Blog

Week commencing Monday, 9 October 2023

Quantified Self

• This week: Stand 4/7; Exercise 2/7 and Move 4/7. (48%, I’m embarrassed ). Morning walks: 0/3 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 2/5. Total steps: 46,514

Life

• Monday to the office. Is it Agency, Advertiser or Brand? Can you have déjà vu for déjà vu?
• I’ve read a lot of discussion about an apostrophe in a Burger King ad this week. At least there is one, was my thinking. I needed Daring Fireball to explain and tell me Shift-Option-] is what I might need.
• Tuesday, World Mental Health Day (mental health is a universal human right): a seminar at work reminded us that the little things can make a big difference. The effects of giving off good vibes can’t be underestimated.
• Also, Tuesday, Keir Starmer announced plans for a publicly owned renewable energy company and new towns. Investing in infrastructure not killing it off seems a better way forward to me.
• In a call with Mum and Dad, I was asked what does RACE CAR spell backwards? How come I’d never noticed that before?
• Same call, we learned that, after the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, the Tommy gun gained notoriety with the mob. We also discussed violin cases and if it was used by the Italian mafia.
• ITV: She has been at the heart of This Morning for the past 14 years, and she is adored by our viewers. Holly Willoughby has said she is quitting This Morning.
• Kind of related, Diamond Geezer’s been to the location of all three Big Brother houses.
• Saturday, I rode the pods again. Still a fun thing to do if you need to stay near Terminal 5.
• Sunday, to Palermo. Early start for the plane. On time flight in spite a truck being parked behind the plane. Train into Palermo easy but the station sparse.

Media

• As recommended in the mental health seminar, and recommended by me, Brené Brown: The power of vulnerability. Feeling connected is why we are here.
• Roman Kemp’s Dad doesn’t have many friends, at least according to Roman in this Radio Times podcast

Archive

To save the links getting lost in the future I checked the Internet Archive to see what they had saved for the posts linked here. If the source above no longer works, these should.

• Is it Agency, Advertiser or Brand?
• Daring Fireball on apostrophes.
• World Mental Health Day 2023: mental health is a universal human right
• Keir Starmer speech: Labour plans publicly owned renewable energy giant
• Diamond Geezer: Three Big Brother houses
• At Heathrow: Riding the pods again
• Radio Times Podcast: Roman Kemp on nepotism, fame and oversharing

Week commencing Monday, 3 October 2023

Quantified Self

• This week: Stand 6/7; Exercise 3/7 and Move 4/7. (62%, similar). Morning walks: 0/3 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 2/5. Total steps: 65,485

Life

• They fixed my access to the mandatory training platform. Monday afternoon spent understanding fire extinguishers and bribery. And, by Friday, I completed the lot (including the extra one that was added on Thursday).
• Celeb spotting: AJ Odudu and Will Best, presenters of the new version of Big Brother, hosted an event I attended. I was at the back and couldn’t hear but there was a free bottle of beer.
• Regardless of how you feel about HS2, it seems bonkers to me that it’s the major policy announcement at a party conference. I asked an AI bot what it thought and it summed up the responses reasonably well.
• A workshop at work on Thursday, I learnt a lot about some existing technologies; I don’t think that was the point of the day. I had one drink after work before coming home.
• Early Saturday evening, PY thinks I said yes to the second bottle of wine when everybody else didn’t want one. The service was attentive but not with a smile.
• Wilkommen to Cabaret: Rob ordered a bottle of champagne; perhaps the default drink for this production. It feels decadent which, I guess, is the vibe. Jake Shears was excellent, but not the most uplifting show.
• Sunday trip to Ryde. Lunch looking out on the water across to Portsmouth. It’s very tranquil and a lovely way to spend Sunday afternoon.
• Then, walked to the nature reserve where we sat in the hide watching the wildlife. There was nobody around and we spent half an hour watching the birds on the water.
• Related: I made tea in my reusable, insulated drinks cup. It was still very hot three hours later.

Media

• I’d never heard of TV quiz show ‘Shafted’ until a conversation on Tuesday night and this clip. Reading the comments, there are 16 unaired episodes.
• I hear a lot about the war on motorists. And so it was in 1905, a time when cars were perhaps as disliked as they have ever been.

Archive

To save the links getting lost in the future I checked the Internet Archive to see what they had saved for the posts linked here. If the source above no longer works, these should.

• BBC: Speculation about HS2 overwhelms Conservative party conference
• AI-sourced views on HS2 Northern leg cancellation
• YouTube: Shafted with Robert Kilroy Silk
• The war on motorists: the secret history of a myth as old as cars themselves
• Blip: My thoughts on the KitKat Club
• Jake Shears as Cabaret Emcee.
• Blip: Sunset over Ryde

Week commencing Monday, 25 September 2023

Quantified Self

This week: Stand 5/7; Exercise 4/7 and Move 5/7. (66%, slipping again). Morning walks: 0/3 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 2/5. Total steps: 58,729

Life

• Monday, a quiet day. Tuesday, to the office then, in the evening, managed the trains successfully to get to Kingston on Thames on time for the Beverley Knight showcase ahead of Friday’s album launch.
• Related, Royal Mail sent me two emails to confirm the time the CD would be delivered but it went through the letter box and I didn’t need to be listening out for them.
• Thursday, a team meeting. A discussion on the use of generative AI in the media. Some interesting use cases. Technology has moved on a little in the few months since I wrote this. Later, a social cricket experience. I hit the ball and am counting that as winning.
• Friday, to Declan Bennett’s Boy Out The City. We saw the ‘workshop’ at The Turbine Theatre in 2021. It’s been a hit at the an Edinburgh Fringe and remains as wonderful and powerful as I remember. It is enhanced by the staging. The words could almost be songs. In fact, I hope he turns some of them into songs.
• Saturday, with friends to plan our forthcoming break. Train strike day and packed buses to get to Streatham. The first, just after 5pm, might be expectedly busy but at 1:15am the next morning? Packed.
• Sunday, lovely return to Denbies. Little train ride to see the vineyard, 360,000 vines and 13 grape varieties, harvesting started but not visible. Then, delicious afternoon tea.

Media

• I have written about the UK government’s position on messaging app encryption. Ian Betteridge: No, the UK government did not back down on its plans to spy on encrypted messages
• STOP Burning Stuff is a very interesting approach to misinformation about electric vehicles and clean energy.
• On with Kara Swisher: The Yoel Roth-Linda Yaccarino Showdown at the 2023 Code Conference.
• Celebrity Race Across the World review: Harry from McFly’s mum absolutely makes this adorable show.

Archive

To save the links getting lost in the future I checked the Internet Archive to see what they had saved for the posts linked here. If the source above no longer works, these should.

• How advertising might be impacted by AI technologies
• My Blip: Boy Out The City
• STOP Burning Stuff
• Ian Betteridge: No, the UK government did not back down on its plans to spy on encrypted messages
• On with Kara Swisher
• The Guardian: Celebrity Race Across the World

Week commencing Monday, 18 September 2023

Quantified Self

• This week: Stand 5/7; Exercise 3/7 and Move 5/7. (62%, slipping). Morning walks: 0/1 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 4/5. Total steps: 62,418

Life

• Monday, a nice few drinks with people who will soon be ex-colleagues. Have to admit to, quite a bit of, ‘why am I doing this?’
• Related, noticeably cold on the platform waiting for the train home.
• Tuesday, completing the circle. On my first day the trains were cancelled to mess up my arrival and, now, the same on the last.
• Lovely final day where the developers showed me completed software and it was exactly what I imagined. Good stuff.
• Nice words to end the day, handed back IT and then a nice email from my boss.
• First day in the new one was a quiet day in the new – but familiar – office. I don’t like the crowded trains from Clapham. Home, a different way was marginally better. Thursday, trains the other way around were much more pleasant so that’s going to be my route.
• Friday was much quieter but I did get to upgrade my phone to the new software, iOS17. I am not sure I can immediately tell the difference.
• Lots of good advice from Merlin Mann: No one has ever died wishing they’d spent more time documenting their “minimalist desk”.
• Back at The Crazy Coqs for Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks and it was fantastic. I don’t know if it’s because there’s been a gap between shows or because I am not as familiar with all the music but I thought the evening was wonderful.

Media

• The new series of Taskmaster starts. And there’s a new tin can tower task which was wonderfully funny.
• I love these detailed reviews of iPhone software: iOS and iPadOS 17: The MacStories Review
• Interesting insight into the life of a tabloid editor. Gordon Smart was the editor of The Scottish Sun, and deputy editor of the Sun. The News agents – Who is the real Russell Brand? An interview with Gordon Smart

Archive

To save the links getting lost in the future I checked the Internet Archive to see what they had saved for the posts linked here. If the source above no longer works, these should.

• Staines railway station
• Addressable Advertising Platform
• Apple iOS17 software update
• Blipfoto: Songs of Fleetwood Mac
• Channel 4: Taskmaster Series 16, Episode 1
• iOS and iPadOS 17: The MacStories Review
• The News agents: Who is the real Russell Brand? An interview with Gordon Smart

Week commencing Monday, 4 September 2023

Quantified Self

• This week: Stand 2/7; Exercise 3/7 and Move 4/7. (42%, terrible). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 36,122

Life

• The Little Big Things is a wonderful new musical based on the life of mouth artist Henry Fraser. It’s opened at the lovely Soho Place Theatre. We went on Friday night where there was a full standing ovation. I followed Lord Lloyd Webber down the stairs afterwards. If that’s not a seal of approval then I don’t know what is.
• Business software 1: I do like a sequence diagram when explaining a product feature. I should do more of them. I did a couple to explain projects I am handing over.
• Related: websequencediagrams.com makes it easy. I subscribed in my last job. I may do in my next.
• Business software 2: Jira is a tool used by a host of software companies. People love it; people hate it and people love to hate it. But lots of people use it. It’s (almost) endlessly flexible. And in my job, it has all the info in it. So, why don’t people use it to get the info instead of scheduling meetings?
• Related: labels are good in both Jira and Confluence: use them with abandon.
• Related, related: tidied up a lot of tickets this week and wrote my final piece of documentation which was, in reality, an update to an existing doc but it felt like I was completing something. The list of closed tickets looks remarkably short.
• Related, related: Team lunch on Tuesday was nice, although service was slow and a couple of people had to run off at the end for calls.
• (Not business) software: when did WordPress get an AI assistant that reviews what’s been written? Interesting take on last week ’s Weeknote: “Overall, the content is informative and provides a good snapshot of the week. With some structural improvements and additional visual elements, it can become even more engaging for readers.”
• I’ve previously mentioned the UK government’s position on messaging app encryption. Today a u-turn that the government says isn’t: “A new statement concedes that the tech to access messaging without breaking security protocols does not exist” BBC: Government denies U-turn on encrypted messaging row.
• Thursday. How are you supposed to know if his advances are welcomed or not? Still, does anybody who is a ‘close protection bodyguard’ say that’s what they are?

Media

• Started the second series of Apple TV’s The Morning Show. We enjoyed the first season but – and I have no idea why – we didn’t engage with the second. Suffice to say that we needed the recap and still have gaps in our recollection of the first. Episode one is confusing (are you fired or not?) but by the end we were hooked and went straight into episode two. And later in the week, episode 3.
• Currently, politics is divided but this interview with David Lammy, shadow foreign secretary feels inclusive and suggests our future policies could be better than the ones we have.

Archive

To save the links getting lost in the future I checked the Internet Archive to see what they had saved for the posts linked here. If the source above no longer works, these should.

• BBC: Little Big Things: Story of mouth artist Henry Fraser heads to the stage
• @sohoplace what’s on
• Wikipedia: Sequence diagram
• Useful: web sequence diagrams
• What is Jira Software, and why use it? | Using labels in Jira
• Useful? Introducing Jetpack AI Assistant in WordPress.com
• BBC: Government denies U-turn on encrypted messaging row
• The News Agents: David Lamm

Week commencing Monday, 28 August 2023

Quantified Self

• This week: Stand 5/7; Exercise 4/7 and Move 5/7. (66%). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 0/4. Total steps: 58,802

Life

• Holiday Monday train to Dorking for Denbies Vineyard Restaurant Food & Wine Matching Experience. Beautiful views with perfect food and wine matching.
• Would you Adam & Eve it? I met up with an ex-boss and JB for beers and Bone Daddies. Hiccups after food spoiled the evening. Debate later in the week about having visited Bone Daddies before or not. Pork Chilli Broth is recommended. Adam & Eve? A reference to the pub we met in.
• Train strike: walked to Curzon Wimbledon to see Barbie as National Cinema day got me a £3 ticket. I wasn’t wowed as the plot is too clearly signalled and there are some strange set pieces. What on earth is that office-based chase scene about? Barbieland is impressively brought to life. I am not as bought into Ken as a lot of people seem to be. Sorry Ryan. Are those abs real? We know the tan isn’t.
• Then a walk from Wimbledon to Streatham via the M&S Cafe at the Collier’s Wood branch: not really up to M&S standards.
• Dinner with friends at the Streatham Kitchen: Prawns & Spanish Chorizo and Aubergine and Halloumi Burger were both delicious. Recommended. Too much wine consumed and, for some reason, I stayed up drinking tea when we got back.
• Sunday, train to Shropshire with an early start because yesterday’s train strike messes up the next day too. Not helped by yesterday’s wine and late night tea consumption. Tried hard to stay awake on the train north (succeeded). Carriage much emptier than suggested when I booked a seat.
• End the week like I started it: wine and beautiful views. Lunch at Hencote Vineyard with panoramic vista overlooking Shrewsbury and the Shropshire Hills in glorious sunshine. My choices of, to start, chalk stream trout tartare and, main, crispy Gloucester old spot pork belly were delicious but Dad’s Pim Hill Farm wholemeal flour crumpet (36-month aged parmesan custard, ricotta stuffed tempura courgette flower, piperade & poached Legbar egg) was the most unusual. Glad I made the trip.

Media

• It was podcast week for me, starting with The High Performance Podcast: Emily Maitlis: How I Approached THAT Prince Andrew Interview. Interesting insight into how the big interviews have elements of careful planning and luck.
• James O’Brien’s Podcast, Full Disclosure with Mark Gatiss
• Another journalism interview on The News Agents: David Dimbleby was an enjoyable discussion about the state of TV political journalism; mourning the loss of the long-form political interview.
• Reading, not listening: has the rain put the fire out at Burning Man?

Archive

To save the links getting lost in the future I checked the Internet Archive to see what they had saved for the posts linked here. If the source above no longer works, these should.

• Denbies Vineyard Restaurant Food & Wine Matching Experience
• Bone Daddies
• National Cinema day
• Ryan Gosling as Ken in the new Barbie film is a masterstroke of casting
• This £12 Self-Tan Was The Key To Ken’s Glow In The Barbie Movie
• Streatham Kitchen
• Hencote Vineyard
• The High Performance Podcast: Emily Maitlis: How I Approached THAT Prince Andrew Interview
• Full Disclosure: with Mark Gatiss
• The News Agents: David Dimbleby
• Burning Man festival-goers trapped in desert as rain turns site to mud

Week commencing Monday, 21 August 2023

Quantified Self

• This week: Stand 5/7; Exercise 6/7 and Move 7/7. (86%, great). Morning walks: 2/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 69,973

Life

• Monday, a presentation from students suggested people may be turning back to linear TV. Food for thought.
• Later, a quiet train journey back to London to be ready for an “in work” day on Tuesday. Joined a conference call for the last minutes of the commute to the office. I don’t like doing that, but I was a lurker rather than a contributor.
• Met up with past and future, but no present, colleagues in White City. Weather very suitable for outside socialising. Beer was good but too drinkable. Glad of a late start the next day.
• The Way Old Friends Do: ABBA song or play? We went to see the latter at the Criterion. I forgot how nice the auditorium is and that it’s an independent theatre trust. Act II was a little darker. The play was fun; getting caught in the torrential downpour while walking between Waterloo and Piccadilly Circus, less so.
• Afterwards, bumped into old friends P&W, confirmed plans for Sunday which involved meeting PY & P after the volunteering shift for coffee (Redemption Roasters was lovely), a guided walk (fascinating) and dinner at Mele e Pere, which has, apparently, been open since 2012 but I swear it was called something else.
• More old friends on Saturday when tentative picnic plans morphed into ‘at home’ picnic (at a table, sheltering from the rain). I want to make the lamb and harissa sausage rolls that were served but I am not good at any recipe that involves pastry.

Media

• I finished the two sequels I mentioned last week. Both followed the adventures of the crime solvers at Cooper’s Chase retirement village. The Man Who Died Twice:

“More women are murdering people these days,” says Joyce. “If you ignore the context, it is a real sign of progress.

• Within 24 hours of finishing the first, I finished the second (helped by a nice long train journey). The Bullet That Missed:

People drift in and out of your life, and, when you are younger, you know you will see them again. But now every old friend is a miracle.

Archive

To save the links getting lost in the future I checked the Internet Archive to see what they had saved for the posts linked here. If the source above no longer works, these should.

• Theatre: The Way Old Friends Do
• Restaurant: Mele e Pere
• Coffee: Redemption Roasters
• Recipe: Lamb and harissa sausage rolls

Week commencing Monday, 14 August 2023

Quantified Self

• This week: Stand 5/7; Exercise 3/7 and Move 3/7. (52%, another poor show). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 0/4. Total steps: 63,768

Life

• Home from the Island Monday evening and back Friday morning. Fastest turnaround for some time.
• That thing about CC, mentioned last week, was confirmed in a Monday morning meeting. So, nobody was winding me up.
• A second documentation portal to worry about at work. Unclear why it’s different from the other one. We agreed to duplicate content as it makes life easier for us.
• I haven’t heard railway station announcements for Inspector Sands for a while. Passing through Clapham Junction on Friday morning and the announcement, slowly and clearly delivered, was on loop. No word on the incident.
• Then Friday to Portsmouth in the first carriage of the train. There were only the four of us for the majority of the journey.
• A day off to travel to Portsmouth allowed time for a trip to Gunwharf Quays. I bought new running shoes for my, as yet, undiscovered running career.
• Rescheduled Ryde Pride, officially Isle of Wight Pride, weekend. A proper community pride event. Wonderful parade down Union Street. Peter Tatchell opening the event, although I was not sure about the women laughing when he spoke about the death penalty. Utmost Elton was a lot of fun. Missed Woody Cook because we were still eating.
• Other food; Friday night Ryde Castle (disappointing), Saturday lunch at the Dell Cafe (wonderful views), Saturday night Ryde Thai (excellent, as always), Quarr Abbey (lovely cafe, MJ bothered by wasps in the garden), Fishbourne Inn (great fish and chips in the sun, not sure the buzzer ever worked).
• Sad news this week, Veteran broadcaster Sir Michael Parkinson has died at the age of 88

Media

• Last week I bought a book in Ryde. This week I finished it and bought both the sequels: “You always know when it’s your first time, don’t you? But you rarely know when it’s your final time”, Thursday Murder Club.

Archive

To save the links getting lost in the future I checked the Internet Archive to see what they had saved for the posts linked here. If the original source above no longer works, these should.

• Isle of Wight Pride Acts 2023
• Sir Michael Parkinson: Chat show host dies aged 88

Week commencing Monday, 7 August 2023

Quantified Self

• This week: Stand 5/7; Exercise 3/7 and Move 4/7. (57%, way down). Morning walks: 0/5 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 0/5. Total steps: 59,454

Life

• According to The Internet, “In the decades after the war, it was the done thing to wear a silly hat to the regatta“. So, Sandown has a hat parade.
• I wrote a lot of documentation this week, both customer-facing and internal ticket-based stuff. I spent an afternoon wrangling Jira tickets into a useful order so that whoever has to deal with them next stands a chance of understanding my proposed sequencing.
• I didn’t wrangle the other system that’s arrived to mange the product work. I thought it hypocritical of us to insist one side of the company used Jira (“because it’s the source of truth”) for us not to do that ourselves. Why does it matter to me? Because I think we should work in the open and multiple, disconnected systems that rely on layers of manual updating do not facilitate that approach.
• And then, this, which is so accurate: “Communicating agile development to people outside of the organisation is difficult and leads to frustration on their part. There’s an expectation of things being clear from the outset and delivered as a whole, rather than an incremental evolution of a product, subject to change iteration. They also struggle to ‘see’ a project overall …” Neil Lawrence.
• Monday, towels bulk washed in the laundrette where they can dry much better. Gave me time to sit and read. It’s relaxing but £1 doesn’t buy much drying time. I’m only reading this book because of the title. And the time spend reading paid off as I kept picking up the book all week and ended up finishing it on Friday.
• Related, I started that book as I’d stalled reading Sara Cox’s first when it became too farm-y, but the brief interlude with a French mystery, and I was back enjoying the adventures of Sara in Korea.
• Monday, 10pm, “Mrs Overall, that macaroon you just choked on, I’m going to send the recipe to the Weekly News”. Victoria Wood’s comedy still makes me laugh.
• Wednesday, was that a sarcastic comment from one of our developers about “people sticking around to see it through”? I wasn’t sure about it but, maybe, I should have commented. Also, still not sure if they’re winding me up about CC or not.
• Another “their life, my life moment”. It’s clear in 2023 but back then we all thought differently: “It took me a little while to accept that having my email and web presence completely beholden to my employer was perhaps not the greatest plan. That is obvious to you now, but it was the 90s, we were like little children”. jwz.
• Good news, I think, for public transport in the Capital. Ian Visits notes that London’s off-peak travel has recovered to pre-pandemic levels and exceeded them at times. Commuter traffic is still down.

Media

• Comedy from the 80s was on the agenda this week: Yes, Prime Minister: The Grand Design reminding me how clever the word-smithing was.
• Back to June 1982? I Still Believe in Me?. Excuse to link to something I wrote in the past.
• Fascinating, and may be a little scary? Ageing Backwards: https://youtu.be/1yfoonW1InE

Archive

To save the links getting lost in the future I checked the Internet Archive to see what they had saved for the posts linked here. If the original source above no longer works, these should.

• Isle of Wight’s Sandown Regatta back this weekend
• Neil Lawrence, Weeknotes S02 E19
• jwz.org is now 25
• Ian Visits: Off-peak travel on London’s transport exceeding pre-pandemic levels
• Hello Cruns, Starmaker, Dream Breaker

Week commencing Monday, 31 July 2023

Quantified Self

• This week: Stand 7/7; Exercise 6/7 and Move 7/7. (95%, best for a while). Morning walks: 0/2 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/3. Total steps: 85,826

Life

• In a work virtual conference, we were asked to write our names as many times as possible with our non-dominant hand. Harder than expected but it was legible (I managed two in the given time). It was something to do with embracing challenges and changes: ‘Anything worth doing well is worth doing poorly at first’.
• On the train to work on Tuesday, a loud Property Manager on the phone discussing that three portfolios were unmanageable and why, when talking about staffing levels, did his boss keep forgetting about Lauren? And I wanted to know the rest of the story.
• Family arrived on Wednesday. All the arrangements worked, including the inflatable bed. Although I wish I had realised that if you don’t use the adapter on the pump then it fits much better. There were little people in the house.
• Chessington World of Adventures opens at 10am and we were ready for Mandrill Mayhem at 10:30am. It uses a virtual queuing system which worked well. Worth doing. Vampire does not operate such a system and I wonder why we stood for 90 minutes (still a fun ride). Zufari seemed a shorter ride then last time. Gruffalo is fun with a 7 year old.
• News spread amongst future colleagues and my phone buzzed while hurtling around the tree tops from people who were only getting the news this week.
• Technically, AC was 7 on Friday. Vauxhall City Farm was a nice treat. I fed lambs from my hand to prove it wasn’t scary. Not sure what she made of the Imperial War Museum but her brother enjoyed it.
• The Speedboat Bar’s food is spicy for kids. OC stuck to his guns and ate all the Minced Beef with Holy Basil in spite of the heat.
• PY and I saw the Brokeback Mountain play. Impressive performances in an equally impressive new theatre. I’d forgotten how sad the story was. We didn’t have the heart to tell the fans at the stage door that one of the stars was having a chat in the theatre bar. The younger ones saw Matilda the musical. It comes with a 7-year old seal of approval.
• Saturday we looked after kids so parents could party. Learnt interesting things on the Horrible History boat – nicely done – but learnt a foot splinter can’t be cured by Uncles. Discovered that trying to direct people back to Raynes Park using the night tube is harder than expected.
• Sunday, much more to see at Kew than I remember. The need to buy a hat because of the sun was unexpected. The Hive is fascinating. The Palm House is hot. I still like the bamboo gardens.
• Related, Kew Village Market is on the first Sunday of the month. It all looks delicious.
• Introduced everyone to Raynes Park kebabs. Consensus is that the chilli sauce is hotter than other places people have tried. Tip: get it in a tub on the side.

Media

• To calm the spirits after Saturday night’s splinter, PY and I were introduced to Miss Trunchbull and Matilda via Netflix. It was sufficiently distracting to soothe although it did not remove the pain. It’s quite dark in places, isn’t it?

Archive

To save the links getting lost in the future I checked the Internet Archive to see what they had saved for the posts linked here. If the original source above no longer works, these should.

• Coasterpedia: Mandrill Mayhem
• The Guardian: Brokeback Mountain review – perfectly pitched staging of the heartbreaking love story.
• Terrible Thames: Horrible Histories boat
• Real bees drive The Hive experience

Week commencing Monday, 24 July 2023

Quantified Self

• This week: Stand 6/7; Exercise 3/7 and Move 5/7. (67%, slipping). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 57,970

Life

• A conversation that I expected to be difficult on Monday, wasn’t. The repeat conversation on Friday also less difficult than I imagined. Sometimes, you build these things up in your head. The demo I saw was a bit disappointing after all the effort but is making progress.
• Product Managers should remember to get the domain model and a basic entity relationships sorted before you build the product. So much harder later. But a fun task nonetheless. We agreed, then disagreed and then worked it out.
• Saturday volunteering at the Formula-e race. In the end, I thoroughly enjoyed it even if I didn’t quite get to follow the whole race.
• Sunday, Dad went to the Ashes (rained off mid afternoon but he got to see test cricket). After dropping him off at The Oval went for brunch with Mum and then the Battersea Power Station. Lovely day for all, in spite of the rain.
• Radio is not the radio I grew up with. I’m not one of those who clamour to return to days of ILR but I do quite like a presenter to pop in and say hello occasionally. It’s hard to get just the right amount of personality without being intrusive and it’s very personal. I tried the Spotify AI DJ on a couple of days this week. I thought the voice and DJ-bits were quite well done but the music selection didn’t quite work. Maybe there’s potential here which is why I kept going back to it. Another thing called X however.
• A good take on some parts of the digital advertising industry. Obviously, I disagree with the statement, “Digital advertising is a scam from top to bottom” but I can understand where it’s coming from. I think the article is guilty of assuming ‘digital advertising’ is one thing and it’s not. I first ventured into this discussion in 2014 and I think it’s still valid.
• Here’s something that resonates: “Over my many years in politics and business, I have found one thing to be universally true: the kindest person in the room is often the smartest.” From Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker’s commencement speech at Northwestern University via Daring Fireball

Media

• Does Tom Cruise live near Biggin Hill airport or not? Nobody seems quite sure but it’s a nice rumour.

Archive

To save the links getting lost in the future I checked the Internet Archive to see what they had saved for the posts linked here. If the original source above no longer works, these should.

• ABB FIA Formula E World Championship returns to the UK
• Spotify Debuts a New AI DJ, Right in Your Pocket
• Scams upon scams: The data-driven advertising grift
• Kindness as a Signifier of Intelligence
• My Impossible Mission to Find Tom Cruise

Week commencing Monday, 17 July 2023

Quantified Self

• This week: Stand 5/7; Exercise 6/7 and Move 5/7. (81%, better). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 58,028

Life

• Related to last week’s comments about the sand trucks, on Monday morning’s walk we encountered a different tractor doing something else to the sand. Jobs you never knew existed.
• “Johnson was not undemocratically or otherwise improperly ‘forced out’ of Parliament” is a really interesting article in Public Law For Everyone about a very false narrative being peddled.
• Speaking of de Pfeffel, there are moves in the UK to compel providers of secure messaging services (WhatsApp, FaceTime etc.) to create backdoors for the security services. Nobody, except politicians, believes it’s possible to have a ‘good guys’ back door that can’t be exploited by the ‘bad guy’. Daring Fireball had a good piece on this which ended with the line, “The legislators themselves surely all depend upon [WhatsApp]” and I simply can’t stop laughing given our former Prime Minister’s stance on his own WhatsApp messages.
• Saturday morning, to the wonderful exhibition of original sets, props, costumes and artwork from Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City. Wholly recommended. I am not sure which was my favourite but I do like the vending machines, the miniature train and the alien.
• Leaving The Strand, walking through London, we discovered an outdoor exhibition of around 70 super-sized Morph sculptures. It got me asking if Plasticine man, Morph, made it to other countries where viewers may not have seen Take Hart or Hartbeat?
• And then to The Tower of London. The whole place is fascinating and is a bit TARDIS-like: bigger on the inside that it seems form the outside. The White Tower, which gives the place its name, was built by William the Conqueror. Seeing Traitor’s Gate from the other side was a bit underwhelming.
• Related, reportedly some of the last people to be imprisoned in the Tower were the Kray twins. It was not for their gangster behaviour in the 50s and 60s though; something to do with not showing up for their National service.
• Almost 14 months on from seeing the ABBAtars at Abba Voyage, I was back with a different group of friends, to dance to Summer Night City, Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight), Voulez-Vous and Dancing Queen. Last time I thought the ABBAtars were remarkably convincing to the human eye and, from the standing (dancing) area, nothing’s changed: in fact they may be even more realistic. The ABBA arena is holding up well one year later. The Visitors, remains one of my favourite songs.
• I know it’s work but this is really good. Agile or agility? What’s important, then, is agility, not Agile™ via Dave Briggs

Media

• Does your employer have holiday homes for you to use? A lovely interview about treating your staff well and reaping the rewards (and then giving them the rewards): Gap Finders – Richer Sounds founder Julian Richer
• I am determined not to drag out watching Bosch: Season 3 quite as long as I did the second season. Watched a couple of episodes on the train home on Monday evening and then throughout the week. Not quite finished.
• I did not get into Schitt’s Creek when it started back in 2015. So we’re at Season 1 now. Thanks to Dave. And all because Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara star.
• After extolling the virtues of Asteroid City, we watched another Wes Anderson film: The French Dispatch (of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun). Layered, beautifully shot and, perhaps, a wonderful tribute to a type of literary journalism that doesn’t seem to exist (although staff of The New Yorker may disagree).

Archive

To save the links getting lost in the future I checked the Internet Archive to see what they had saved for the posts linked here. If the original source above no longer works, these should.

• Public Law for Everyone: Was Boris Johnson undemocratically removed from Parliament?
• BBC: Apple joins opposition to encrypted message app scanning | Apple Tries To Explain To U.K. Legislators That You Can’t Add Back Doors To Secure Protocols | BBC: Boris Johnson early Covid WhatsApps still not passed to inquiry
• 180Studios: Wes Anderson — Asteroid City
• Morph’s Epic Art Adventure in the City | My thread
• Flickr: Traitor’s Gate
• 14 Months ago: Abba
• Teaching agility, not Agile | Dave Briggs
• BBC Sounds: Gap Finders – Richer Sounds founder Julian Richer
• Bosch: Season 3
• Schitt’s Creek | Eugene Levy | Catherine O’Hara
• Dave: TV Channel
• The French Dispatch

Week commencing Monday, 10 July 2023

Quantified Self

• This week: Stand 5/7; Exercise 4/7 and Move 4/7. (62%, wrong direction). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 2/5. Total steps: 53,015

Life

• The iPhone turns 15. I went to the App Store to find a list of the first apps I downloaded. If you’d asked me, I would have said my first was the Carling Tap app because, at the time, I think that showed off some of the phone’s unique screen and sensor capabilities and is the one I remember the most. Also, I didn’t actually get an iPhone until August; I’d been working for Microsoft and it wasn’t until I left that I switched to iPhone. Around this time 15 years ago it was still being put in a blender at MSFT.
• Lovely dinner in Surbiton with family this week. Happy Birthday Christine. A lovely town and the station is always wonderful to look at.
• So, after being introduced last week, it seems that Threads might become a thing. There’s a lot of clamour for Twitter-like features but I really like the algorithm-driven feeds full of people I don’t know. Over the last few days the algorithm has started to tune the feed for me and I like it. Because it’s linked to instagram, I have @curns over there as well.
• I can access threads in the UK. The rest of Europe can’t. Access to technology from the US tech giants before the test of the continent was never a message on the side of a bus.
• The Sun ran a story last Friday which it is now, kind-of, back-tracking on and I am left with a feeling that journalism isn’t doing what I think it should be doing. The tabloids have always set an agenda but, I think, not in the way we had this week. And the slavish following of all other news media seems wrong. Do we have the media plurality we should have in a democracy? We certainly have more voices, but, for those with mass reach, there don’t seem that many.
• Ryde Pride was postponed. Yet The Island was lovely, if a bit windy. We braved sitting outside in spite of the wind.
• The Ryde Transport Hub appears to be more-or-less finished. The mystery of the No. 9 is now solved. Boarded on Sunday. The lady that got on behind us doesn’t like the new arrangements. I am very much of the opposite opinion.
• I wish I could find something online that explains why they are extracting the sand from one part of Appley Beach and depositing it at the other end using two trucks, a digger and something to flatten it out.

Media

• Late to the party? Finished Season 1 of Ted Lasso.
• Back to the party? Binge watched the first three episodes of Queer Eye (Season 7). I’m not crying, I was peeling onions (honest).
• Is John Major a woefully underrated Prime Minister? Certainly, the two either side of him (Thatcher and Blair) continue to get a lot more coverage. A wonderful pair of fascinating interviews on ‘The Rest Is Politics Leading: John Major’.

Archive

To save the links getting lost in the future I checked the Internet Archive to see what they had saved for the posts linked here. If the original source above no longer works, these should.

• The App Store Turns 15 | My first downloads
• Introducing Threads, find me as @curns. But not in Europe: Meta’s Threads app is a privacy nightmare that won’t launch in EU yet. They’re missing out on my Ryde Transport Interchange pics.
• Isle of Wight Pride event postponed due to weather forecast
• Queer Eye Season 7 | ‘The Rest Is Politics Leading: John Major’