.

While I suspect it’s the classification of country as my most listened-to genre is right, 15,464 minutes and 1,304 songs are likely off the mark. And marking the Starlight Express album as my favourite because it’s long, and I listened to it before we watched the show again in November, is just off.

So, to Last.fm, we go. 5,287 tracks recorded; the most listened-to artist is Johnny Mathis; the most listened-to album is Breland’s Cross Country. I’m so disappointed I was too ill to see him in concert earlier this year. Apparently, Ella Langley’s Weren’t For The Wind is my top track. That’s algorithmic playlists for you: I can’t hum that tune, but I’ll put it on as I write and confirm at the end if I recognise it.

All the socials

I’ve already mentioned Instagram, and what I said last year for other networks:

I (still) have a Mastodon account, but I have yet to pontificate there. Ditto Bluesky, although I keep promising myself I’ll move to a custom domain.

There are now over 100 feeds in my NetNewsWire reader, but many of them remain silent. London Centric and The London Minute are still very much on my reading list, as are Diamond Geezer, It Just Gets Stranger, and Daring Fireball, and I regularly read them. I added a bunch of radio-related feeds this year. And I read about the lives of people I don’t know via their weeknotes.

Books, TV and Cinema

I failed my reading challenge: on 12 of 15 books read. At least it’s the equivalent of one a month. I’ve dedicated a whole post to that this year.

There’s always so much good telly that I don’t know which shows to call out. We started the year watching The White Lotus, which was recommended, but it didn’t quite work for me, and we never progressed to the second season.

A conspiracy thriller with a mathematician as the central character might not sound gripping, but I liked Prime Target, and similarly, Slow Horses and Down Cemetery Road both had me hooked. The new Bergerac was, perhaps, not as gripping as those other shows, but we stuck with it. The Åre Murders was a crime in another language, which I thought was great. I started rewatching The Blacklist at the start of the year, but after a couple of binge evenings, I seem to have lost interest again.

I always think I don’t watch much reality television, but watching Race Across the World, plus the celebrity version, and The Celebrity Traitors, suggests otherwise.

I should note The Residence, Murderbot, and The War Between the Land and the Sea, so I can remind myself to look out for follow-ups, as I enjoyed them all.

I went to the cinema three times in 2025. Queer was hard work, especially on New Year’s Day. Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy was quite fun, and The Phoenician Scheme was a wonderful Wes Anderson movie.

I watched The Salt Path and The Amateur on a plane, Conclave, Wonka, The Accountant 2 and A Very Jonas Christmas Movie from my sofa. The last two were far-fetched, but fun for Christmas, and I do recommend the other two.

Gigs and shows

We started the year in Birmingham watching The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra – CBSO Explores: Friends in Love and War, and then a complete contrast with a big, glossy Palladium panto with Julian Clary and Jane McDonald, which, as always, was an absolutely brilliant spectacle.

I never thought I’d like watching dance, but a contemporary dance piece at Sadler’s Wells East, Birdboy, proved that thought wrong.

We supported a couple of new musicals, The Rise and Fall of Vinnie and Paul and Stiletto, and very glad we did. But also big theatre musical moments with laughter at Titanique, memories at Just For One Day: The Live Aid Musical, a return to ever-energetic Starlight Express and Jamie Lloyd’s marvellous Evita revival. I am not sure why October was such a theatre fest, but that got its own post.

The Isle of Wight festival was again packed with great music, and Patti LuPone, The Hidden Cameras, Suzanne Vega, Toyah and Adam Ant, among others. The Crazy Coqs had a great year with nights themed around Céline Dion and Genesis & Phil Collins, as well as a James Bond night and a Christmas night.

Audio

I spent most of my 2025 podcast time with the Game Changers Radio trio. Radio-related, Happy Place with Greg James and Fearne Cotton was also good. The Shipping Forecast: A Beginner’s Guide was a lovely listen, and that might also be about ‘radio’.

Ed Miliband: Why Blair & Farage Are Wrong About Net Zero is a video podcast, so it’s living here and recommended. Also in politics, LBC presenter Iain Dale talked to former Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon about her new book, and Mishal Husain talked to Mark Carney about the world.

Great to hear from Russell Tovey on Dinner’s On Me.

I keep trying to make dietary changes. As a result, I listen to quite a bit of the Zoe science and nutrition podcast, but I think I am still eating the wrong things.

Other writing

In 2025, I published fifteen blog-like pieces on my site, from the frictions of everyday life to open skies and festival fields. I started asking what we hold on to and why in Usable, but only just, struggling with my ageing AirPods. Modern life was the subject of my second post last year, the fatigue of headlines in All the news. Back to tech writing with High bar for tech, where I talked about how the Meta Portal is both a device and a memory frame, and, even though it’s by Meta, I really wish they still made it.

Summer arrived, I planned for the festival and wrote a run of pieces from the fields in Festival Diaries 2025: Day One, Day Two and Day Three, before shifting to a different kind of spectacle in Grease Immersive Cinema Experience, where film, performance and some Olivia Newton-John nostalgia collided.

Travel shaped the next phase of the year in Buenos Aires: Four Days, Four Stories and Four Days Between Sky and Water, both describing my South American adventure, while questions of self surfaced back home in A New Identity and Counting from the start.

As we headed through autumn and into winter, theatre and seasonality came into view in Curtains up on October, followed by a moment to take a whistle-stop trip north to reflect on sounds from my teenage years in Piccadilly Magic and, finally, a photographic review of the year in Top Nine 2025 that I’ve already mentioned.

I am not sure what, when taken together, these tell you. But I always enjoy writing them. Because some of these pieces can get lost amongst the weeknotes, I have started a new archive page just for my more recent words.

Other counts

Let’s look at what else I’ve counted. I did 355 TfL London transport journeys, 42 of them on buses. That’s down on trips from last year, but more buses. JetLovers, once again, counted my flights. There were 9 (7 of which related to my Argentine holiday). I kept my AWS fees under £5 in 2025, but over £140 was spent on postage. And, last year, I woke 2% of the time in Shrewsbury.

Previously

Oh, and if you’ve read all these words, yes, I recognised the song.

All my previous attempts at summarising my year are grouped under the yearnotes tag.

Weeknotes #161: Concorde, curling, and crypts

Morning walks, culture, books, parties, theatre, and perspective.

Week commencing Monday, 16 February 2026

Interior of St Martin-in-the-Fields church filled with blue, green, and violet light projections during the Luxmuralis “Space” light and sound show, highlighting the ornate vaulted ceiling, chandeliers, classical columns, and a seated audience below. — Cosmic light washes over St Martin-in-the-Fields.

Quantified Self

This week: Stand 7/7; Exercise 7/7 and Move 7/7. (100%). Morning walks: 3/4. Office days 1/5. Total steps: 81,336. 15.8 hours in meetings.

Life

Oh, look, back to the morning walks. How long will I last? It really is better to be outdoors first thing.
As a long-time fan of radio, I’ve wondered how we’ve got to a point, almost 30 years after DAB’s introduction, where FM is still a thing. The government is consulting again. Reddit is, of course, saying, ‘but what about in an emergency’, which is really a rather bogus argument, as James Cridland once pointed out.
Relatedly, on that same Reddit thread, somebody talked about building a crystal radio: “There’s probably something to be said for having a communication medium that you can receive on bits of household scrap.” And that tells me that we all live in a bubble where our own experiences are deemed the norm.
I finished a book. It was Jonathan Glancey’s Concorde, The Rise and Fall of the Supersonic Airliner. I started this in lockdown, so it’s been five years of reading. I faltered in the early stages because it was quite technical in its history of supersonic flight, but I found it easier once Concorde arrived. It ends with the author’s downbeat take on the bland planes in our skies today and a lament that, in the UK, the infrastructure that helped create Concorde is no more.
Thursday, to St Martin-in-the-Fields for Space by Luxmuralis, a light and sound show. It begins outside the church before moving into the Crypt, and then up into the main body of the church for a fifteen-minute piece set to music that traces the creation story, the Big Bang, and ends with an image of Earth seen from space beneath a galaxy of stars. I enjoyed it. We sat through the light show twice.
To L’s postponed Christmas party on Saturday night. Great to catch up with people we only see once a year, and the curling was on in the background — it turned out that quite a few of us had been following it. Team GB’s men had made it to the final, though it wasn’t to be gold for them.
Best not to check about the crazy man at the bus stop on the way home. Quite relieved there was security on the bus.
To the Theatre Royal Drury Lane for To Maury With Love, a one-off celebration of the composer Maury Yeston’s eightieth birthday. There was a full orchestra on stage, and the music, however unfamiliar, was lovely.
Yeston wrote a Phantom musical based on the same source material that Lloyd Webber adapted. The interesting backstory is that Lloyd Webber’s version became a phenomenon in part because the novel was already in the public domain in Britain in 1986 but not yet in the United States, where the rights holder had originally approached Yeston to work on it. Yeston has called his Phantom “the greatest hit never to be produced on Broadway”. I guess you have to have an ego.

Media

My YouTube week: I watched the final DownieLive episode of the train journey from Europe to Asia, which sent me off to watch the stunning luxury train journey in Vietnam and the impressive ways you can use a Swiss rail pass. The lot is going on my bucket list.
More Olympics: the Women’s Freeski Big Air final from the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games at the Livigno Snow Park. The commentators’ enthusiasm helped make it a fantastic watch.
Really enjoying Small Prophets, Mackenzie Crook’s BBC Two series about a man who turns to alchemy and homunculi in search of answers after his girlfriend disappears.

Reading Challenge 2025

A reflective review of the books I read in 2025.

Row of thriller and spy novels on a bookshelf including titles by Sarah Vaughan-Williams, Linda Meiklem, Alice Winn, Noel Warrell, George Orwell, Mark Billingham, Richard Osman, Christopher Fowler, and Robert Ludlum, displaying varied spine colours from orange to black, — Thriller collection: where plot twists live in rainbow order.

Last week, I finally got around to photographing the books I read last year. They can go to a charity at the weekend. I know I am unlikely to re-read them. I failed my reading challenge: on 12 of 15 books read. At least it’s the equivalent of one a month.

As always, there’s a mix of books that I think are interesting and detective stories, which are a guilty pleasure and, when on holiday, I can read in a day or two.

I started the year reading Bent Flyvbjerg’s How Big Things Get Done. Does it contain the secret to delivering large-scale projects on time and on budget? Maybe. Get your team right and plan to the tiniest degree. Don’t be the Sydney Opera House, be Frank Gehry. I read it because we have a large-scale project coming up at work; not sure how much I actually took away.

I spent a few years working at Facebook and was interested in Sarah Wynn-Williams’ Careless People: A Story of Where I Used to Work, as she was at the company when I was, working at very different layers of the business. I wondered how much of the company she writes about I’d recognise. I think what’s most scary about this book is that, for most of the people I worked with and me, we wouldn’t recognise this from our experiences, yet it rang weirdly true. The villain is very one-sided in this story.

The villain in the next book is a bit less clear, although at the time, the world would have pointed to Rupert Murdoch. The End of the Street by Linda Melvern might have been my favourite book that I read last year. It’s the tale of how the Fleet Street unions were defeated and how the newspaper industry changed forever. There was passion for the newspaper business from both sides. News Corp. felt it couldn’t change the business incrementally, so it adopted an extreme modernisation approach. Perhaps newspapers survived a little longer because of it, perhaps not. Given where the newspaper industry is today, it feels like a historical story. But the innovator’s dilemma is real. Whether this was the right approach remains unclear.

In Memoriam by Alice Winn is a very well-regarded novel, but this was my second attempt to read it. I am glad I stuck with it. Gaunt and Ellwood, at a public school and in the trenches. All their friends are dying all around them. Eventually, I was hooked. I really enjoyed this even though it’s not the kind of novel I’d usually read.

Another book I tried to read before is Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. And I nearly gave up this time, too, but somewhere along the line, I got hooked. Is the Ministry of Truth even more real today than it was when it was imagined?

Warnell & Vastmans’ Agile Bullshit was another book I read because of work. Agile ways of working are a nice theory, and I’ve seen them successfully implemented in practice, but when the process generates more discussion than the outcome, then something is wrong. I thought this book would back up some of my thinking. It didn’t. And I still think the word ‘ceremonies’ to mean meetings is one of the most pompous things about agile.

The next four books are all detective-based and a cracking good read. Mark Billingham’s The Wrong Hands is the second of his books that I read. An easy read, with a decent plot, if you don’t mind severed hands in a briefcase. Next, it’s back to The Thursday Murder Club in The Last Devil to Die. This time, the case leads the team into the antiques business, which practically screams ‘cosy murder mystery’, and this gives you exactly that, with Richard Osman’s brilliant, engaging style.

I believe one of my great discoveries of the past few years is Christopher Fowler’s Bryant & May series. They always seem to be on the verge of the Peculiar Crimes Unit being closed. In Off the Rails, they have a week to find a killer, with the twist that they’ve caught this killer before. In On the Loose, the unit is closed, yet the case must be solved. I love this series and wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone. The intricate London details are phenomenally woven into all the stories without seeming out of place.

As a fan of Robert Ludlum’s Bourne series, I found The Janson Directive at the back of the shelf featuring a new character. Paul Janson, a former undercover agent for a deniable government agency known as Consular Operations, is asked to do one last job: rescue the billionaire Peter Novak. Today, we know just how bad the world’s billionaire class can be, and their views on reshaping the world are best ignored. I don’t think it was written as a manual for bored rich people to do bad in the world, but 13 years after its writing, bits of it are strangely contemporary. Also, another cracking good action adventure.

I ended the year by completing On Intelligence: The History of Espionage and the Secret World, which somehow got recommended after Nineteen Eighty-Four. There’s a lot in this book, and it offers fascinating insights into how intelligence works, with real examples from throughout history. If you want to know how intelligence (on both sides) ensured a successful D-Day landing, then that’s in one of the chapters. It’s an accessible telling of the espionage world, but as with all things secretive, you can’t help but wonder what’s not being told.

Weeknotes #160: almost perfect weeknotes

Curious coding, cultural moments, and quietly celebratory evenings.

Week commencing Monday, 9 February 2026

Promotional A-board sign for the musical 'Already Perfect' showing three male performers, positioned on a tiled floor alongside other advertising boards for a restaurant, gaming arena and bowling venue. — Theatre meets pizza: an entertainment complex advertises everything at once.

Quantified Self

This week: Stand 6/7; Exercise 4/7 and Move 15/7. (71%). Morning walks: 0/4. Office days 1/5. Total steps: 38,516. 11.8 hours in meetings.

Life

I think I “vibe coded” this week. At least, I rambled into an AI assistant chatbot thing and ended up with working software.
Related, the post I wrote about the experience must have partly been inspired by watching that programme about Pompeii.
And no, the name Algorithmus wasn’t mine. I asked an AI, which came up with far more detail than I wanted: “Instead of a lightning bolt, he carries the Monolith—a perfectly smooth, black slab of obsidian that reflects the viewer’s soul back at them (while recording the data)”.
Research by Clarion Security Systems estimates that more than 942,000 CCTV cameras operate across London. Smile, you’re on camera.
Related, I learned that AI-powered emotion analytics software, which is supposed to be able to tell if you’re having a bad day at work, is an industry valued at approximately $9.13 billion. Keep smiling, the camera’s judging you.
I’ve not yet completed 2025’s yearnotes, but I did the annual book photo. My previous yearnotes can be read here if you’re wondering what I am on about.
And concrete lovers are rejoicing, as the 1960s Southbank Centre, which includes the Hayward Gallery, Purcell Room, Queen Elizabeth Hall and skatepark undercroft, has been Grade II listed.
The King’s Head Theatre is no longer in the King’s Head pub. But we still saw Already Perfect, the autobiographical musical written by and starring Levi Kreis. His life, growing up in rural Tennessee, enduring six years of conversion therapy, being expelled from a Christian university and later working as an escort in Los Angeles, is a million miles from my own. It’s heavy in places.
Thursday, to the pub. An evening of putting the world to rights and a relatively civilised departure. On the way back, I remembered to pick up a copy of The Evening Standard for PY.
Saturday, lovely food to celebrate the Lunar New Year: various dumplings and buns, and a hot pot brought to the table for us all to help ourselves. It was a very pleasant evening, although poor W spent most of the time in the kitchen.
Sunday, I was planning to tidy and decided to start with a box of old photographs. That morphed into a day of scanning and organising pictures so that I could get rid of the physical prints and free up some space.
Since we were out on Saturday night, we decided to celebrate Valentine’s Day today with a delivery from Sticks’n’Sushi. At £82, it’s not cheap, but it is some of the best restaurant sushi I’ve had.

Media

On Tuesday night, we ended up watching (most of) The Truman Show. It is interesting how clearly it predicted the world that followed. In 1998, when it was released, “reality TV” was still new, and the idea of being constantly watched felt dystopian rather than aspirational. Now, every influencer is Meryl, delivering product placements directly to the camera.
On the train home on Thursday, I resumed the Game Changers Radio podcast and learned more about Brisbane radio than I strictly need to know.
Lots of Winter Olympics coverage watched: Friday, I didn’t understand the description of any of the Snowboard Half-Pipe final, but the commentators were infectious, and the excitement was incredible. I could have watched all night.
Sunday, we watched Team GB make history by winning two Winter Olympic titles on the same day for the first time, as Matt Weston and Tabitha Stoecker clinched mixed team skeleton and Charlotte Bankes and Huw Nightingale won snowboard cross gold.
And our men’s curlers suffered their second defeat but, hopefully, remain on course for a semi-final place, with an extra-end loss to Switzerland.

Algorithmus on the mountain

Rewrite my history: AI assisted coding experiment by a non coder product manager

Changelog displayed on a computer screen showing entries with added functionality for Wayback machine time, Legacy Wayback links, and Longread detection, along with a run-level count in the log. — Version control: because someone has to remember this

I was going to start this post with, “Do you read the papers?” But of course you don’t. Nobody does. But you watch TikTok for news, or see clips of a shouty man on LBC. Something like that. And, if you’re aware of the world around you, you’ll know that things aren’t going well. Unless you are a billionaire with stakes in Artificial Intelligence. Then, well, you are pretty much treated like some kind of God. If this were ancient Rome, you wouldn’t be another minor deity. You would be a figure of cold, calculated logic and immense influence. You will be called ‘Algorithmus’, or something like that.

If you were Algorithmus, you’d look down at the lesser gods on Mount Olympus and enjoy all the excitement around AI. The hype would be your strength. Meanwhile, ordinary people sacrifice their privacy for your benefit.

The Romans didn’t have AI, but they would understand hype. That’s what’s happening with AI today. I’m not ancient Rome old, but I do remember the internet buzz in the early 2000s. The internet was overhyped and in a bubble, but after the excitement faded, people found real uses for it. It’s similar to how Roman roads were built for armies to destroy villages, but ended up helping everyone.

My memories of the internet hype, more than Roman roads, shape how I view today’s AI tools. AI and machine learning are clearly useful. The chatbot trend will likely become something practical for society, hopefully in a positive way. Lots of people already use basic AI tools to be more productive. Still, I wanted to try it myself. I was curious about “vibe coding”—the idea that you can build complex software just by giving prompts to an AI coding tool. Could I really create working software just by chatting?

I’ve worked in technology my whole career, but I’m not a coder. I did take a computer studies O-level back when that existed, long after the Roman Empire, just to be clear. So I have a basic grasp of coding. As a product manager, I understand the challenges and limitations engineers face. I once worked with a senior developer who thought anything could be built with software if you had enough time. Now, I’m not so sure, since deadlines and delivery dates matter just as much as what’s possible in theory.

Software development has changed a lot in my lifetime. It wasn’t really a formal field when I was in school, but now it’s central to millions of jobs. Some companies only build software, and everyone else relies on it to run their business. Engineers have always turned ideas from people like me into real systems. Now, the question is how much of that work AI can do, and what skills you need to guide it well.

A small experiment at work a few weeks ago got me started. I needed to make sense of one of our system logs, which are tough to read. Online tools can make them look nicer, but without context, they’re not very helpful. I built a simple tool and provided enough context to organise the log output in a way that made sense for us. That experience inspired me.

A big part of being a product manager is turning business or market needs into things engineers can build. That challenge doesn’t disappear with AI. In fact, you might need to be even clearer about what you want. Human engineers usually have some background knowledge, but AI agents don’t, no matter how much training they get. They’ll improve, but for now, they really need clear instructions.

Recently, OpenAI added more features to its coding tool as part of my plan, so I decided to try something personal and see if I could “vibe code.”

The project

Back in the early 2000s, when blogging was at its peak, I wrote often and hosted my own site. It’s still online. About ten years ago, I added a feature that shows me posts I wrote on this day in past years. Usually, that’s two or three posts.

I’ve long wanted a small app that could pull up those posts each day so I can review them and decide if they should stay as they are. Part of that depends on whether the links still work. I see those posts as a time capsule and don’t really want to delete them. But blogging was fast-paced, and I didn’t always check spelling or proofread. I want to fix that, but not all at once. I need something I can run occasionally, fix a few posts, and move on.

So I described a tool that would pull the right pages, find each post, check spelling and grammar, and look for broken links. It needed to run on my computer and create a report with suggested fixes and any links that didn’t work.

Ramblings to working software

I told the coding agent to assume I didn’t know how to code and to guide me through the process. Within an hour, I had a working prototype. I was surprised at how quickly I could go from a prompt to something that worked. I could test it, provide feedback, and request changes. The next day, I added more features, and the AI even found a list of over 2 million UK place names to improve the spellchecker.

Now, I have a daily web page that links to my old posts from that date, each one checked for spelling and links, with a log file that explains what the system did. It’s not commercial software, and there’s no extra interface beyond what I asked for. But it does exactly what I need.

Encouraged by that success, I tried building a second tool. This one would download any of those blog pages, reformat the text, and let me paste the result somewhere else. The AI suggested making a Safari extension, so I needed extra build tools and had to connect it with software already on my computer.

This project was more complicated and a bit frustrating. I probably could have guided the AI better if I understood the build tools more. I wanted it to work with an existing app that has a command-line interface. The AI kept suggesting solutions that didn’t work on my setup, even though I explained what I was using. That’s when my limited coding experience became obvious.

After some compromises, I got a working version. It runs on my computer and does what I wanted. During the process, the AI just waited while I went to meetings and came back hours later. It picked up right where we left off. Since language models don’t exist between chats, there’s no one waiting impatiently. I just came back when I had time.

I can see how a skilled engineer, who knows when to step in on complex parts, could get much more done with this kind of help. But my experience shows that even someone with limited coding skills, as long as they can describe the problem clearly, can quickly build useful software and solid prototypes.

There were other small surprises, too. I asked the tool to write a user-friendly description of the software’s functionality. In less than a minute, it came up with something better than I could have written in hours. With a few more tries, it could have made full documentation. The log file it created explains each step in plain language, which I’ve always liked for systems that need to be clear to non-coders.

So, where am I on the hype cycle now? I don’t think AI will replace engineers. You still need someone to turn ideas into working solutions. Clear requirements and context are still important. But I do think that for people who understand technology, AI makes it much easier to build small, useful tools. It lets you try things that might have stayed as just ideas before. For experienced engineers, it’s definitely a superpower.

The hysteria may fade. The Roman invaders will leave. Algorithmus might end up in jail. But the useful things will stick around.

Weeknotes #159: buns, binge, bridges

Rainy week, resilient leaps, food risks, thoughtful station tour.

Week commencing Monday, 2 February 2026

Modern entrance to London Bridge Station with glass canopy and metallic lettering on beige brick facade, Union Jack and British Rail flags visible on left — Not falling down: London Bridge Station stands strong

Quantified Self

This week: Stand 6/7; Exercise 3/7 and Move 4/7. (62%). Morning walks: 0/4. Office days 1/5. Total steps: 41,471. 15.3 hours in meetings.

Life

I was at home for much of the week. I went to the office once. I am not sure I left the house on weekdays other than for a small shopping run. It rained a lot.
Related, they’re still working on the water pipes in the street. Their digging has blocked a storm drain. I have to leap puddles to cross the road.
Relatedly related, I don’t leap well, and I discovered my shoes are not waterproof.
We got a gigantic hot cross bun this week. It wasn’t quite as good as I’d hoped.
Food-related, on Tuesday my Vietnamese pho had been sitting on the hob for several days. I survived its consumption.
Sunday, to London Bridge Station for a tour, where it ceased to be somewhere to pass through and became something to look at. The tour focused on the station and its immediate surroundings: the arrival of competing lines, the coexistence of two stations, and the long process that eventually fused them into the sprawling place we know now. Very well done.

Media

I watched, more or less, the entire season 4 of Bosch in a binge this week. It might explain why there’s not a lot else to say.
I also discovered there were a few episodes of Love, Victor I hadn’t watched, so I finished them. Love, Victor seemed a little too neatly tied up at the end. I suppose that’s good for the kind of show it was. It’s a shame they didn’t take it for another couple of series.
We watched an episode of Roman Empire by Train with Alice Roberts. It has a lot about the Roman Empire and is presented by Alice Roberts. There’s really not much train in it.
Related, the episode focused on Pompeii, which looked absolutely amazing. Even though it’s being horrendously overrun by tourists, it seems like a place we should visit.

Weeknotes #158: still out after dark

Thoughtful outings, cultural highlights, and small wins amid winter evenings.

Week commencing Monday, 26 January 2026

Colourful light installation reflected in water at Canary Wharf's Eden Dock at night. Vibrant rainbow beams of red, blue, yellow, and green light form geometric patterns across the water surface, with modern office buildings in the background and spectators viewing from behind barriers in the foreground. — Amplitudes transforms Eden Dock with rainbow light reflections.

Quantified Self

This week: Stand 6/7; Exercise 4/7 and Move 7/7. (81%). Morning walks: 0/3. Office days 2/5. Total steps: 51,782. 14.5 hours in meetings.

Life

Hello February! Where did you come from?
Here’s a story about social media’s made-up lies about immigrants in London. This should be a bigger story because thousands will have seen the original fibs (original reporting by London Centric and ht to The London Minute for linking to it).
Monday afternoon, I chat-botted with Bose support to see if there was anything that could be done about the terrible battery life in my very old noise-cancelling headphones. They gave me a sequence of things to try (plug, unplug, pair), and they came alive. So far, the results are very positive. They may be salvageable.
Monday evening, to Canary Wharf to see the Winter Lights. It’s an event that’s been running in January for a few years and is very suitable for dark winter evenings. It can get very busy, so we thought trying a Monday night might be better. Still plenty of people, but no overcrowded areas like in some years.
Ironically, a non-light art piece, “Whale on the Wharf”, was my favourite.
A leaving do had been planned for this week with no firm day. Today, we agreed to meet tonight. So I found myself drinking Black Heart stout at the BrewDog in The Sidings below Waterloo Station.
Related, Frickles tasted more of the batter than the pickle.
Relatedly related, bowling was fun. So was the slide.
Thursday, fun with AI that wouldn’t revert to the working version of the code, even after I explicitly gave it the last working version.
Later, nice to be in the pub with colleagues: it’s why I go to the office.
Friday, to Southwark Union Theatre to see Why Would We Care?, a new British musical premiering there, exploring themes of power, control, and the cost of a “perfect” society. Fun, but needs work.
Saturday, Number One, London (Apsley House) is worth visiting. Lots of impressive ‘history stuff’! And pictures of Napoleon. And an overly large statue of Napoleon. It’s also very unshowy, in spite of the world-leading art collection, and you could be forgiven for missing it.
I could have missed The Destination Travel Show as we really didn’t find South Korean inspiration.
Sunday, an evening of musical performances at Love Life: West End Unites Against Cancer, a star-studded benefit concert coinciding with World Cancer Day.
A lot of stars of recent big musicals were on the line-up: Nicole Scherzinger (Sunset Boulevard, Cats), Tom Francis (Sunset Boulevard, & Juliet), Diego Andrés Rodriguez, Bella Brown, and James Olivas (Evita), as well as West End favourites, including Carrie Hope Fletcher and Jordan Luke Gage. Very, very, good.

Media

We watched more episodes of Blue Lights, but I am not sure either of us was fully engaged.
Later in the week, the first episode of Heated Rivalry. I knew very little about it ahead of watching, except that it was recommended by Amanda, and the TV series has catapulted the story into the stratosphere.
The book apparently perfected a specific trope: the grumpy vs sunshine—or, in this case, the arrogant chaos-agent vs the repressed golden boy—dynamic. This TV adaptation debuted with a 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which seems remarkable. I need to watch more; they say episode three is where you get hooked.
Also, two episodes of Alexander Armstrong In South Korea, where the presenter embarks on a three-part travelogue across South Korea, exploring the contrast between ancient traditions and futuristic K-pop culture. Some inspiration for our trip.
Related, watching Alexander Armstrong watching YouTube “mukbang” star Heebab perform “broadcast eating” did not make me search it out.
Hoorah. Game Changers Radio is back after the Christmas, and for them, summer, break.

Weeknotes #157: enjoyed, bought book

Thoughtful culture, good conversation, strong performances, and quietly satisfying social moments.

Week commencing Monday, 19 January 2026

Sondheim’s twisted fairy tale magic illuminates The Bridge Theatre.

Quantified Self

This week: Stand 7/7; Exercise 5/7 and Move 6/7. (86%). Morning walks: 0/3. Office days 2/5. Total steps: 56,651. 16.5 hours in meetings.

Life

I think this is the new world: The only way to counter “move fast and break things” is to move fast and fix things, and I don’t think enough people realise it.
Do you know your Iceland from your Greenland? If you are trying to get your hands on land, it would be sensible to know which land you are getting.
Monday, to the Bridge Theatre to see Into the Woods: visually impressive, with great performances. A revival that balanced the wit and the dark themes. Kate Fleetwood as the Witch is a joy. Delightful.
Wednesday, to see Jake Humphrey and Damien Hughes talk about High Performance. Essentially, it was an interesting 75-minute discussion trying to flog you a book. And it worked.
Thursday, to drink Beamish with people in central London. They served Irish crisps. Huw tried to say something in Welsh, but I didn’t understand.
Related: before we met in Covent Garden, we discovered the bowling alley near work has a bar that, it seems, nobody knows about.
Saturday, fixing email issues. And then to The Ivy Tower Bridge for their £19.17 two-course menu. Naturally, we didn’t just stick to that and ended up with a bigger bill. There’s a certain irony in going for the cheap menu and spending considerably more.
Sunday, to The Crazy Coqs for Behind the Mask, their Phantom of the Opera event. Quite different from the other events we’ve been to. We really enjoyed it. There were some incredible voices performing. Greg Castiglioni, who is playing in The Phantom of the Opera in Vienna, sang “Music of the Night” in German.

Media

With appropriately planned catch-ups, we were only one episode of The Traitors behind on Friday night, so we watched through to the end. The people I wanted to win, won.

Weeknotes #156: frozen trousers week

Domestic resets, transport surprises, thoughtful work moments, and reassuringly good food

Week commencing Monday, 12 January 2026

"A yellow sticky note on a dark grey surface with a handwritten checklist in blue ink. Four checkbox squares are drawn on the left side, with the first and fourth boxes ticked. The text reads 'Performance Review' and 'Checklist 2025'. — Review time. Get ready!

Quantified Self

This week: Stand 7/7; Exercise 3/7 and Move 6/7. (76%). Morning walks: 0/4. Office days 1/5. Total steps: 37,715. 16.5 hours in meetings.

Life

There was a lot of post-Christmas washing done at the start of the week. We went from smelling of pine needles to smelling of laundry conditioner.
I had to freeze some trousers. It didn’t work as well as I had expected.
Note to self for next time: get the printing ready, pay for it at home, and then walk to the library with the code that unlocks the documents. I think that would be easier.
The government has announced it will build a new railway between Birmingham and Manchester. It’s not HS2, honest.
It’s performance review time at work. We have a process that encourages reflection on the year, and I took time to prepare my thoughts. The effort felt worthwhile; for once, I had something proactive to contribute when the meeting itself came around.
I went for drinks. Discovered that younger people don’t know how the BBC is funded. Not much hope for the BBC if this is the opinion of future generations.
Related, sensibly rejected the suggestion to move on to a later-opening bar.
A very productive Friday. Surprising.
Sad news arrived: Zipcar confirmed it is shutting down in the UK. Disappointed.
Got to Euston on Saturday morning and wished I owned a car as all services were suspended. Then, miraculously, my train left, and I was only ten minutes late.
The suitcase was delivered to Shrewsbury.
Saturday, the dish of “belly pork bites with black garlic glaze, chilli, spring onion, parsley and caramelised onion aioli” was delicious. If small.
Sunday, the lamb roast was the opposite: a huge portion. Also, very tasty.

Media

By the end of the week, we had caught up with the broadcast version of The Traitors and now we can’t run into spoilers. It’s very good, but bad for my blood pressure.
When in Shrewsbury for the weekend, we watched the semi-finals of the Johnstone’s Paint Masters snooker championship. I was so hooked, I started watching the final on the iPlayer on the train home on Sunday.

Weeknotes #155: innuendo, interruptions, and insights

A reflective week of culture, transport mishaps, and quietly pleasing observations

Week commencing Monday, 5 January 2026

A large-scale photographic artwork composed of a grid of panels showing repeated newspaper headline posters. The word 'MURDER' appears prominently in red capital letters throughout multiple panels against a black and white background. The headlines reference various crimes and incidents including student murders, jogger attacks, and police investigations. Two suited male figures appear in the central panels of the grid composition. — Tabloid headlines transform urban tragedy into a visual cacophony. Gilbert & George, London Pictures series (2011)

Quantified Self

This week: Stand 6/7; Exercise 3/7 and Move 6/7. (71%). Morning walks: 0/4. Office days 1/5. Total steps: 49,424. 18.8 hours in meetings.

Life

This year, I am tracking a new QS metric: the number of hours I am in calendared work meetings. I thought it would be interesting to see.
The story of Markdown reminded me how much simpler the web was when self-publishing began. I still write these notes in Markdown.
Monday’s pub quiz provided a high score for us, but no prizes for third. I was pleased with myself for identifying “A Kind of Hush” in the music round, but immediately irritated that I said it was by the New Seekers when it was, in fact, The Carpenters.
Tuesday, it’s bigger, better, glitzier, and (probably) more expensive than ever. It’s a smut-filled delight, anchored by the King of Innuendo: the Palladium panto, which I reviewed for you.
Thursday, people had said Daniel’s Husband was good, and I am delighted to have kept to my “don’t read any details” rule because this play benefits from that lack of pre-knowledge. But you can read my spoiler-light review.
Friday night, there was a tree on the line. We were diverted and then terminated early. As much as I love it, sometimes train travel is a frustrating pain.
Saturday, I said “good morning” to a bus driver when it was clearly afternoon, found out the coastal path is now named after the King, and had a lovely time by a wood fire.
By the wood fire, I talked about my recent radio stats post. PY thought an interesting additional view that would give better context would be to understand how much time we were spending with each type of audio. So, the chart’s here on page 11. Sixty-five per cent of our audio consumption is live radio, plus another 3% for catch-up.
Sunday, Gilbert & George use the Evening Standard, and probably other newspapers, headline boards as part of their art. There’s an upcoming generation that won’t understand what they are and, therefore, the inspiration for the art.
Related, very glad I got to see the G&G exhibition. It’s big, bold, and probably not as controversial as it might once have been.

Media

Grantchester is back. There are almost as many murders here as in Midsomer. And the vicar is still allowed to interview suspects. Cosy fun nonsense.
We started series two of Blue Lights. I’ve forgotten much of the first season, so I can’t work out what’s new and what’s recurring. Definitely not cosy.
We started The Traitors. This is the first time I have watched the non-celebrity version. Don’t tell me.

Daniel’s Husband

A spoiler-light theatre review of Daniel’s Husband, where a cosy dinner party becomes something far more urgent.

I’ve been to see a play. I may as well make this the week of three reviews. My verboseness won’t continue for the year (although I secretly hope it will).

I try to enforce a personal rule — if not a philosophy — when it comes to theatre: the less I know about the plot beforehand, the better. When invited to a performance, I almost never want to know the plot or what the reviewers said. People had said Daniel’s Husband was good, but that’s about it, and I am delighted to have kept to my rule because this play benefits from that lack of pre-knowledge. Not only was I walking into this story completely blind, but it was also my first time visiting the Marylebone Theatre. So the whole thing felt new.

Almost no spoilers here, but stop now if you are going to see it and want the real experience.

Because I knew nothing of the plot, the play’s structure caught me completely off guard. It is very clearly a “play of two halves”. The first act is a witty comedy in which we are invited into the stylish home of Daniel and Mitchell for a dinner party.

If I’m honest, after a while I did wonder if that was it: an evening of light-hearted comedy, with a few intellectual arguments thrown in to amuse — in this case, about the heteronormative state of marriage. It’s light and breezy. Even when ‘mother’ arrives, it’s humorous, if a little awkward.

And then, the shift happens.

The second half is a dramatic illustration of the brutal reality of the legal status of unmarried partners when a crisis hits. It is emotionally quite powerful; laughter subsides, and maybe your heart breaks. It took me a while to process the second part.

The moment the play shifts from scene-setting humour to high-stakes drama is one of the most effective mood changes I’ve seen on stage. This transition is anchored by a monologue delivered by Daniel (Joel Harper-Jackson), perfectly pitched off the back of the first part.

Looking back, it’s clear what’s being set up in the first half. In hindsight, the basis of the conflict that’s so essential for drama becomes obvious, but it is nicely masked in the warm tones of a cosy life.

The cast is flawless across the board. Luke Fetherston is heartbreaking as Mitchell, watching his belief crumble in the face of a cold legal reality. Liza Sadovy, as Daniel’s mother Lydia, is equally brilliant; she starts as the basis for some of the laughs but transforms into a formidable force. I don’t think you can love her; you might hate her, but one of the smart achievements of this play is that you understand her even when you want to scream “no” at her.

I don’t want to spoil the plot, but the message is clear: don’t procrastinate life’s admin.

Review: Palladium Panto 2026

A gloriously smutty, nostalgic spectacle, irresistibly entertaining.

Elaborate theatrical stage set for 'Sleeping Beauty' pantomime illuminated in vibrant pink, purple, and blue lighting, featuring ornate spinning wheels, clock towers, thread spools, gears, and Gothic architectural elements — When Sleeping Beauty’s Castle Gets a Steampunk Makeover

It seems like I am in the mood to write reviews this week. So here comes another one. I do not expect this trend to continue all year.

Sleeping Beauty at the London Palladium – A 10th Anniversary

If you’re heading to the London Palladium expecting a sweet, Disney-fied retelling of Sleeping Beauty, you’ve clearly missed the memo of the last decade. Now in its 10th anniversary year, the Palladium pantomime (this year there’s a Sleeping Beauty plot somewhere) has faced a wave of headlines from outlets like Metro, branding it a “smut-fest” after reports of families walking out. But let’s be honest: if people are still shocked by the innuendo after ten years of this specific brand of comedy, that’s on them. This isn’t just a panto; it’s an institution with a well-established “adults-first” policy. Do your research. I really don’t have much sympathy for people who don’t know what this is. Although I do expect news outlets to run with and embellish this story every year.

What makes this year feel different is how self-referential the show has become. It’s been heading this way for a while, but this year’s opening retrospective is a masterclass in nostalgia, setting a tone that feels less like a fairy tale and more like the series finale of a beloved sitcom. Like the best long-running comedies, the jokes here are funnier because we’ve come to know the characters: we know Nigel Havers will be the charming punching bag, and we know Julian Clary will have a new, increasingly ridiculous entrance, and make a gag about somebody’s hand on it.

This “insider” feel is probably the secret to its enduring appeal for the regulars, but it does make me wonder: what do the newbies think? If you haven’t been along for several of the last nine years of lore, you might feel like you’ve crashed a private party.

Amidst this whirlwind, the show’s ringmaster is Rob Madge as the Diva of Dreams. While the rest of the cast seems content to let the plot drift out of the stage door in favour of sketches, Madge is the one who keeps the show flowing. They act as the essential “glue,” holding onto the limited plot and preventing the evening from devolving into a disjointed series of routines. Madge brings a modern, theatrical energy that bridges the gap between the “old guard” and the new.

The big draw this year is Catherine Tate as the boo-able Carabosse. While she delivers exactly what the crowd wants (including a show-stopping appearance of “Nan”), I had a nagging sense that she is underused. Tate is a comedy powerhouse, yet she often feels relegated to “special guest” status. Between the impressions and the sketches, you can’t help but feel she could have given even more if the script allowed her to go beyond her “greatest hits” reel.

There is no denying that Julian Clary is the heart of this machine. However, this year feels more like “The Julian Clary Show” than a balanced ensemble piece. In years past, the magic came from a heavyweight team; the presence of the late Paul O’Grady, the charm – and songs – of Gary Wilmot, or the triple-threat energy of Charlie Stemp provided a balance that kept the show from relying too heavily on one person. While Clary holds it all together with effortless camp, the absence of those contrasting “anchors” is felt.

Visually, the staging is bigger, better, glitzier, and (probably) more expensive than ever. From the neon sets to the “forest of thorns” in Act 1, the production values are impressive. However, some elements are starting to feel familiar. Paul Zerdin remains a master ventriloquist, but after a decade, his routine lacks “newness.” When a show becomes this self-referential, there’s a fine line between a “classic callback” and just running out of fresh material.

It’s still a 5-star spectacle with heights of staging wizardry. It’s loud, it’s proud, and it’s very, very blue. If you want a plot, go elsewhere. If you want to see the most expensive variety show in London anchored by the King of Innuendo, there’s no better place to be. It helps if you’ve watched the “previous seasons” to get the most out of the jokes.

I loved it (again).

Radio, what’s new?

Despite the rise of streaming and podcasts, traditional radio remains dominant in the UK.

Black Pure One Mini DAB digital radio displaying 'BBC Radio2' and 'Vernon is here' on its screen, positioned next to a spider plant in a modern kitchen with cream tiled splashback and white worktop — A DAB radio in a kitchen. Soulmates?

In my new-year nostalgia haze, I looked back at things I had written on this day (5th January) in years gone by. One post struck me more than the others. Fifteen years ago (2011), I answered a question posed by a Quora contributor: Will 2011 be the year that internet radio will pass traditional radio? By “internet radio”, I mean any kind of radio service listened to via the internet. I, like many others, said no. But I did find myself wondering whether I would answer it differently, all these years later.

The short answer is: no, I wouldn’t. We’re still a little way off the idea that internet radio truly passes traditional radio.

However, before looking at the radio numbers, I think it’s worth setting out a few things — if only so that we can come back in another fifteen years and see how the world has moved on.

According to the BPI, UK recorded music grew for an 11th consecutive year in 2025. For our purposes, streaming made up a record 89.3% of music consumption last year. I mention this simply to underline that streaming is now a real force in our lives, and that the streaming music services are major drivers of audio listening.

Audio consumption is still huge in the UK. Ofcom says that 93% of adults listen to some form of audio content each week, and that there has been growth across all audio streaming. Among younger people, this streaming trend is even more pronounced: 58%, up from 40% in 2019.

So, had the question been framed differently in 2011, I suspect we’d now be saying that most music is consumed via the internet. But music isn’t radio. And in spite of the efforts of Spotify’s AI DJ, and all those blokes with podcasts, the UK is still listening to things we would recognise as radio in 2011.

RAJAR’s autumn 2025 MIDAS survey tells us that around 39% of people listen to on-demand music each week, 24% to podcasts, 21% to music they own, and 10% to audiobooks. Live radio, meanwhile, still reaches a whopping 86% of the UK population every week.

RAJAR also tells us that AM/FM radio now accounts for under 30% of total radio consumption. So we’ve come a long way since 2011, when listening via a digital radio platform accounted for just over a quarter of all listener hours in Q1, with AM/FM making up the remaining 75%.

According to RAJAR, the most-used platform for radio is DAB, accounting for 42% of listening hours. Listening via smart speakers has been rising steadily and now represents 18% of live radio listening, while all online listening — including smart speakers, websites, and apps, and therefore what I am classing as “internet radio” — now makes up 28% of total listening.

So, fifteen years on, in the UK, internet radio’s share of all radio listening still sits below 30%. It is now more or less level with AM/FM, but DAB listening — which remains a remarkably convenient box with a simple, immediate, on-off button and no app to navigate — is the clear majority.

We still have some way to go before it becomes the year of truly connected radio, but the direction of travel is obvious. Come back in fifteen years for an update.

Weeknotes #154: here comes another one (year, that is)

A gentle, celebratory start to the year, filled with shared rituals.

Week commencing Monday, 29 December 2025

Distorted fisheye reflection in a gold Christmas tree bauble showing a person holding a phone taking a selfie, with Battersea Power Station's iconic chimneys and blue sky visible in the curved reflection, framed by green pine needles — Battersea Power Station captured in spherical festive form.

Quantified Self

This week: Stand 7/7; Exercise 3/7 and Move 6/7. (76%). No work this week.Total steps: 62,837

Life

Hello 2026! Aren’t you looking fine?
Monday afternoon, we all walked to The Lockdown Bakehouse, where there was cake and coffee. When we returned, we watched Peter Ustinov in Death on the Nile.
Tuesday, a matinee performance of Disney’s Hercules (the musical). It’s the everyday story of the son of Zeus being stripped of his immortality as an infant, who must perform a series of heroic feats and prove himself a “true hero” on Earth to reclaim his place among the gods on Mount Olympus. You see this kind of thing everywhere, every day! Review: it’s not on the level of The Lion King.
Bong: I went outside so that I could usher in the New Year when Big Ben bonged for the first time in 2026. Champagne and music on television, plus we used the last of the indoor fireworks outside to create our own tiny display. People gradually drifted to bed over the hours to 3 a.m.
Related, I was in the kitchen by 8:30 a.m. to cook the breakfast I promised everybody (although people took a while to appear).
Friday, Battersea Power Station has been beautifully decorated for Christmas. We didn’t buy anything in the shops, preferring instead to stand and look at the turbine halls in their glittering glory.
Saturday, rather than doubling back underground, we decided to walk from Marylebone to Waterloo. It turned into a really pleasant route through Mayfair, across Piccadilly and down towards the South Bank. The sky was a clear blue, the air crisp but not cold, and the streets were busy enough to feel alive without being pre-Christmas crowded.
Sunday, we took the tree down. The room felt bare without it.

Media

NYE: Kiss Me, Kate, filmed live in 2024 at the Barbican. Adrian Dunbar, from Line of Duty fame, starred alongside Stephanie J. Block. Brilliantly done; I now wish I’d seen it live.
New Year’s Day: watched the new Knives Out film — Wake Up Dead Man — on Netflix. It’s full of odd characters and a plot with twists, but, strangely, Benoit Blanc is pretty much absent for the first third.
Sunday, Marty Supreme on the big screen. See it for the style and the performances, but make sure you have a comfy seat and don’t expect to fall in love with the hero. I wrote a fuller review.

Marty Supreme

A stylish look at the world of competitive ping-pong, with a lack of likeable characters.

Motion-blurred photograph of a young man in a white vest and dark trousers mid-leap on an urban street, carrying a light blue jacket, with blurred vehicles and buildings in the background creating a sense of rapid movement © A24 — Marty Supreme / © A24

The New Year is a season where it’s acceptable to simultaneously be looking forward with hope and dreams for the year ahead and look backwards at the year, or years, gone with a bit of nostalgia. Earlier in the week, I was looking back through my blog archives and rereading a few of my old film reviews. And, today, I thought, “let’s write a review of the film I just saw: Marty Supreme. The problem is, I have quite mixed feelings about it.

Marty Supreme Review

I get a bit of a block when writing about films this complex. Marty Supreme is a fascinating, stylish look at the world of competitive ping-pong. Who knew we cared about that in 2026? But by the time the credits rolled, I felt as exhausted as a player in a five-set match.

See what I did there?

When the movie starts, you really want to see Marty succeed in his dreams of being a world champion table tennis player. It’s not an unrealistic ambition; he has the talent and is playing in the right contests. Unfortunately, he has no backers and no money of his own. Competing for him is a challenge, not of talent, but of resources.

As the story progresses, however, any sympathy I had for his predicament starts to evaporate. Marty doesn’t just have a “win-at-all-costs” attitude; he becomes genuinely dislikable. The story turns from an underdog tale to that of a man who is his own worst enemy. He treats the people around him like tools to further his dreams rather than as humans, and I found myself less interested in whether he won the game and more annoyed by how he treated others. Which, in itself, is a bit of a feat as none of the others are likeable either.

The biggest hurdle for me was the ending. After two hours of Marty being a selfish narcissist, we are expected to believe he’s changed because of a choice he makes. But was it really a choice? Marty’s apparent growth feels forced by circumstance. If he hadn’t been kicked out of the tournament in Japan, would he have ever gone to that hospital? Probably not. It feels less like a man finding his true self and more like a man who ran out of other options.

The film is also filled with characters who feel as if they belong in a different movie, or at least, not in this one. The dog-owning gangster and his dog, Moses, felt particularly unnecessary. I am not sure how much the story needed their presence; the same impact could have come from other, underused, characters. Characters pop in and vanish without a trace. Maybe that’s the intention, but it feels disconcerting. Oh, and what’s the orange ping-pong ball bit meant to convey?

I generally enjoyed the film, but the length became an issue for me. Because there were no likeable characters to root for, the latter half of the movie started to drag. When you don’t care if the lead character wins or loses, you start to feel every minute of the runtime. I wonder if it would have been a better experience to have had a little bit less of it.

That said, the performances are superb; Chalamet conveys Marty’s ambition brilliantly. Gwyneth Paltrow’s portrayal of a trophy wife in a marriage she hates is similarly wonderful, but it doesn’t mean I’m rooting for her.

See it for the style and the performances, but make sure you have a comfy seat and don’t expect to fall in love with the hero.