Week commencing Monday, 6 July 2026
Quantified Self
- This week: Stand 6/7; Exercise 5/7 and Move 6/7. (81%). Morning walks: 0/3. Office days: 2/5. Total steps: 53,841. 23 hours in meetings.
Life
- The week started on Monday morning with a message: “Morning… See the news?” It meant this: Will I still be able to watch Love Island and Coronation Street for free?
- In the evening, there were ten surprisingly filling courses inspired by dishes from around the world as part of Six by Nico’s Street Food tasting menu. Lovely.
- London has spent the week behaving as though it has been moved several hundred miles south without anybody bothering to tell us. The temperature reached around 30°C, the capital was still under an amber heat-health alert, and this is apparently already the third heatwave of the year.
- A visit from the police on Tuesday was to the wrong address, but it was still a bit alarming. Although there was nothing to worry about in reality, it’s disconcerting to look at a Metropolitan Police ID badge and wonder whether it’s real. Maybe I should have gone to the office three days this week instead of two.
- Lovely dinner in Woking on Thursday to celebrate C’s birthday. It was all very nice, but the restaurant was quiet and lacked atmosphere. The staff were trying to stay busy, but I think there are only so many times the bottles behind the bar can be washed.
- Saturday, to The Producers at the Garrick. Seeing the same production of a show seven or eight months after the first time is interesting. How much do I remember? Was this bit in the version I saw previously, or have they tweaked and changed it? The songs are very well known, but was there always a giant sausage on a fork in one scene?
- Related, Alex Lodge, playing Leo Bloom, was fantastic, and I hope I am not just saying that because he’s one of the Crazy Coqs regular performers. He had all the right comic timing, and given that we’ve seen him before and know he doesn’t normally speak like that, the wonder of acting astounded me.
- COMMENTATOR: It was a game of two halves — and then some extra time for good measure — as England were rocked by Schjelderup’s 36th-minute opener in Miami, hauled level in the dying seconds of the first half by Bellingham, then spent a tense and nervy second period unable to find the winner before the Real Madrid man pounced on a Nyland fumble in the 93rd minute to send Tuchel’s side into the World Cup semi-finals for the first time since 2018 — a place in the last four secured against a Norway side that lit up this tournament and can hold their heads high. (h/t: Claude.ai)
- Remember, I said this last time about the AI commentator.
- On departing London Euston aboard a Glasgow-bound train — albeit one from which I would alight well before Glasgow — I heard that the onboard shop had no hot drinks. Scotland would be a fair way for me to go without tea or coffee.
- Some of the reviews for the “Sam-Ryder-looks-like-him” version of Jesus Christ Superstar seem to think it was better than I did, while others were more middling. I still recommend something else.
Media
- It’s been too hot to sit in and watch TV. Really, go outside.