Day: 25 May 2025

Weeknotes #122: scans, scissors, and second place

Tests, travel, music and cheese

Week commencing Monday, 19 May 2025

This vibrant concert photograph captures the Scissor Sisters performing at The O2 in London on 23rd May, featuring a spectacular stage design dominated by an enormous illuminated scissor prop that towers above the performers. The stage is bathed in dramatic red lighting with atmospheric smoke effects, creating a theatrical backdrop of concert lighting rigs and towering equipment. Band members are positioned across the stage beneath the glowing scissor sculpture, which serves as the centrepiece of their elaborate production design, perfectly embodying the band's signature blend of glam rock theatricality and pop spectacle.
Cut Above the Rest: Scissor Sisters Slice Through London

Quantified Self

  • This week: Stand 7/7; Exercise 4/7 and Move 7/7. (86%). Morning walks: 1/5 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 0/5. Total steps: 56,823

Life

  • On Monday, I underwent a CT scan related to my cough. It was over quite quickly. I’m not sure how I felt about it. I think I was expecting it to feel like more of a moment, but instead it was just something that happened, and then it didn’t.
  • Relatedly, on Thursday, I had a lung function test. I had no idea I could breathe out for so long. It was their first appointment of the day, and the clinic was locked when I arrived. Eventually, I was let in, and it was all over quickly—if a fifteen-minute wait for a test dose of medication counts as fast. There’s something faintly ridiculous about being coached through deep breathing at 8:30 in the morning.
  • Monday evening was another of our monthly visits to the pub quiz. Ben joined us, so it was a team of five. Inexplicably, we came second, which means there’s a round of drinks next time we go!
  • Mum and Dad arrived on Thursday and visited the Chelsea Flower Show on Friday. I thought they’d be more impressed with the dig garden than they were. So, we took them to a garden centre on Sunday.
  • On Saturday, we took a bus to Wimbledon Village, tried empanadas at the shop on the high street, went for a walk to Wimbledon Common, stopped for a drink at Cannizaro House, and bused home.
  • The cheese came out again, and we had leftover Eurovision cheese fondue and raclette. It was delicious. We’re now in that post-Eurovision phase where leftover cheese becomes its own food group.
  • Friday night was Scissor Sisters at the O2 with PY and Mark. Before the show, the drinks in the O2 Blue Bar were nice, and we had excellent seats. Scissor Sisters were fantastic. I wish I had just a small portion of Jake Shears’s energy.
  • And, just before they are to be taken back into national ownership, SWR announced superfast onboard Wi-Fi—but only as far as Basingstoke (which won’t help my south coast commutes)!
  • The New European: “Inexplicably, energy cooperation – which is essential to the UK’s future economic growth – has attracted barely a tenth of the column inches as has fishing, an industry which employs fewer full-time fishers than there are tattooists in the UK. But any long-term EU deal needed to explore these questions.”

Missed Todd’s Coming Out

Sounds like it was a fab night on Coronation Street yesterday.

bruno langley is todd

Reading the Yahoo group, it seems the storyline for Coronation Street got all exciting last night, and so I now have to remember to catch the ITV2 repeat. It’s funny, but I really do only watch it for the gay storyline and fast-forward through the rest of the episode.

For the uninitiated, Coronation Street is a classic British soap that has been on-screen forever (see the FAQ). Rumour has it that Adam and Eve watched it back at the beginning of time. Anyway, Todd (engaged to be married, father) had a ‘moment’ with his fiancée’s brother (who, to be honest, is hot). It was the first ever openly gay moment on The Street (which is what it’s known as here and has no link whatsoever to stocks and shares and New York City). So, Todd gradually realises his preference is for men and falls for hunky nurse Karl. This week was the big coming out moment. The storyline is helped by the fact that Bruno Langley is also cute as hell too. So, despite the fact I don’t watch the soaps anymore, I keep watching bits of this storyline (and so, apparently, did lots of other people).

And if my friend Steve is reading this, I am expecting a nice long comment about Gail Tilsley and what a joy she has been since her arrival on The Street (a hundred years ago – or so).