Week commencing Monday, 11 May 2026
Quantified Self
- This week: Stand 5/7; Exercise 3/7 and Move 4/7. (57%). Morning walks: 0/4. Office days: 1/5. Total steps: 39,620. 17.5 hours in meetings.
Life
- Pub quiz Monday, and we came seventh. PY asked me if I thought all pub quizzes were like the one at The Alexandra. I said that I assumed most British pub quizzes are like ours: mainly social, only partly a trivia contest, and predominantly an excuse to spend two hours in a pub arguing over the name of an actor nobody can quite place.
- I admit I only came up with the last bit of that line while writing my diary this week. It didn’t actually cross my lips when I was asked.
- I watched the Eurovision semi-final live on Tuesday. Of the six songs I thought were the best, San Marino (featuring an appearance by Boy George) and Estonia failed to qualify. We had to watch Thursday’s on catch-up.
- Related, this is the most ‘political’ contest I can remember. I find myself thinking back to chiding Sir Terry Wogan for losing his sense of humour. How quaint that all seems. How I wish that were still the most political thing about it. So, I wrote something about it.
- Relatedly related, to a small party on Saturday to watch the songs. A lovely evening, and what seemed like a nail-biting finish. Bangaranga!
- ChatGPT made me a playlist for the Isle of Wight Festival, uploaded it to Apple Music, and explained why it had selected the songs: “It is less a tasteful critic’s guide than a data-led greatest hits tour of the line-up.”
- Thursday’s dinner was at Six by Nico for the ten-course Seoul tasting menu. Everything was great, but the main courses were fantastic. Black pollock in a Seoul Korean sauce with mussel, clam and ssamjang was outstanding, and the Korean fried chicken — which sounds straightforward enough — was superb. I would happily have eaten considerably more of it.
Media
- Race Across the World, episodes six and seven. At one point, I welled up a bit. Almaty looked very impressive. Mongolia looks deserted.
- There was a lot of chatter in the news about the prime minister and whether he would be challenged. I really liked reading former MP Tom Watson’s take on everything, especially his description of how journalists can get themselves worked up about shenanigans: “You can hear the tremor in journalists’ voices whenever a Prime Minister starts to wobble. Nick Robinson’s voice climbed two semitones this week, and accelerated into that special Today programme register reserved for wars, resignations and arrests.”