Week commencing Monday, 8 December 2025
Quantified Self
- This week: Stand 6/7; Exercise 3/7 and Move 5/7. (66%). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 48,189
Life
- I listed some electrical items on eBay. They’re first-generation Lightwave smart sockets: far more than I actually need. eBay rejected my first attempt, and I still can’t work out why. Possibly it was because I included a link to the online manual on Lightwave’s own site, which also sells switches and sockets.
- I am having issues with Royal Mail deliveries. Every time I call, I get the ‘high volume of calls’ message and then they automatically hang up. It’s very frustrating. No wonder people are buying from Amazon: when a recent delivery went wrong, they resolved it within ten minutes of my contact.
- However, the items eventually arrived, although not until the seller had shipped another, which I then had to ‘refuse’ from the postman.
- I put coloured lights around the front window at Christmas. For once, I was organised and did it before the Christmas tree was delivered, and it was so much easier.
- Wednesday, while searching for something on YouTube, I kept being served the same advert for an alcohol brand. When I tried to block it, I noticed my settings were set to block personalised ads, which I think should exclude age-restricted advertising. I complained to Google and YouTube and, somewhat surprisingly, by the end of the day they upheld the complaint.
- The tree arrived, was put into its stand, and instantly made the room feel different. It wasn’t decorated by the weekend, but every so often the smell of pine drifts through the house. So, that’s festive.
- I wrote about Piccadilly Radio a few weeks ago. I’ve written about Timmy Mallet before. This week, listening to some archive audio, was the first time I’d heard him referred to as ‘Tim’ on air.
- Related, the story of finding that audio is lovely.
- Drinks and dinner in Carnaby Street on Thursday. The Christmas lights are up, and they’re excellent this year: giant crackers strung overhead. Plenty of people were stopping to take photos, and it felt properly Christmassy.
- Friday, Six by Nico’s festive menu. I enjoyed all the courses. The opening Christmas tart, served in a little gift box, featured baked Gruyère with a smoked Parmesan jam, and it was excellent. The carrot tartare was the most interesting dish of the evening. The Midnight Duel, which was pigs in blankets, was the most overtly Christmassy. The Frozen Lake, a sea bass dish, was served with a theatrical misty effect. Slightly showy, but also very good.
- The next day, another good meal at Sebastian’s Italian in Richmond. I was introduced to a basil smash gin and tonic, which I liked immediately.
- Shame the cold/flu that’s going around led to the cancellation of the annual Stoke Newington party. We’re aiming for January.
- Sunday evening, we went out to The Crazy Coqs for the annual Christmas selection. Mark had put together an excellent set of Christmas songs from musicals, and it immediately put us in a festive mood.
Media
- The final of Race Across the World: I still can’t quite work out whether the sprint to the finish was a bit contrived, given that the teams weren’t allowed to travel overnight beforehand. Even so, we thoroughly enjoyed the series.
- We also finished Down Cemetery Road. It’s been very good overall, but the final episode left quite a few things feeling unresolved. I don’t think they were deliberate loose ends for another series; it just felt incomplete.