weeknotes – Hello Curns

Weeknotes #168: 17 years to fix

Busy travel, volunteering, and finally fixing a long-standing website issue.

Week commencing Monday, 6 April, 2026

Exterior of The Crabtree pub on a rainy day, showing a red brick building with a covered outdoor terrace, decorative iron columns, rattan garden furniture, and signage reading 'Craft Beer, Food, Coffee, Ales'. — Rain or Shine, It’s Roast Dinner Time

Quantified Self

This week: Stand 6/7; Exercise 5/7 and Move 5/7. (81%). Morning walks: 0/3. Office days: 1/4. Total steps: 55,303. 10 hours in meetings.

Life

The engineering works meant that trains returning from Shrewsbury were very busy. I am glad that I got to Moor Street early, as that enabled me to secure a seat. I would not have been able to sit in the aisle all the way to London, as some people did.
Tuesday, an after-work dash to the Co-op for a pizza for dinner because I had my first volunteer training session for the ITTF World Team Table Tennis Championships Finals, which come to London later this month.
Then, on Saturday, to the Copper Box Arena in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park for more volunteer training. We got a tour of the venue with some of the championship organisers; it was impressive how much detail they had already worked through—where walls would go up, how people would move around—and it was fascinating to hear.
Almost five years ago, in my second-ever weeknote, I wrote that I had a website that broke my rules about sustainable URL schemas. Somewhere around 2009, I’d upgraded musak.org and, in the process, broken most of the links within the site. I fixed this 17-year-old task on Friday, with guidance from ChatGPT. The task was simply waiting for the right moment to be resolved, and that moment needed AI to balance effort and output.
Related, this dead link, http://www.musak.org/entries/2003/07/another_russian_birthday.shtml, will now resolve to the right place.
My dentist now recommends Netflix shows as part of the service. Will I ever watch Younger or Jane the Virgin?
Sunday, for a “trio of meats” lunch: gammon, turkey and beef, Yorkshire pudding with stuffing. Delicious.

Media

The new Race Across the World has started, but it’s too early to have picked my winners.
I watched the first episode of The Newsreader, a critically acclaimed Australian drama set in a commercial television newsroom. It took me a while to get into the rhythm, but the major news event of the first episode is the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in January 1986. Using that real event as its backdrop made the tension feel believable.
On Channel 5, Jane McDonald went to Nashville across two evenings, where she dives into the world of country music—without the cruise ship, for once. Part of the premise is that she’s in a Nashville studio recording tracks for her new album, Living the Dream, claiming she’s always been a bit country because her songs tell stories. It’s arguably one long advert for the album, but fun.

Weeknotes #167: Shrewsbury and Easter

Easter travels, good food, nostalgia, and small wins along the way.

Week commencing Monday, 30th March 2026

Birmingham Moor Street railway station, a red-brick building with arched windows and period details, seen on a bright day with people walking past and gathering near the entrance; the station served as a key part of Easter weekend travel. — Moor Street: essential stop on Easter weekend journey

Quantified Self

This week: Stand 5/7; Exercise 3/7 and Move 3/7. (52%). Morning walks: 0/3. Office days: 1/4. Total steps: 39,476. 13.4 hours in meetings.

Life

Middling at the pub quiz this month. Let’s move on.
Recording a message for the West Shropshire Talking Newspaper took me a lot longer than I anticipated because every room echoed too much.
After-work beers were nice on Thursday, but it was also nice that they finished early and I could get home to pack.
If you don’t ask, and because I did, they let me on an earlier train than the one I’d booked on Good Friday. Engineering works meant I had to go via Birmingham Moor Street station.
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday lunches were all in restaurants around Shrewsbury. All different and all very good.
I found things in the loft that I had not looked at for more than thirty years. Fascinating.
On Easter Sunday, an egg hunt around the garden, and then the Easter trail around Attingham Park.
Exciting: Artemis II launched successfully, sending astronauts on a crewed flyby of the Moon for the first time in decades.

Media

Of interest: Can Europe’s public service media survive attacks by the far right?
Full Disclosure: The live edition in which James O’Brien charts Gary Lineker’s extraordinary career.
Game Changers Radio: A life on the air, the Kyle Sandilands story and Inside the breakdown of Kyle and Jackie O
YouTube: Why Waterstones Chose the Customer & Won and Tom Scott’s I helped break a 142-year-old bell, and that’s okay.

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.

Weeknotes #161: Concorde, curling, and crypts

Morning walks, culture, books, parties, theatre, and perspective.

Week commencing Monday, 16 February 2026

Interior of St Martin-in-the-Fields church filled with blue, green, and violet light projections during the Luxmuralis “Space” light and sound show, highlighting the ornate vaulted ceiling, chandeliers, classical columns, and a seated audience below. — Cosmic light washes over St Martin-in-the-Fields.

Quantified Self

This week: Stand 7/7; Exercise 7/7 and Move 7/7. (100%). Morning walks: 3/4. Office days 1/5. Total steps: 81,336. 15.8 hours in meetings.

Life

Oh, look, back to the morning walks. How long will I last? It really is better to be outdoors first thing.
As a long-time fan of radio, I’ve wondered how we’ve got to a point, almost 30 years after DAB’s introduction, where FM is still a thing. The government is consulting again. Reddit is, of course, saying, ‘but what about in an emergency’, which is really a rather bogus argument, as James Cridland once pointed out.
Relatedly, on that same Reddit thread, somebody talked about building a crystal radio: “There’s probably something to be said for having a communication medium that you can receive on bits of household scrap.” And that tells me that we all live in a bubble where our own experiences are deemed the norm.
I finished a book. It was Jonathan Glancey’s Concorde, The Rise and Fall of the Supersonic Airliner. I started this in lockdown, so it’s been five years of reading. I faltered in the early stages because it was quite technical in its history of supersonic flight, but I found it easier once Concorde arrived. It ends with the author’s downbeat take on the bland planes in our skies today and a lament that, in the UK, the infrastructure that helped create Concorde is no more.
Thursday, to St Martin-in-the-Fields for Space by Luxmuralis, a light and sound show. It begins outside the church before moving into the Crypt, and then up into the main body of the church for a fifteen-minute piece set to music that traces the creation story, the Big Bang, and ends with an image of Earth seen from space beneath a galaxy of stars. I enjoyed it. We sat through the light show twice.
To L’s postponed Christmas party on Saturday night. Great to catch up with people we only see once a year, and the curling was on in the background — it turned out that quite a few of us had been following it. Team GB’s men had made it to the final, though it wasn’t to be gold for them.
Best not to check about the crazy man at the bus stop on the way home. Quite relieved there was security on the bus.
To the Theatre Royal Drury Lane for To Maury With Love, a one-off celebration of the composer Maury Yeston’s eightieth birthday. There was a full orchestra on stage, and the music, however unfamiliar, was lovely.
Yeston wrote a Phantom musical based on the same source material that Lloyd Webber adapted. The interesting backstory is that Lloyd Webber’s version became a phenomenon in part because the novel was already in the public domain in Britain in 1986 but not yet in the United States, where the rights holder had originally approached Yeston to work on it. Yeston has called his Phantom “the greatest hit never to be produced on Broadway”. I guess you have to have an ego.

Media

My YouTube week: I watched the final DownieLive episode of the train journey from Europe to Asia, which sent me off to watch the stunning luxury train journey in Vietnam and the impressive ways you can use a Swiss rail pass. The lot is going on my bucket list.
More Olympics: the Women’s Freeski Big Air final from the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympic Winter Games at the Livigno Snow Park. The commentators’ enthusiasm helped make it a fantastic watch.
Really enjoying Small Prophets, Mackenzie Crook’s BBC Two series about a man who turns to alchemy and homunculi in search of answers after his girlfriend disappears.

Weeknotes #160: almost perfect weeknotes

Curious coding, cultural moments, and quietly celebratory evenings.

Week commencing Monday, 9 February 2026

Promotional A-board sign for the musical 'Already Perfect' showing three male performers, positioned on a tiled floor alongside other advertising boards for a restaurant, gaming arena and bowling venue. — Theatre meets pizza: an entertainment complex advertises everything at once.

Quantified Self

This week: Stand 6/7; Exercise 4/7 and Move 15/7. (71%). Morning walks: 0/4. Office days 1/5. Total steps: 38,516. 11.8 hours in meetings.

Life

I think I “vibe coded” this week. At least, I rambled into an AI assistant chatbot thing and ended up with working software.
Related, the post I wrote about the experience must have partly been inspired by watching that programme about Pompeii.
And no, the name Algorithmus wasn’t mine. I asked an AI, which came up with far more detail than I wanted: “Instead of a lightning bolt, he carries the Monolith—a perfectly smooth, black slab of obsidian that reflects the viewer’s soul back at them (while recording the data)”.
Research by Clarion Security Systems estimates that more than 942,000 CCTV cameras operate across London. Smile, you’re on camera.
Related, I learned that AI-powered emotion analytics software, which is supposed to be able to tell if you’re having a bad day at work, is an industry valued at approximately $9.13 billion. Keep smiling, the camera’s judging you.
I’ve not yet completed 2025’s yearnotes, but I did the annual book photo. My previous yearnotes can be read here if you’re wondering what I am on about.
And concrete lovers are rejoicing, as the 1960s Southbank Centre, which includes the Hayward Gallery, Purcell Room, Queen Elizabeth Hall and skatepark undercroft, has been Grade II listed.
The King’s Head Theatre is no longer in the King’s Head pub. But we still saw Already Perfect, the autobiographical musical written by and starring Levi Kreis. His life, growing up in rural Tennessee, enduring six years of conversion therapy, being expelled from a Christian university and later working as an escort in Los Angeles, is a million miles from my own. It’s heavy in places.
Thursday, to the pub. An evening of putting the world to rights and a relatively civilised departure. On the way back, I remembered to pick up a copy of The Evening Standard for PY.
Saturday, lovely food to celebrate the Lunar New Year: various dumplings and buns, and a hot pot brought to the table for us all to help ourselves. It was a very pleasant evening, although poor W spent most of the time in the kitchen.
Sunday, I was planning to tidy and decided to start with a box of old photographs. That morphed into a day of scanning and organising pictures so that I could get rid of the physical prints and free up some space.
Since we were out on Saturday night, we decided to celebrate Valentine’s Day today with a delivery from Sticks’n’Sushi. At £82, it’s not cheap, but it is some of the best restaurant sushi I’ve had.

Media

On Tuesday night, we ended up watching (most of) The Truman Show. It is interesting how clearly it predicted the world that followed. In 1998, when it was released, “reality TV” was still new, and the idea of being constantly watched felt dystopian rather than aspirational. Now, every influencer is Meryl, delivering product placements directly to the camera.
On the train home on Thursday, I resumed the Game Changers Radio podcast and learned more about Brisbane radio than I strictly need to know.
Lots of Winter Olympics coverage watched: Friday, I didn’t understand the description of any of the Snowboard Half-Pipe final, but the commentators were infectious, and the excitement was incredible. I could have watched all night.
Sunday, we watched Team GB make history by winning two Winter Olympic titles on the same day for the first time, as Matt Weston and Tabitha Stoecker clinched mixed team skeleton and Charlotte Bankes and Huw Nightingale won snowboard cross gold.
And our men’s curlers suffered their second defeat but, hopefully, remain on course for a semi-final place, with an extra-end loss to Switzerland.

Weeknotes #159: buns, binge, bridges

Rainy week, resilient leaps, food risks, thoughtful station tour.

Week commencing Monday, 2 February 2026

Modern entrance to London Bridge Station with glass canopy and metallic lettering on beige brick facade, Union Jack and British Rail flags visible on left — Not falling down: London Bridge Station stands strong

Quantified Self

This week: Stand 6/7; Exercise 3/7 and Move 4/7. (62%). Morning walks: 0/4. Office days 1/5. Total steps: 41,471. 15.3 hours in meetings.

Life

I was at home for much of the week. I went to the office once. I am not sure I left the house on weekdays other than for a small shopping run. It rained a lot.
Related, they’re still working on the water pipes in the street. Their digging has blocked a storm drain. I have to leap puddles to cross the road.
Relatedly related, I don’t leap well, and I discovered my shoes are not waterproof.
We got a gigantic hot cross bun this week. It wasn’t quite as good as I’d hoped.
Food-related, on Tuesday my Vietnamese pho had been sitting on the hob for several days. I survived its consumption.
Sunday, to London Bridge Station for a tour, where it ceased to be somewhere to pass through and became something to look at. The tour focused on the station and its immediate surroundings: the arrival of competing lines, the coexistence of two stations, and the long process that eventually fused them into the sprawling place we know now. Very well done.

Media

I watched, more or less, the entire season 4 of Bosch in a binge this week. It might explain why there’s not a lot else to say.
I also discovered there were a few episodes of Love, Victor I hadn’t watched, so I finished them. Love, Victor seemed a little too neatly tied up at the end. I suppose that’s good for the kind of show it was. It’s a shame they didn’t take it for another couple of series.
We watched an episode of Roman Empire by Train with Alice Roberts. It has a lot about the Roman Empire and is presented by Alice Roberts. There’s really not much train in it.
Related, the episode focused on Pompeii, which looked absolutely amazing. Even though it’s being horrendously overrun by tourists, it seems like a place we should visit.

Weeknotes #158: still out after dark

Thoughtful outings, cultural highlights, and small wins amid winter evenings.

Week commencing Monday, 26 January 2026

Colourful light installation reflected in water at Canary Wharf's Eden Dock at night. Vibrant rainbow beams of red, blue, yellow, and green light form geometric patterns across the water surface, with modern office buildings in the background and spectators viewing from behind barriers in the foreground. — Amplitudes transforms Eden Dock with rainbow light reflections.

Quantified Self

This week: Stand 6/7; Exercise 4/7 and Move 7/7. (81%). Morning walks: 0/3. Office days 2/5. Total steps: 51,782. 14.5 hours in meetings.

Life

Hello February! Where did you come from?
Here’s a story about social media’s made-up lies about immigrants in London. This should be a bigger story because thousands will have seen the original fibs (original reporting by London Centric and ht to The London Minute for linking to it).
Monday afternoon, I chat-botted with Bose support to see if there was anything that could be done about the terrible battery life in my very old noise-cancelling headphones. They gave me a sequence of things to try (plug, unplug, pair), and they came alive. So far, the results are very positive. They may be salvageable.
Monday evening, to Canary Wharf to see the Winter Lights. It’s an event that’s been running in January for a few years and is very suitable for dark winter evenings. It can get very busy, so we thought trying a Monday night might be better. Still plenty of people, but no overcrowded areas like in some years.
Ironically, a non-light art piece, “Whale on the Wharf”, was my favourite.
A leaving do had been planned for this week with no firm day. Today, we agreed to meet tonight. So I found myself drinking Black Heart stout at the BrewDog in The Sidings below Waterloo Station.
Related, Frickles tasted more of the batter than the pickle.
Relatedly related, bowling was fun. So was the slide.
Thursday, fun with AI that wouldn’t revert to the working version of the code, even after I explicitly gave it the last working version.
Later, nice to be in the pub with colleagues: it’s why I go to the office.
Friday, to Southwark Union Theatre to see Why Would We Care?, a new British musical premiering there, exploring themes of power, control, and the cost of a “perfect” society. Fun, but needs work.
Saturday, Number One, London (Apsley House) is worth visiting. Lots of impressive ‘history stuff’! And pictures of Napoleon. And an overly large statue of Napoleon. It’s also very unshowy, in spite of the world-leading art collection, and you could be forgiven for missing it.
I could have missed The Destination Travel Show as we really didn’t find South Korean inspiration.
Sunday, an evening of musical performances at Love Life: West End Unites Against Cancer, a star-studded benefit concert coinciding with World Cancer Day.
A lot of stars of recent big musicals were on the line-up: Nicole Scherzinger (Sunset Boulevard, Cats), Tom Francis (Sunset Boulevard, & Juliet), Diego Andrés Rodriguez, Bella Brown, and James Olivas (Evita), as well as West End favourites, including Carrie Hope Fletcher and Jordan Luke Gage. Very, very, good.

Media

We watched more episodes of Blue Lights, but I am not sure either of us was fully engaged.
Later in the week, the first episode of Heated Rivalry. I knew very little about it ahead of watching, except that it was recommended by Amanda, and the TV series has catapulted the story into the stratosphere.
The book apparently perfected a specific trope: the grumpy vs sunshine—or, in this case, the arrogant chaos-agent vs the repressed golden boy—dynamic. This TV adaptation debuted with a 95% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which seems remarkable. I need to watch more; they say episode three is where you get hooked.
Also, two episodes of Alexander Armstrong In South Korea, where the presenter embarks on a three-part travelogue across South Korea, exploring the contrast between ancient traditions and futuristic K-pop culture. Some inspiration for our trip.
Related, watching Alexander Armstrong watching YouTube “mukbang” star Heebab perform “broadcast eating” did not make me search it out.
Hoorah. Game Changers Radio is back after the Christmas, and for them, summer, break.

Weeknotes #157: enjoyed, bought book

Thoughtful culture, good conversation, strong performances, and quietly satisfying social moments.

Week commencing Monday, 19 January 2026

Sondheim’s twisted fairy tale magic illuminates The Bridge Theatre.

Quantified Self

This week: Stand 7/7; Exercise 5/7 and Move 6/7. (86%). Morning walks: 0/3. Office days 2/5. Total steps: 56,651. 16.5 hours in meetings.

Life

I think this is the new world: The only way to counter “move fast and break things” is to move fast and fix things, and I don’t think enough people realise it.
Do you know your Iceland from your Greenland? If you are trying to get your hands on land, it would be sensible to know which land you are getting.
Monday, to the Bridge Theatre to see Into the Woods: visually impressive, with great performances. A revival that balanced the wit and the dark themes. Kate Fleetwood as the Witch is a joy. Delightful.
Wednesday, to see Jake Humphrey and Damien Hughes talk about High Performance. Essentially, it was an interesting 75-minute discussion trying to flog you a book. And it worked.
Thursday, to drink Beamish with people in central London. They served Irish crisps. Huw tried to say something in Welsh, but I didn’t understand.
Related: before we met in Covent Garden, we discovered the bowling alley near work has a bar that, it seems, nobody knows about.
Saturday, fixing email issues. And then to The Ivy Tower Bridge for their £19.17 two-course menu. Naturally, we didn’t just stick to that and ended up with a bigger bill. There’s a certain irony in going for the cheap menu and spending considerably more.
Sunday, to The Crazy Coqs for Behind the Mask, their Phantom of the Opera event. Quite different from the other events we’ve been to. We really enjoyed it. There were some incredible voices performing. Greg Castiglioni, who is playing in The Phantom of the Opera in Vienna, sang “Music of the Night” in German.

Media

With appropriately planned catch-ups, we were only one episode of The Traitors behind on Friday night, so we watched through to the end. The people I wanted to win, won.

Weeknotes #156: frozen trousers week

Domestic resets, transport surprises, thoughtful work moments, and reassuringly good food

Week commencing Monday, 12 January 2026

"A yellow sticky note on a dark grey surface with a handwritten checklist in blue ink. Four checkbox squares are drawn on the left side, with the first and fourth boxes ticked. The text reads 'Performance Review' and 'Checklist 2025'. — Review time. Get ready!

Quantified Self

This week: Stand 7/7; Exercise 3/7 and Move 6/7. (76%). Morning walks: 0/4. Office days 1/5. Total steps: 37,715. 16.5 hours in meetings.

Life

There was a lot of post-Christmas washing done at the start of the week. We went from smelling of pine needles to smelling of laundry conditioner.
I had to freeze some trousers. It didn’t work as well as I had expected.
Note to self for next time: get the printing ready, pay for it at home, and then walk to the library with the code that unlocks the documents. I think that would be easier.
The government has announced it will build a new railway between Birmingham and Manchester. It’s not HS2, honest.
It’s performance review time at work. We have a process that encourages reflection on the year, and I took time to prepare my thoughts. The effort felt worthwhile; for once, I had something proactive to contribute when the meeting itself came around.
I went for drinks. Discovered that younger people don’t know how the BBC is funded. Not much hope for the BBC if this is the opinion of future generations.
Related, sensibly rejected the suggestion to move on to a later-opening bar.
A very productive Friday. Surprising.
Sad news arrived: Zipcar confirmed it is shutting down in the UK. Disappointed.
Got to Euston on Saturday morning and wished I owned a car as all services were suspended. Then, miraculously, my train left, and I was only ten minutes late.
The suitcase was delivered to Shrewsbury.
Saturday, the dish of “belly pork bites with black garlic glaze, chilli, spring onion, parsley and caramelised onion aioli” was delicious. If small.
Sunday, the lamb roast was the opposite: a huge portion. Also, very tasty.

Media

By the end of the week, we had caught up with the broadcast version of The Traitors and now we can’t run into spoilers. It’s very good, but bad for my blood pressure.
When in Shrewsbury for the weekend, we watched the semi-finals of the Johnstone’s Paint Masters snooker championship. I was so hooked, I started watching the final on the iPlayer on the train home on Sunday.

Weeknotes #155: innuendo, interruptions, and insights

A reflective week of culture, transport mishaps, and quietly pleasing observations

Week commencing Monday, 5 January 2026

A large-scale photographic artwork composed of a grid of panels showing repeated newspaper headline posters. The word 'MURDER' appears prominently in red capital letters throughout multiple panels against a black and white background. The headlines reference various crimes and incidents including student murders, jogger attacks, and police investigations. Two suited male figures appear in the central panels of the grid composition. — Tabloid headlines transform urban tragedy into a visual cacophony. Gilbert & George, London Pictures series (2011)

Quantified Self

This week: Stand 6/7; Exercise 3/7 and Move 6/7. (71%). Morning walks: 0/4. Office days 1/5. Total steps: 49,424. 18.8 hours in meetings.

Life

This year, I am tracking a new QS metric: the number of hours I am in calendared work meetings. I thought it would be interesting to see.
The story of Markdown reminded me how much simpler the web was when self-publishing began. I still write these notes in Markdown.
Monday’s pub quiz provided a high score for us, but no prizes for third. I was pleased with myself for identifying “A Kind of Hush” in the music round, but immediately irritated that I said it was by the New Seekers when it was, in fact, The Carpenters.
Tuesday, it’s bigger, better, glitzier, and (probably) more expensive than ever. It’s a smut-filled delight, anchored by the King of Innuendo: the Palladium panto, which I reviewed for you.
Thursday, people had said Daniel’s Husband was good, and I am delighted to have kept to my “don’t read any details” rule because this play benefits from that lack of pre-knowledge. But you can read my spoiler-light review.
Friday night, there was a tree on the line. We were diverted and then terminated early. As much as I love it, sometimes train travel is a frustrating pain.
Saturday, I said “good morning” to a bus driver when it was clearly afternoon, found out the coastal path is now named after the King, and had a lovely time by a wood fire.
By the wood fire, I talked about my recent radio stats post. PY thought an interesting additional view that would give better context would be to understand how much time we were spending with each type of audio. So, the chart’s here on page 11. Sixty-five per cent of our audio consumption is live radio, plus another 3% for catch-up.
Sunday, Gilbert & George use the Evening Standard, and probably other newspapers, headline boards as part of their art. There’s an upcoming generation that won’t understand what they are and, therefore, the inspiration for the art.
Related, very glad I got to see the G&G exhibition. It’s big, bold, and probably not as controversial as it might once have been.

Media

Grantchester is back. There are almost as many murders here as in Midsomer. And the vicar is still allowed to interview suspects. Cosy fun nonsense.
We started series two of Blue Lights. I’ve forgotten much of the first season, so I can’t work out what’s new and what’s recurring. Definitely not cosy.
We started The Traitors. This is the first time I have watched the non-celebrity version. Don’t tell me.

Weeknotes #154: here comes another one (year, that is)

A gentle, celebratory start to the year, filled with shared rituals.

Week commencing Monday, 29 December 2025

Distorted fisheye reflection in a gold Christmas tree bauble showing a person holding a phone taking a selfie, with Battersea Power Station's iconic chimneys and blue sky visible in the curved reflection, framed by green pine needles — Battersea Power Station captured in spherical festive form.

Quantified Self

This week: Stand 7/7; Exercise 3/7 and Move 6/7. (76%). No work this week.Total steps: 62,837

Life

Hello 2026! Aren’t you looking fine?
Monday afternoon, we all walked to The Lockdown Bakehouse, where there was cake and coffee. When we returned, we watched Peter Ustinov in Death on the Nile.
Tuesday, a matinee performance of Disney’s Hercules (the musical). It’s the everyday story of the son of Zeus being stripped of his immortality as an infant, who must perform a series of heroic feats and prove himself a “true hero” on Earth to reclaim his place among the gods on Mount Olympus. You see this kind of thing everywhere, every day! Review: it’s not on the level of The Lion King.
Bong: I went outside so that I could usher in the New Year when Big Ben bonged for the first time in 2026. Champagne and music on television, plus we used the last of the indoor fireworks outside to create our own tiny display. People gradually drifted to bed over the hours to 3 a.m.
Related, I was in the kitchen by 8:30 a.m. to cook the breakfast I promised everybody (although people took a while to appear).
Friday, Battersea Power Station has been beautifully decorated for Christmas. We didn’t buy anything in the shops, preferring instead to stand and look at the turbine halls in their glittering glory.
Saturday, rather than doubling back underground, we decided to walk from Marylebone to Waterloo. It turned into a really pleasant route through Mayfair, across Piccadilly and down towards the South Bank. The sky was a clear blue, the air crisp but not cold, and the streets were busy enough to feel alive without being pre-Christmas crowded.
Sunday, we took the tree down. The room felt bare without it.

Media

NYE: Kiss Me, Kate, filmed live in 2024 at the Barbican. Adrian Dunbar, from Line of Duty fame, starred alongside Stephanie J. Block. Brilliantly done; I now wish I’d seen it live.
New Year’s Day: watched the new Knives Out film — Wake Up Dead Man — on Netflix. It’s full of odd characters and a plot with twists, but, strangely, Benoit Blanc is pretty much absent for the first third.
Sunday, Marty Supreme on the big screen. See it for the style and the performances, but make sure you have a comfy seat and don’t expect to fall in love with the hero. I wrote a fuller review.