Day: 16 November 2025

Weeknotes #147: Christmas lights and chain-bridge sprints

Busy week of travel, festivities and small triumphs despite winter weather.

Week commencing Monday, 10 November 2025

A purple-rimmed mug of mulled wine with two cinnamon sticks and an orange slice, photographed from above on a wooden table with colourful reflections
First mulled wine of 2025 at The Star, Ryde.

Quantified Self

  • This week: Stand 5/7; Exercise 4/7 and Move 4/7. (62%). Morning walks: 0/3 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 2/5. Total steps: 62,071

Life

  • Monday was pub quiz. If you recall, ninth is the place we aim for because the prize is good. We were joint ninth this week and lost at the tie-break (answer: I Will Survive).
  • Trains and tubes home from the office were overcrowded on Wednesday and Thursday. Despite interesting days in the office, the unpleasant commute makes me want to stay home.
  • But the train to The Island was not too busy, we made the connection and had a lovely Chinese takeaway.
  • Friday was rainy, but we avoided storm Claudia, which didn’t make it quite this far south.
  • Saturday was clearer for the Christmas lights switch-on in Newport, followed by my first mulled wine of the year back in Ryde.
  • And on Sunday, after a walk and Mexican breakfast in Cowes, I broke my rule about not running for a bus when we had just three minutes to make it from the Chain Bridge to the bus stop. We made it.
  • Another BBC Director General has gone. Nice piece from David Lloyd, “His job is too much for just about any human being, because the BBC itself is now unmanageable”.
  • Related, “The BBC belongs to all of us, and it is under attack as never before”.
  • Is road pricing coming? I’m intrigued by this discussion about the window of opportunity to make a change.

Media

  • We watched the Only Murders in the Building series five finale. Although it’s all a bit contrived by the end, I think the series may have redeemed itself in my eyes.
  • OK, I got hooked into the last-but-one series of Slow Horses. Although I think a few things weren’t wrapped up by the end, it didn’t spoil it. I was hooked. Should I buy the books?
  • And I am back into the groove with the Game Changers podcast thanks to a long train journey on Sunday evening.

Twitter Updates for 2009-11-16

  • is interested in getting more bang for his advertising $: Turning One Ad Impression Into Ten http://www.clickz.com/3635466 #
  • wishing he had the time to scale his hyper-local project to the patch.com level. A possible future for local info: http://bit.ly/2zlYjH #
  • is thinking mobile: m-coupon redemption value to approach $6bn globally by 2014, says research: http://bit.ly/2Sbgmr #
  • asks, do you know a social network that’s actually ignoring mobile? I don’t. So why this: http://bit.ly/JXL3h #
  • thinks that, maybe, at last, this IS the year of mobile advertising. Google has acquired AdMob for $750 million: http://bit.ly/nAeHB #
  • wonders if Apple really wanted to be in the advertising business. Actually, I don’t think it’s as far fetched as some: http://bit.ly/PbQr #
  • thinks there are adventures ahead & is – secretly – looking forward to them. #
  • sees that discount coupons & customer service messages are acceptable to most people in a recent mobile ad survey: http://tr.im/EMrk #
  • was just given a free toothbrush by the nice people at Sensodyne. It nearly made my day. Lunch with friends was more fun but not as healthy. #
  • Top 3 weekly #lastfm artists: Kathy Brown vs. White Knight – 26. Beth Orton – 16. 7th Heaven Ft. Banderas – 15. http://bit.ly/17QMH7 #
  • The Laramie Project, a play about Matthew Shepard who was beaten & left to die for being gay is on from 18-21 Nov at The Space, E14 #

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Evening In The City

If you’re in London you should have a least one drink in The Counting House.

I don’t often go out in the City of London (that’s the financial heart of London). I am a much bigger fan of hanging out in the West End – which is mainly where I have worked and socialised for all the years I have been here. I’ve just got back from a drink with some colleagues in The Counting House – which is on Cornhill and a few seconds’ walk from Bank station. It’s a fabulous place full of character and ornate splendour (the domed roof is wonderful). Then we went for a curry at a decent Indian restaurant that, unlike the ones in the West End, was quiet at the end of the evening. The only downside of the evening: it was just a little harder to get home. I must do this more often.