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.