Day: 29 October 2023

Weeknotes #40: back, back, back

Week commencing Monday, 23 October 2023

A model of a green-faced witch, riding on a broomstick, is positioned above the bar.
Broomstick riding

Quantified Self

  • This week: Stand 7/7; Exercise 3/7 and Move 6/7. (76%, Good). Morning walks: 1/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 57,976

Life

  • This week, back 4 times: back home (I’m noticing the cold); back dieting (gotta lose those holiday kgs); back gyming (not convinced about the refurbishment) and back at work.
  • Related, back at work after a holiday has advantages when you work form home. It’s not as jarring. My ex-colleague, Duncan, has written about recent headlines encouraging people ‘back to the office’. I agree with everything written.
  • Unexpectedly attended the office halloween party. I didn’t have a costume. Ravi found a green wig for me. Obviously, I didn’t win for best costume. Apparently, the punch was excellent (which I interpreted as ‘strong’) but I didn’t even notice there was a punch bowl.
  • There’s an impressive witch above the bar at The White Swan. On Thursday, we watched from round the side of the pub, as a crew were putting up the Carnaby Street Christmas lights.
  • The answer to the question posed in Weeknotes #33 is that, yes, they do.
  • I got a flu jab but it cost me. No side-effects to report, which is good, as we went for a lovely lunch with family in Woking.
  • Related, Centre Court Shopping Centre in Wimbledon is morphing into Wimbledon Quarter as the boards hiding the redevelopment come down and they open the roof.
  • Sunday, I did some cleaning and it really boosted my mood. And then I cheered up even more by going to see people sing Cher songs.

Media

Archive

To save the links getting lost in the future I checked the Internet Archive to see what they had saved for the posts linked here. If the source above no longer works, these should.

57 days until you know what

When the clocks go back it means another – and much more fun – annual tradition: Christmas songs.

The clocks have gone back. The mornings are now a little lighter and the commute home is a little darker. I wrote all about this last year in It’s Not (All) About The Farmers.

The days are getting shorter which means Christmas is getting closer. We’re already starting to see festive articles being published; if you are looking for the 10 of the best Christmas cards or 10 Best Women’s Christmas Jumpers then there’s already an article for you.  

But I’m not reading about those. When the clocks go back it means another – and much more fun – annual tradition: Christmas songs. As I said last year, “If you love Christmas songs and have never read the Fizzy Pop festive blog then you should go and do it right now”.  And, as last year, if you’re on Apple Music I am going to try and keep updating the Apple Playlist of the musical selections made.

It’s Not (All) About The Farmers

The clocks changed. Here comes festive fun.

The clocks went back last night. Thanks to the marvels of jet lag I missed it and saw no benefit to the extra hour in bed. I’ll spend the rest of the week trying to determine which devices don’t automatically reset themselves and I’ll find my kitchen clock out by an hour until next weekend. Then, when I realise, I’ll struggle to synchronise the clocks on the top and bottom ovens. Admittedly, nothing compared to the 379 clocks that need to be adjusted at Windsor Castle. I wonder who adjusts HM’s bedside alarm clock? Truly, first world problems.

Timezones are fascinating. I’ve spent my life trying to remember if it’s during the ‘spring forward’ phase or the ‘fall back’ time that we don’t adjust the clocks at the same time as my colleagues across the Atlantic. I never remember. But, I think it’s now. I do know that all of our meetings are messed up for a week now and nobody is in the right place at the right time.

I feel that, for as long as I can remember, it’s been assumed that we in Britain change the time because of farmers or school children. Lighter mornings mean fewer accidents, or something like that. It always sounded plausible but I am not sure I was convinced. Today, the Telegraph notes that, back in the early 1900s, William Willett “wanted to stop Brits from wasting valuable daylight hours” by staying in bed in the summer months and introduced the concepts of daylight savings time. So, really, it’s all about combatting laziness (or, to put it another way, our health and well-being). What I never knew was that the concept of British Double Summer Time, helpfully, BDST, was introduced to help save fuel during the post 1940 war years. by making Britain work on a 2-hour offset against GMT. It seems we are always tinkering with time.

Do You Hear What I Hear?

With the nights drawing in and the world donning a Halloween mask, my thoughts turn to Christmas. Although I have not seen that many Christmas treats in the supermarkets yet, I did spend some of yesterday in the local B&Q DIY superstore looking at Christmas lights. As the Most Wonderful Time of Year is rapidly approaching, it’s time for me to start hunting out the Yuletide musical delights uncovered at My Festive Fizzy Pop. It’s a bit of a guilty pleasure. With just 57 days until Christmas, it’s time to start building this year’s playlist of new Christmas music and My Festive Fizzy Pop is the perfect place to start. If you love Christmas songs and have never read the Fizzy Pop festive blog then you should go and do it right now.

I am unashamedly a fan of Christmas tunes. I do, however, limit my consumption to only the newly released songs in November. Come 1st December, however, the Christmas back catalogue will be playing for the majority of my listening hours. Look at my Last.FM stats for 2015 and 2016 and you’ll see the December spikes. Most of these tracks are songs from the my ever-growing festive archive. The most limited version of the archive (which contains the material I will actually listen to) is running at almost 48 hours of total listening time. Better start now.

The year I am sharing the 2017 new Christmas music collection (which is, mainly, new versions of the old songs) via Apple Music. I think you find it here: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/playlist/my-festive-fizzy-pop-2017/idpl.u-d89AZtMG155g

And let me be the first to wish you a very Merry …. (maybe not).

#SOLS

Sermon of the last Sunday is my weak attempt to make sure I a am not thawing the hosting fees for this site away by ensuring there is some new content every month (yes, I’ve turned all modern media and refer to this a content). The #SOLS tag helpful links to the others (although I must remember to go and tag the missing one).

A Funny Thing Happened On the Way To The Forum

You feel yourself pulled along by the way the cast at The National seem to be enjoying themselves.

a funny thing happened on the way to the forum
a funny thing happened on the way to the forum

I went to see A Funny Thing Happened On the Way To The Forum tonight and it took me a little by surprise. I wasn’t really sure what to expect but I was thoroughly entertained. From the opening, A Comedy Tonight, you feel yourself pulled along by the way the cast at The National seem to be enjoying themselves. It’s a high camp farce set in Roman times featuring double entendres and mistaken identity by the bucket load (you almost expect a vicar to appear from a cupboard) but it’s joyful and not at all cringe-worthy as many farces are. Sondheim’s music isn’t the best you will ever hear (in fact, much of it isn’t memorable) but during the performance it’s entertaining. Such a shame it is coming to the end of it’s run. I discovered a US version of the soundtrack featuring Nathan Lane which ties in nicely with tomorrow – more then.