Month: February 2024

Weeknotes #57: Busy Week: Leaks, Buses & Live Music Fun

Despite minor hiccups, the weekend was filled with enjoyable outings and live music.

Week commencing Monday, 19 February 2024

Rainbows over Ryde beach
Rainbows over Ryde beach

Quantified Self

  • This week: Stand 6/7; Exercise 4/7 and Move 5/7. (71%). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 54,470

Life

  • When the day starts with “Have you got 2 minutes?” You can tell something is up, and I was only having my first coffee of the day. It wasn’t the best news, but it was resolvable.
  • It was good that a call with a financial advisor from the bank turned out to be less “hard sell” and more practical advice. I wish I had the money to implement the suggestions.
  • A message from James, who says BT has sold the iconic Tower to be turned into a hotel. I joked that I hoped it would have good WiFi! I think that line could’ve gone down better. The Tower’s not an official secret anymore.
  • I had drinks with Esteban on Wednesday evening. We concluded at a decent hour so I could get home and to bed in preparation for the office the next day. Instead, I had indigestion and didn’t sleep: getting up was cruel.
  • Thursday to The Island. We were greeted upon arrival by another round of water coming in through the ceiling and an inability to raise anybody from the upstairs flat. It resolved itself the next day, but the sound of dripping into a bucket added to my inability to sleep.
  • We discovered live music at The Star on Friday night but missed the cider and sausage festival. We made up for it by returning on Saturday night, when there was another band, and we consumed cider and sausages. 
  • Walking by the sea, as we did on Saturday, reminds me why I like this place. We saw lots of rainbows.
  • Sunday’s return involved a rail replacement bus service from Worcester Park. It worked better than the other times we’ve had to do it, but being pointed in one direction and then made to walk back to where we started because the various bus drivers couldn’t agree on where we should stand soured the experience. When we went out later, we ended up with the same driver on the same coach heading to Wimbledon.
  • On Sunday night, we had very different live music, with the sounds of Carole King and James Taylor, as we returned to The Crazy Coqs for more cabaret-style entertainment. Again, it was brilliantly done; the house was packed, and everyone was very much up for the music.

Media

  • Finished Christian Wolmar’s history of British Rail (the nationalised years up to privatisation). He makes a good case that, over the life of BR – especially from the end of the Beeching cuts to privatisation – the organisation was a lean, well-run public service and that the sell-off that was to come didn’t really improve on the business in the last years of its existence in public ownership. Worth reading to put that part of BR’s history into perspective.

Weeknotes #56: Not tracking you

Site removes trackers, mourns radio presenter, TfL Overground naming.

Week commencing Monday, 12 February 2024

Inside a Central Line train
The state of a Central Line train

Quantified Self

  • This week: Stand 3/7; Exercise 2/7 and Move 4/7. (43%). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 46,088

Life

  • Not tracking: I’ve always hated the need to have the cookie notification on this site to be in compliance with GDPR. I am not sure how many personal sites bother but I always did. Thinking about this recently, I decided to remove all the trackers and cookies because they only served two purposes: providing stats on the site and enabling comments (with the associated need to block comment spam). I don’t get many comments and I hardly look at the stats. So, I worked out how to remove the lot. I feel it’s better.
  • I do like it when I discover leaders in other organisations ‘weeknoting’. A lot of the people I follow are in the public sector? Where are all the private-sector ‘weeknoters’?
  • Maybe the saddest news of the week, especially for those of us who grew up with the Afternoon Boys: Steve Wright: Radio 2 presenter dies. Lovley tribute from Chris Moyles. Listened back to his vintage Radio 1 episode: a great insight into his love of radio.
  • TfL announced their naming plans for the Overground network. It will become 6 individually names lines. I asked ChatGPT to name a fictional line that might run through Raynes Park, “a London Underground line named after Raynes Park could be called the “Green Arc Line.” This name could symbolise the lush green spaces and parks in the area, such as Cottenham Park, while also referencing Raynes Park’s position within the arc of suburban communities southwest of central London”. I thought it was quite good.
  • Beer near the office with colleagues was good on Thursday. For some reason I became acutely aware of the dirty tube trains on the way home. I don’t think the one I took was especially bad.
  • Pancake fun seems remarkable similar year-on-year: 2021 | 2022 | 2023. Also, Shrove Tuesday will be on 14 February in 2040. It’s never happened in my lifetime.

Media

My digital history

Reflecting on personal site history, reminiscent of past experiences and evolution.

One of the things I like about having a personal site that was, once, a blog, is the ability to look back at things I did or thought at some point in my history. It’s not quite ‘Dear Diary’ but it’s not too different either. The actor and diarist, Kenneth Williams, once said,

The preoccupation with diary writing is caused by various things: the desire to keep a record which can be useful later, and committing to paper what can’t be communicated to a mentor … oh! all kinds of reasons, but fundamentally it is about loneliness.

I am not sure I agree, but I am reminded of this quote because I blogged about the book in 2003.

It was looking back through a few entries recently that made me think how nice it is to have this record. This post reminded me of a day trip to Milan twenty years ago. I went to visit a customer, but there’s little detail of what I did. I don’t think the lack of detail matters. I do recall I flew into Linate and out of Malpensa on that trip and nearly got it wrong in my rush to the airport on the way back. It also shows how far mobile phone cameras have evolved.

Not all of my writing was lengthy. If social media existed, some might have been shared there. I’m relieved it didn’t exist, preserving my record, but eventually, social media overshadowed mass blogging and there’s a ‘blog gap’.

In a 2002 blog post, I express uncertainty about London’s congestion charge, a stance I don’t recall as I now support efforts to ease traffic congestion. Great to have the ability to look back and see how I have evolved.

Weeknotes #55: catch-ups and anniversaries

Weeknotes: Vibrant catch-ups, cinematic delight, insightful media exploration.

Week commencing Monday, 5 February 2024

A pint of beer on a table in a pub with a view of the bar in the background
Catch-ups with beer

Quantified Self

  • This week: Stand 5/7; Exercise 4/7 and Move 4/7. (62%). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Plant diversity: 39. Total steps: 46,626

Life

  • Lovely to catch up with Cornelia for our revised Thirsty Thursday (on a Tuesday) meet-up. Lots of talk about cooking. We seem to be converts to the slow cooker way. And a catch-up beer with Frank on Thursday back on Grey’s Inn Road.
  • I read more about companies tightening their belts in the current economic climate. I wonder how that will impact the push to ‘return to the office’ when, again, it’s proven to have no impact on productivity and a negative impact on people?
  • Did I miss it or has there not been a lot of discussion about this being the 30th anniversary of the opening of the Channel tunnel? Has it been a wasted opportunity? I love travelling Eurostar.
  • It was also the 20th anniversary of Flickr. I couldn’t explain how my first photo had been uploaded before the service was even launched until I remembered Yahoo used to own it and Yahoo Photos was merged in at some point. Meta data retained, I assume.
  • As a Product Manager in my day job, given I have feedback on your product, and I leave a feature request, is it good enough?

Media

  • To the cinema, to see Poor Things. Lovely screening room at BAFTA where I’d never been. Stunning building. But the film? Another beautifully shot movie (see, 2023: Asteroid City). In the colour parts I could only describe it as steampunk Victorian through a fish-eye lens. Wonderful. The story weird, horrific and compelling. A child in an adult body questions the world. Outstanding performances: Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef and an incredibly funny Mark Ruffalo. But, somehow, too disturbing to be great.
  • More episodes of The Morning Show and, after the last couple of episodes had missed the feel of the ‘newsroom’, this episode felt like the show was back to its old self.
  • I saw Kara Swisher at an event once. She was as you’d imagine. Thank god somebody’s watching the tech giants: Over Three Decades, Tech Obliterated Media.
  • Stephen Fry, reviewing Apple’s new Vision Pro: “Technology is a verb, not a noun; a process, not a fixture”.

Weeknotes #54: Seafront, holiday parks and regulation

Weeknotes: Active week, scenic walks, insightful tech discussions, enjoyable media.

Week commencing Monday, 29 January 2024

A view of the bay at Seaview, Isle of Wight
The bay at Seaview, Isle of Wight

Quantified Self

  • This week: Stand 3/7; Exercise 4/7 and Move 4/7. (52%). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Plant diversity: 27. Total steps: 55,705

Life

  • The pain in my shoulder is getting worse. I’m sure it’s just a frozen shoulder but I should get it looked at.
  • Related, I was nervous about doing Tai Chi because of the discomfort. It wasn’t as bad as I expected.
  • Another office day on Thursday. Lots of catch-up discussions and, finally, we managed one of the team meetings in a room together rather than spread out around the building on video calls.
  • Saturday, six mile Red Squirrel trail from Merston to Sandown with a stop at the lovely cyclists cafe. Not too wet underfoot meant it was a lovely afternoon.
  • Sunday, a walk along the sea front, brunch and more sea views. It’s good for the soul. Peered though the fence at the former Harcourt Sands Holiday Park. Not much happening but then found an Isle of Wight Guru blog about it and accompanying You Tube video. Sad when so much prime Seafront land is not available to anybody to use.
  • Apple announced compliance with Europe’s Digital Markets Act this week. There was lots of commentary and all of it quite interesting; critiquing their approach or broadly justifying it. Personally, I buy iPhones because of the restrictions Apple puts in place. I don’t want – even the merest possibility of – a virus-laden mini computer. That’s Apple’s offer. There are other choices if you want them.
  • Related, James is trying out the Apple ecosystem after years in the other world
  • I haven’t done a Kickstarter for a while. Poem/1: AI rhyming clock looks like a lot of fun.

Media