Week commencing Monday, 27 October 2025
Quantified Self
- This week: Stand 3/7; Exercise 1/7 and Move 3/7. (33%). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 23,036
Life
- I can tell the clocks have gone back. It feels like autumn. It’s maybe my favourite time of year.
- Also, pumpkin-carving time.
- Monday, to see Stereophonic, a West End transfer of a Broadway drama that takes a fly-on-the-wall look at a fictional 1970s rock band struggling to record an album. It’s not based on Fleetwood Mac. Honest.
- I imagine the playwright felt the best way to convey the endless grind of studio recording was to make the audience feel it too — it was long. But not based on Fleetwood Mac. Honest.
- Sad news. Prunella Scales died this week. Loved for Fawlty Towers, but I really warmed to her in the canal journeys she did with her husband, Timothy West — beautiful, slow television that’s becoming rarer by the week.
- The new breed of city-haters don’t want us to know that homicide rates in London are lower than all major US cities, and at a ten-year low.
- I was in town on Thursday night. All was lovely. The Regent Street Christmas lights might have been under test. Carnaby Street lights are up, but not on.
- Also in the news, the council that might have fined a woman £150 for pouring coffee down the drain — and later said they weren’t going to do it — said people should talk to the council, after all, they are “human beings and … don’t bite”.
- In an article declaring that ‘world-class’ architects have been chosen for Oxford Street’s pedestrianisation, I also learned of plans to pedestrianise more of Soho, with Stephen Fry quoted as saying, “London is at its best when it gives space to people.” Which I can agree with.
Media
- We spent midweek finally catching up with everyone else watching The Celebrity Traitors. It’s very well done.
- More about advertising: “the industry that taught the world about purpose has misplaced its own.” Are agencies just talking spreadsheets now?