Month: August 2023

Weeknotes #31: the way old friends do

Week commencing Monday, 21 August 2023

Poster for the play, The Way Old Friends Do, at the Criterion Theatre, London
The Way Old Friends Do

Quantified Self

  • This week: Stand 5/7; Exercise 6/7 and Move 7/7. (86%, great). Morning walks: 2/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 69,973

Life

  • Monday, a presentation from students suggested people may be turning back to linear TV. Food for thought.
  • Later, a quiet train journey back to London to be ready for an “in work” day on Tuesday. Joined a conference call for the last minutes of the commute to the office. I don’t like doing that, but I was a lurker rather than a contributor.
  • Met up with past and future, but no present, colleagues in White City. Weather very suitable for outside socialising. Beer was good but too drinkable. Glad of a late start the next day.
  • The Way Old Friends Do: ABBA song or play? We went to see the latter at the Criterion. I forgot how nice the auditorium is and that it’s an independent theatre trust. Act II was a little darker. The play was fun; getting caught in the torrential downpour while walking between Waterloo and Piccadilly Circus, less so.
  • Afterwards, bumped into old friends P&W, confirmed plans for Sunday which involved meeting PY & P after the volunteering shift for coffee (Redemption Roasters was lovely), a guided walk (fascinating) and dinner at Mele e Pere, which has, apparently, been open since 2012 but I swear it was called something else.
  • More old friends on Saturday when tentative picnic plans morphed into ‘at home’ picnic (at a table, sheltering from the rain). I want to make the lamb and harissa sausage rolls that were served but I am not good at any recipe that involves pastry.

Media

  • I finished the two sequels I mentioned last week. Both followed the adventures of the crime solvers at Cooper’s Chase retirement village. The Man Who Died Twice:

“More women are murdering people these days,” says Joyce. “If you ignore the context, it is a real sign of progress.

  • Within 24 hours of finishing the first, I finished the second (helped by a nice long train journey). The Bullet That Missed:

People drift in and out of your life, and, when you are younger, you know you will see them again. But now every old friend is a miracle.

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.

Weeknotes #30: pride

Week commencing Monday, 14 August 2023

Peter Tatchell leads the Isle of Wight Pride parade, 19 August 2023, Union Street, Ryde
Peter Tatchell leads the Isle of Wight Pride parade, August 2023,

Quantified Self

  • This week: Stand 5/7; Exercise 3/7 and Move 3/7. (52%, another poor show). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 0/4. Total steps: 63,768

Life

  • Home from the Island Monday evening and back Friday morning. Fastest turnaround for some time.
  • That thing about CC, mentioned last week, was confirmed in a Monday morning meeting. So, nobody was winding me up.
  • A second documentation portal to worry about at work. Unclear why it’s different from the other one. We agreed to duplicate content as it makes life easier for us.
  • I haven’t heard railway station announcements for Inspector Sands for a while. Passing through Clapham Junction on Friday morning and the announcement, slowly and clearly delivered, was on loop. No word on the incident.
  • Then Friday to Portsmouth in the first carriage of the train. There were only the four of us for the majority of the journey.
  • A day off to travel to Portsmouth allowed time for a trip to Gunwharf Quays. I bought new running shoes for my, as yet, undiscovered running career.
  • Rescheduled Ryde Pride, officially Isle of Wight Pride, weekend. A proper community pride event. Wonderful parade down Union Street. Peter Tatchell opening the event, although I was not sure about the women laughing when he spoke about the death penalty. Utmost Elton was a lot of fun. Missed Woody Cook because we were still eating.
  • Other food; Friday night Ryde Castle (disappointing), Saturday lunch at the Dell Cafe (wonderful views), Saturday night Ryde Thai (excellent, as always), Quarr Abbey (lovely cafe, MJ bothered by wasps in the garden), Fishbourne Inn (great fish and chips in the sun, not sure the buzzer ever worked).
  • Sad news this week, Veteran broadcaster Sir Michael Parkinson has died at the age of 88

Media

  • Last week I bought a book in Ryde. This week I finished it and bought both the sequels: “You always know when it’s your first time, don’t you? But you rarely know when it’s your final time”, Thursday Murder Club.

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 original source above no longer works, these should.

Weeknotes #29: regatta hats

Week commencing Monday, 7 August 2023

Quantified Self

  • This week: Stand 5/7; Exercise 3/7 and Move 4/7. (57%, way down). Morning walks: 0/5 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 0/5. Total steps: 59,454

Life

  • According to The Internet, “In the decades after the war, it was the done thing to wear a silly hat to the regatta“. So, Sandown has a hat parade.
  • I wrote a lot of documentation this week, both customer-facing and internal ticket-based stuff. I spent an afternoon wrangling Jira tickets into a useful order so that whoever has to deal with them next stands a chance of understanding my proposed sequencing.
  • I didn’t wrangle the other system that’s arrived to mange the product work. I thought it hypocritical of us to insist one side of the company used Jira (“because it’s the source of truth”) for us not to do that ourselves. Why does it matter to me? Because I think we should work in the open and multiple, disconnected systems that rely on layers of manual updating do not facilitate that approach.
  • And then, this, which is so accurate: “Communicating agile development to people outside of the organisation is difficult and leads to frustration on their part. There’s an expectation of things being clear from the outset and delivered as a whole, rather than an incremental evolution of a product, subject to change iteration. They also struggle to ‘see’ a project overall …” Neil Lawrence.
  • Monday, towels bulk washed in the laundrette where they can dry much better. Gave me time to sit and read. It’s relaxing but £1 doesn’t buy much drying time. I’m only reading this book because of the title. And the time spend reading paid off as I kept picking up the book all week and ended up finishing it on Friday.
  • Related, I started that book as I’d stalled reading Sara Cox’s first when it became too farm-y, but the brief interlude with a French mystery, and I was back enjoying the adventures of Sara in Korea.
  • Monday, 10pm, “Mrs Overall, that macaroon you just choked on, I’m going to send the recipe to the Weekly News”. Victoria Wood’s comedy still makes me laugh.
  • Wednesday, was that a sarcastic comment from one of our developers about “people sticking around to see it through”? I wasn’t sure about it but, maybe, I should have commented. Also, still not sure if they’re winding me up about CC or not.
  • Another “their life, my life moment”. It’s clear in 2023 but back then we all thought differently: “It took me a little while to accept that having my email and web presence completely beholden to my employer was perhaps not the greatest plan. That is obvious to you now, but it was the 90s, we were like little children”. jwz.
  • Good news, I think, for public transport in the Capital. Ian Visits notes that London’s off-peak travel has recovered to pre-pandemic levels and exceeded them at times. Commuter traffic is still down.

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 original source above no longer works, these should.

Weeknotes #28: virtual queuing

Week commencing Monday, 31 July 2023

Mandrill Mayhem at Chessington World of Adventures
New for ’23: Mandrill Mayhem at Chessington World of Adventures

Quantified Self

  • This week: Stand 7/7; Exercise 6/7 and Move 7/7. (95%, best for a while). Morning walks: 0/2 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/3. Total steps: 85,826

Life

  • In a work virtual conference, we were asked to write our names as many times as possible with our non-dominant hand. Harder than expected but it was legible (I managed two in the given time). It was something to do with embracing challenges and changes: ‘Anything worth doing well is worth doing poorly at first’.
  • On the train to work on Tuesday, a loud Property Manager on the phone discussing that three portfolios were unmanageable and why, when talking about staffing levels, did his boss keep forgetting about Lauren? And I wanted to know the rest of the story.
  • Family arrived on Wednesday. All the arrangements worked, including the inflatable bed. Although I wish I had realised that if you don’t use the adapter on the pump then it fits much better. There were little people in the house.
  • Chessington World of Adventures opens at 10am and we were ready for Mandrill Mayhem at 10:30am. It uses a virtual queuing system which worked well. Worth doing. Vampire does not operate such a system and I wonder why we stood for 90 minutes (still a fun ride). Zufari seemed a shorter ride then last time. Gruffalo is fun with a 7 year old.
  • News spread amongst future colleagues and my phone buzzed while hurtling around the tree tops from people who were only getting the news this week.
  • Technically, AC was 7 on Friday. Vauxhall City Farm was a nice treat. I fed lambs from my hand to prove it wasn’t scary. Not sure what she made of the Imperial War Museum but her brother enjoyed it.
  • The Speedboat Bar’s food is spicy for kids. OC stuck to his guns and ate all the Minced Beef with Holy Basil in spite of the heat.
  • PY and I saw the Brokeback Mountain play. Impressive performances in an equally impressive new theatre. I’d forgotten how sad the story was. We didn’t have the heart to tell the fans at the stage door that one of the stars was having a chat in the theatre bar. The younger ones saw Matilda the musical. It comes with a 7-year old seal of approval.
  • Saturday we looked after kids so parents could party. Learnt interesting things on the Horrible History boat – nicely done – but learnt a foot splinter can’t be cured by Uncles. Discovered that trying to direct people back to Raynes Park using the night tube is harder than expected.
  • Sunday, much more to see at Kew than I remember. The need to buy a hat because of the sun was unexpected. The Hive is fascinating. The Palm House is hot. I still like the bamboo gardens.
  • Related, Kew Village Market is on the first Sunday of the month. It all looks delicious.
  • Introduced everyone to Raynes Park kebabs. Consensus is that the chilli sauce is hotter than other places people have tried. Tip: get it in a tub on the side.

Media

  • To calm the spirits after Saturday night’s splinter, PY and I were introduced to Miss Trunchbull and Matilda via Netflix. It was sufficiently distracting to soothe although it did not remove the pain. It’s quite dark in places, isn’t it?

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 original source above no longer works, these should.