Week commencing Monday, 29 December 2025
Quantified Self
- This week: Stand 7/7; Exercise 3/7 and Move 6/7. (76%). No work this week.Total steps: 62,837
Life
- Hello 2026! Aren’t you looking fine?
- Monday afternoon, we all walked to The Lockdown Bakehouse, where there was cake and coffee. When we returned, we watched Peter Ustinov in Death on the Nile.
- Tuesday, a matinee performance of Disney’s Hercules (the musical). It’s the everyday story of the son of Zeus being stripped of his immortality as an infant, who must perform a series of heroic feats and prove himself a “true hero” on Earth to reclaim his place among the gods on Mount Olympus. You see this kind of thing everywhere, every day! Review: it’s not on the level of The Lion King.
- Bong: I went outside so that I could usher in the New Year when Big Ben bonged for the first time in 2026. Champagne and music on television, plus we used the last of the indoor fireworks outside to create our own tiny display. People gradually drifted to bed over the hours to 3 a.m.
- Related, I was in the kitchen by 8:30 a.m. to cook the breakfast I promised everybody (although people took a while to appear).
- Friday, Battersea Power Station has been beautifully decorated for Christmas. We didn’t buy anything in the shops, preferring instead to stand and look at the turbine halls in their glittering glory.
- Saturday, rather than doubling back underground, we decided to walk from Marylebone to Waterloo. It turned into a really pleasant route through Mayfair, across Piccadilly and down towards the South Bank. The sky was a clear blue, the air crisp but not cold, and the streets were busy enough to feel alive without being pre-Christmas crowded.
- Sunday, we took the tree down. The room felt bare without it.
Media
- NYE: Kiss Me, Kate, filmed live in 2024 at the Barbican. Adrian Dunbar, from Line of Duty fame, starred alongside Stephanie J. Block. Brilliantly done; I now wish I’d seen it live.
- New Year’s Day: watched the new Knives Out film — Wake Up Dead Man — on Netflix. It’s full of odd characters and a plot with twists, but, strangely, Benoit Blanc is pretty much absent for the first third.
- Sunday, Marty Supreme on the big screen. See it for the style and the performances, but make sure you have a comfy seat and don’t expect to fall in love with the hero. I wrote a fuller review.