Week commencing Monday, 16 March 2026
Quantified Self
- This week: Stand 6/7; Exercise 4/7 and Move 5/7 (71%). Morning walks: 0/4. Office days: 1/5. Total steps: 48,912. 21.5 hours in meetings.
Life
- Diamond Geezer’s been to Shrewsbury, and likes it. Man of taste. I learned that there was supposed to be a roof garden and restaurant on top of the market hall.
- I watched one of those videos where someone has used AI to place famous people next to their younger selves. There is a great one for Duran Duran, except they used the wrong Roger Taylor. Oops.
- Monday, finally, to the barricades! We saw Les Misérables. I’m glad I finally went. It’s a great show, and I can’t quite account for why it took me this long, nor why I got a bit emotional at the end. I bet anybody reading this has seen it.
- Thursday afternoon’s work outing was to the Museum of Brands. I have always meant to go and never quite got around to it — which made it slightly amusing that PY and I already have tickets booked for next Sunday.
- What struck me most was how many brands simply endured: HP Sauce and Daddies Sauce, both still on shelves today; Ty-Phoo Tea, still familiar; Coleman’s Mustard, Cadbury’s, etc., etc.
- Friday evening, I updated my blog-checking software, built using AI. Should I find it reassuring that it continues to find spelling errors in past weeknotes?
- For the second Saturday in a row, we were at the Design Museum — this time for Blitz: the club that shaped the 80s, the exhibition about Blitz, the Covent Garden club in a wine bar that ran on Tuesday nights between 1979 and 1980 and, in doing so, generated the entire New Romantic movement. Perhaps a bit too fashion-focused for my liking.
- At one point, a large screen showed footage of Spandau Ballet performing at the club — playing To Cut a Long Story Short, which was the first record I ever bought myself.
- Sunday’s second visit of the week to the Museum of Brands taught me that the phrase “keen as mustard” actually predates the brand; it was the popularity of Keen’s Mustard in the 18th and 19th centuries that is thought to have cemented the idiom in everyday English usage, rather than the other way around.
- I found myself puzzling over a box of “toilet pins” until I looked it up: they are dressmaking pins used for sewing or securing garments during fitting, and the word “toilet” here is from the French toilette, meaning personal grooming or dressing, with no connection to the room. Perfectly ordinary, once you know.
- Sunday evening to the BFI on the South Bank, and a screening as part of BFI Flare, the LGBTQ+ film festival. The Last Guest of the Holloway Motel, a documentary portrait of Tony Powell, a former Norwich City defender and 1979 Player of the Year, who effectively vanished after his playing career ended. It turns out he moved to West Hollywood rather than face the consequences of coming out as gay at the height of his career. The documentary is more moving than I think the filmmakers originally set out to make. Recommended.
Media
- Episodes of the podcast, Game Changers Radio, keep coming as ARN, the radio network, officially terminated Kyle’s contract and cancelled the show, tearing up the record-breaking 10-year deal (valued at a reported $100 million each) that both hosts had signed in late 2023 to run through 2034. So far away. So gripping.
- Friday evening was spent with old episodes of Yes, Prime Minister, and I still laughed.
- The final two episodes of Heated Rivalry. Now I understand all the references to The Cottage. The series is positive in a way that sets it apart from many gay love stories, which is genuinely refreshing. It does teeter on being too nice at times. The ending, predictably, is set up for a second series.
