Month: March 2026

Weeknotes #166: theatre, then theatre

Busy weekend of theatre, music, and cultural outings across London

Week commencing Monday, 23rd March 2026

Performers in elaborate armoured costumes on roller skates during a live performance of Starlight Express at Wembley, London. Four characters are visible in close-up, each dressed in distinctive colour-coded outfits: one in iridescent blue, one in metallic green with matching shoulder armour, one in purple with striped detailing and a purple afro, and one in gold and yellow with a yellow mohawk. A crowd of audience members watches closely from behind a low barrier, several holding up phones to photograph the action. The stage floor features a curved track with geometric markings.
Four costumed skaters at Starlight Express, Wembley.

Quantified Self

  • This week: Stand 6/7; Exercise 4/7 and Move 5/7. (71%). Morning walks: 0/4. Office days: 1/5. Total steps: 51,141. 16 hours in meetings.

Life

  • Third time to the Starlight Auditorium: the biggest change from the previous visits was the audience. With the show closing on 3 May, many fans are clearly doing what we did and coming back for one more go. This was the busiest and most enthusiastic crowd we have been part of there.
  • The cassette digitisation project continues. The little tape machine records directly onto a USB drive, which is convenient. The alternative, recording directly to the computer, requires a special cable, which arrived but does not work with my cassette player.
  • Friday, I saw an advertisement for Duran Duran at BST Hyde Park, headlining the Great Oak Stage on 5 July with the Scissor Sisters as special guests. Another thing booked.
  • Saturday, brunch at OXBO Bankside offered a lot of food choices. Later, the Backstage restaurant at the Old Vic, the theatre’s new annex that opened a few months ago, had fewer choices. Both were delicious.
  • Then to Oh, Mary!, Cole Escola’s Tony Award-winning dark comedy, which reimagines Mary Todd Lincoln as a miserable, alcohol-dependent would-be cabaret star in the weeks before her husband’s assassination. I know it gets strong reviews, but I did not really take to it. The overall conceit is interesting, but the execution is the broadest, most unrelenting kind of farce — not a trace of subtlety anywhere.
  • Sunday, BFI Flare: Madfabulous follows the true story of the flamboyant and rebellious life of Henry Paget, the 5th Marquess of Anglesey, as he squanders his massive fortune on lavish theatrical productions and gender-defying fashion. Mad and fabulous.
  • Then a visit to the Handel Hendrix House. The museum brings together the former homes of George Frideric Handel, who lived at 25 Brook Street from 1723 until his death in 1759, and Jimi Hendrix, who occupied a flat next door in 1968 and 1969. Two buildings and about two centuries of musical history are separated by a wall (which has been knocked through to create the museum).
  • The weekend ended with a visit to The Crazy Coqs for The Bells and the Barricades, an evening of songs from Les Misérables, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and other French-themed musicals.

Media

  • Obviously more Game Changers Radio this week. Kyle filed a claim in the Australian Federal Court, arguing that his termination is invalid. And the episodes kept coming.
  • We started watching Loot on Apple TV+, the Maya Rudolph comedy about a newly divorced billionaire who finds herself running the charitable foundation she had apparently forgotten she founded. Early days, but it seems decent enough.

Weeknotes #165: brands and barricades

A week of culture, nostalgia, discoveries, and quietly satisfying moments.

Week commencing Monday, 16 March 2026

A museum display showing the evolution of HP Sauce packaging, featuring a vintage advertising card and five bottles spanning from the 1910s to 1990. The earliest bottles carry the "Garton's H.P. Sauce" label from the Midland Vinegar Company, with dense Victorian-era typography describing the sauce as a blend of oriental fruits, spices and pure malt vinegar. Later bottles show the progressive simplification of the label design, retaining the iconic Houses of Parliament illustration throughout. A printed card to the left notes that the sauce was first made by Frederick Garton of Nottingham in the 1870s, and that the recipe was sold to the Midland Vinegar Company in 1903. On display at the Museum of Brands, London.
HP Sauce bottles from the 1910s to 1990, Museum of Brands.

Quantified Self

  • This week: Stand 6/7; Exercise 4/7 and Move 5/7 (71%). Morning walks: 0/4. Office days: 1/5. Total steps: 48,912. 21.5 hours in meetings.

Life

  • Diamond Geezer’s been to Shrewsbury, and likes it. Man of taste. I learned that there was supposed to be a roof garden and restaurant on top of the market hall.
  • I watched one of those videos where someone has used AI to place famous people next to their younger selves. There is a great one for Duran Duran, except they used the wrong Roger Taylor. Oops.
  • Monday, finally, to the barricades! We saw Les Misérables. I’m glad I finally went. It’s a great show, and I can’t quite account for why it took me this long, nor why I got a bit emotional at the end. I bet anybody reading this has seen it.
  • Thursday afternoon’s work outing was to the Museum of Brands. I have always meant to go and never quite got around to it — which made it slightly amusing that PY and I already have tickets booked for next Sunday.
  • What struck me most was how many brands simply endured: HP Sauce and Daddies Sauce, both still on shelves today; Ty-Phoo Tea, still familiar; Coleman’s Mustard, Cadbury’s, etc., etc.
  • Friday evening, I updated my blog-checking software, built using AI. Should I find it reassuring that it continues to find spelling errors in past weeknotes?
  • For the second Saturday in a row, we were at the Design Museum — this time for Blitz: the club that shaped the 80s, the exhibition about Blitz, the Covent Garden club in a wine bar that ran on Tuesday nights between 1979 and 1980 and, in doing so, generated the entire New Romantic movement. Perhaps a bit too fashion-focused for my liking.
  • At one point, a large screen showed footage of Spandau Ballet performing at the club — playing To Cut a Long Story Short, which was the first record I ever bought myself.
  • Sunday’s second visit of the week to the Museum of Brands taught me that the phrase “keen as mustard” actually predates the brand; it was the popularity of Keen’s Mustard in the 18th and 19th centuries that is thought to have cemented the idiom in everyday English usage, rather than the other way around.
  • I found myself puzzling over a box of “toilet pins” until I looked it up: they are dressmaking pins used for sewing or securing garments during fitting, and the word “toilet” here is from the French toilette, meaning personal grooming or dressing, with no connection to the room. Perfectly ordinary, once you know.
  • Sunday evening to the BFI on the South Bank, and a screening as part of BFI Flare, the LGBTQ+ film festival. The Last Guest of the Holloway Motel, a documentary portrait of Tony Powell, a former Norwich City defender and 1979 Player of the Year, who effectively vanished after his playing career ended. It turns out he moved to West Hollywood rather than face the consequences of coming out as gay at the height of his career. The documentary is more moving than I think the filmmakers originally set out to make. Recommended.

Media

  • Episodes of the podcast, Game Changers Radio, keep coming as ARN, the radio network, officially terminated Kyle’s contract and cancelled the show, tearing up the record-breaking 10-year deal (valued at a reported $100 million each) that both hosts had signed in late 2023 to run through 2034. So far away. So gripping.
  • Friday evening was spent with old episodes of Yes, Prime Minister, and I still laughed.
  • The final two episodes of Heated Rivalry. Now I understand all the references to The Cottage. The series is positive in a way that sets it apart from many gay love stories, which is genuinely refreshing. It does teeter on being too nice at times. The ending, predictably, is set up for a second series.

Weeknotes #164: quiz, zaalouk, Wes & Ryan

Quiz triumph, inventive cooking, Anderson artistry, and astonishing IMAX cinema moments.

Week commencing Monday, 9 March 2026

Film poster for Project Hail Mary, starring Ryan Gosling, displayed in the foyer of the BFI IMAX. The poster shows a man in an orange spacesuit against a dramatic backdrop of a blazing sun and a green planet, with the film's title and release date: "In Cinemas March 19."
Houston, We Have a Ryan Gosling

Quantified Self

  • This week: Stand 6/7; Exercise 6/7 and Move 5/7. (81%). Morning walks: 0/4. Office days: 1/5. Total steps: 56,584. 13.8 hours in meetings.

Life

  • I wonder if I will live to see the proposed Heathrow Southern Rail. One day, I may step onto a Heathrow-bound train from Clapham Junction. The idea is back in the news again.
  • Monday, we did the quiz as a threesome and fared much better than we thought we would. Tonight it was Edison Lighthouse’s Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes) that I pulled from the back of my brain.
  • I am using a free trial of the food app Mob. Wednesday’s aubergine & chickpea zaalouk was delicious, but Thursday’s za’atar chicken, olive rice & whipped feta tasted like something from a restaurant. I am very impressed.
  • A generous and very unexpected gift from PY’s boss on Thursday. I shall enjoy learning to cook something new.
  • Friday afternoon, I listened to an AI-generated audio file about my 2025 diary, where the machine-generated hosts talked about whether they were human or not. I cannot describe how bizarre I find this. And fascinating.
  • Also, these AI-generated nobodies criticise my claim that “Licence to Kill” is the greatest Bond theme. Really? Of course it is. Who do they think they are?
  • Saturday started at the Design Museum for Wes Anderson: The Archives, the first retrospective devoted to his films, drawing on three decades of his personal archives. There is a display case containing a lot of notebooks!
  • Relatedly, the candy-pink model of The Grand Budapest Hotel and the original puppets from Fantastic Mr Fox were on show. There were some fantastic graphics from The French Dispatch and more Asteroid City material, including the vending machines, which we had seen in a previous exhibition devoted to that film. The amount of detail in Anderson’s work that passes by in a moment on screen is quite something when you see how much goes into it.
  • Also on Saturday, to the BFI IMAX to see a preview of Project Hail Mary, the new space-adventure film directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller and starring Ryan Gosling. The directors appear briefly on screen to introduce the film and explain that it was specifically optimised for IMAX, using the 1.43:1 aspect ratio to fill the full height of the screen. Utterly remarkable. It reminded me how extraordinary cinema can be when you see a film the way it was meant to be seen.

Media

  • Finished Blue Lights, series 2. Now we can really catch up with the latest series.
  • Discovered more detective stuff: Ellis on Channel 5. Watched the first two episodes of the current series as they were broadcast, then went back to the first season and watched one of those.
  • I am very glad we have reopened the doors to Ted Lasso this week. A couple of series to catch up on.

Weeknotes #163: island haze weekend

Curved monitors, good food, island haze, and reassuring London reality.

Week commencing Monday, 2 March 2026

Two photos taken on a misty day on the Isle of Wight. Left: a blue cycling route sign pointing towards Ryde, mounted on a post along a tree-lined gravel path in winter. Right: two people walking dogs along a wide, sandy beach with a calm grey sea fading into thick mist.
Mist, sand, and cycling signs

Quantified Self

  • This week: Stand 6/7; Exercise 3/7 and Move 5/7. (66%). Morning walks: 1/4. Office days 1/5. Total steps: 45,134. 18.8 hours in meetings.

Life

  • Monday, a drone attributed to Iran struck an RAF base in Cyprus. Not a good start to the week.
  • Nearer home, the world thinks London is collapsing. Spoiler: it’s not. Really, all is good.
  • So, a nicer story from France: Inside France’s first LGBTQIA+ senior living residence.
  • My new monitor arrived. It’s large and curved. It replaces two separate monitors, which means that, technically, I have less screen space than before. It’s taking some getting used to.
  • The best bit was surprising PY with a new monitor set up in the other room.
  • My Uber arrived, and at nearly two in the morning I was home after a 20-minute journey that cost £29.93. Cheaper than I remembered from last time, though the hour made it a fairly expensive way to end a Thursday.
  • Friday, the aubergine chilli miso, paired with special fried rice, was excellent — the depth of the miso with the softness of the aubergine made for a really good combination of flavour and texture.
  • Saturday on The Island, BBC Two had given over the evening to One-Hit Wonders at the BBC. Three volumes, which seem like a lot when written down, but there are a lot of one-hit wonders.
  • Also on The Island, the sky was overcast, and the Solent had all but disappeared into a thick grey haze; Portsmouth, usually visible, had vanished.

Media

  • Go watch A Friend of Dorothy, an Oscar-nominated short film starring Miriam Margolyes and Stephen Fry. Twenty minutes of loveliness.
  • This week, another episode of Heated Rivalry. I found this one a little odd: everything that happened at the end of the last episode seemed to have been set aside entirely.
  • We picked up Blue Lights again. We do tend to spread series out rather than rushing through them. It is a bit like how television used to be, when you had no choice.
  • I only heard the Kyle and Jackie O Show briefly when I was in Australia a decade ago. As Australia’s highest-rated FM breakfast show implodes, I am hooked to Game Changers Radio.

Weeknotes #162: Guinness, gardens and guilt

Daffodils, culture, nostalgia, and small victories over self-doubt

Week commencing Monday, 23 February 2026

Vibrant pink orchids clustered densely in dramatic low lighting at Orchids After Hours, Kew Gardens, with glossy green leaves and moss visible between the stems.
Orchids glowing after dark at Kew Gardens.

Quantified Self

  • This week: Stand 7/7; Exercise 6/7 and Move 7/7. (95%). Morning walks: 3/4. Office days 1/5. Total steps: 59,055. 20 hours in meetings.

Life

  • Good sign: there were daffodils on my Monday-morning walk. Does that make it spring yet?
  • Bad sign: the third tax-bill revision. Every time I provide more information to claim they are overcharging me, it goes up. I’d be daft to try to fight it again.
  • New audiobook: Thanks, Obama: My Hopey, Changey White House Years by David Litt. So far, loving it.
  • I wrote over 2,000 words for last year’s ‘Yearnotes’. Nobody else cares, but I like reading back my older Yearnotes.
  • Pub on Wednesday to meet a former colleague. The place brought back memories. I used to go there in a previous job when colleagues and I did not want to be in either of the two bars directly next to the office. Given where it sits, surrounded by offices that have long since disappeared, it is impressive that it is still going and still very busy.
  • Lessons I can’t seem to learn: I did need to get over the guilt that takes me to a pub and results in a missed train and a bus that gets me home at 1 a.m.
  • Friday night: Orchids After Hours at Kew Gardens. The theme this year is the biodiversity and cultural heritage of China. There are a large number of native Chinese orchids on display, but I imagine it’s only a fraction of the 30,000 orchid species that one of the videos said have been discovered. Not sure I’d identify orchids without labels.
  • Saturday: Guinness 0%, which I found indistinguishable from the regular pint, but it seems to take even longer to pour.
  • Midnight is a new pop-opera by American singer Todrick Hall. An advanced workshop version is being performed at Sadler’s Wells East. Wow, it’s amazing, even though it needs to shed 30 minutes of running time.

Media

  • Watched the final episode of Small Prophets. Surprisingly captivating and confusing in roughly equal measure.
  • Also saw Banned in the 80s: Moments That Shook Music, a documentary revisiting the controversies that reshaped music during the 80s: Relax, I Want Your Sex, I Want to Break Free. Plenty of Mary Whitehouse references. Oh, the culture war!
  • Episode three of Heated Rivalry. Yes, we’re not binge-watching it like the rest of the world. The focus shifts in this one, away from the main Shane and Ilya storyline, to follow hockey player Scott Hunter. Another life lesson: apparently, adding an extra banana to a smoothie makes you extra attractive.