Day: 18 January 2026

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.

Film: The Good Girl

Good. But not good enough. While Aniston is good, she is not great. It seems much of the praise is due to the fact that she is playing against the Friends Rachel-type. She an actress for goodness sake, if she only has that one role she has no career. This role proves she can play against type and, I guess, that means she is an actress.

What has surprised me about Miguel Arteta’s The Good Girl, starring Jennifer Aniston, are the generally positive (if not glowing glowing) reviews for this film.

Admittedly this is not quite the Jennifer Aniston vehicle that you would expect from Hollywood right now. It’s no romantic comedy, rather a drama following Justine (Aniston), a woman in a dead-end job in a dead end town, who falls for Jake ‘Donnie Darko’ Gyllenhaal’s Holden Worther. Not much to it so far and certainly not enough reason for the praise.

So, to the plot. Problem one for our lead, Justine is married to a full time stoner (part time painter) played with conviction by John C. Reilly. Problem two, Holden seems to think he is Holden Caulfield, the central character in Catcher in The Rye. If I was to say he was “unhinged” I’d be playing it down. So, cue a crisis of conscience for her and a serious infatuation/breakdown for him.

While Aniston is good, she is not great. It seems much of the praise is due to the fact that she is playing against the Friends Rachel-type. She an actress for goodness sake, if she only has that one role she has no career. This role proves she can play against type and, I guess, that means she is an actress. Her narration is okay but somewhat draining to listen to. Gyllenhaal’s good but, given the characters are odd-balls not a million miles apart, he is not as engaging as he was in Donnie Darko.

I guess it hangs on the believability of the adulterous relationship and, for me, it was not that credible. Perhaps it hangs on the ability for Aniston and Reilly to be a couple at the end, but it’s not convincing. There were words unspoken which should have been spoken. Where are the sparks? Where was the fire and the passion between any of the characters?

Sadly, it lacked the ability to engage me for the one and three-quarter hours. Which meant I started to feel the cinema seat beneath me. At that point, I knew this wasn’t going to be added to my “greatest films” list. Which is a shame. Good. But not good enough.