Archive: 2025
Week 228: Not actually an island
If I told you that I went to a fair on Saturday, bought a jar of chutney from the WI, drank real ale, and watched morris dancers, you would probably form one impression in your mind. The reality was a little different: we went to the Nunhead Cemetery Open Day, and wandered amongst the stalls and the dead in a crowd of the living that contained a sizeable contingent of goths. The dancing came from the [Black Swan Border Morris][black swan], resplendent in black and purple and a lot of tattoos. We headed to the [Ivy House] for lunch, where I had that pint (Here Comes the Sun elderflower pale ale from 360 Degree Brewing Co.) and watched a repeat performance from Black Swan who had also made their way to the same pub.
Week 227: Donostia and back again
We arrived in Donostia on Sunday and, after checking in, went for a walk. We ended up in the [San Telmo museum]. The architecture – a modern concrete structure grafted onto an old convent – is interesting, but the content is varied and fascinating. The exhibition on dictatorships was particularly moving.
Week 226: Journey to the Basque Country
I’m writing late this week because we’ve been on holiday by train to Bordeaux, Donostia (aka San Sebastián) and Bilbao.
Week 225: Entering my corporate era
I woke on Monday to hear that the Pope had died. I don’t follow that team closely, but he seemed fairly liberal for a pope. That might seem like a qualification that practically negates the original statement, but of the previous two incumbents I remember, one was close to Ronald Reagan, whilst the next had actually been in the Hitler Youth.
A letter to my MP about trans rights
After seeing the way that politicians and organisations have overreacted to the recent Supreme Court judgment and interpreted it the most anti-trans light possible, I decided to send a letter (a real one, on paper) to [my MP]. Please feel free to use it as inspiration and to write to your own representative.
Week 224: Oligarchic Space Dildo
I found a convenient zero-waste shop in Peckham. There are a few around, but none of them are anywhere I go regularly, so I’m delighted to find that I can take a short stroll from the office and get refills of beans and grains and pulses and all that good stuff.
Week 223: Orange Monday
[Orange Monday] wiped about a year’s worth of contributions in value off my pension. On one hand, I absolutely do want to see an end to US global hegemony, just … not like this, and not this chaotically and precipitately.
Week 222: Line go down
I wrote in my diary last week, “Trump’s tariff madness. Is this the end of the US?”. And that was back on Thursday, when it was just beginning. It’s hard to understand what is going on in Trump’s mind, but we should maybe consider the most parsimonious explanation of all: he’s just a complete idiot with a child’s understanding of the world. He’s the man who [bankrupted several casinos], and what are the world’s stock markets if not the world’s biggest casino?
Week 221: Cell rejuvenation
I replaced the battery in my electric toothbrush. After ten years of daily use, the capacity of the NiMH cell inside had shrunk to the point that it could no longer make it through a single brushing.
Week 220: Boring grown-up stuff
I’ve been doing a lot of financial admin as it’s the end of the tax year. In one sense, it’s boring grown-up stuff, but I also find it reassuring to feel that I’m in some kind of control.
Week 219: Exploding head
We finally visited [Phantom Peak] on Friday evening. It’s all of ten minutes’ walk from our house, and we’ve both been past it enough times to be aware of it, but I had always been quite cynical. It was the recommendations from our next-door-but-one neighbours, who have been a few times (via discounted NHS staff tickets), and [from Terence], who attended a play test, that prompted us to look into it. We managed to pick up tickets for less than full price, although they probably made it up on the 2 vegan hotdogs and 4 pints of beer we had between us.
Week 218: Quinquennium
Do you ever wonder how it is that there was a massive influenza pandemic in 1918–1920 that killed tens of millions of people and yet there are hardly any explicit mentions in the literature of the period? I don’t really wonder any more. Few people want to relive the period from 2020 to 2022 in any form.
Week 217: A hostile foreign power
On Monday, a few of my colleagues were listing their gripes with the Microsoft suite we have to use, and especially SharePoint and Teams. I jokingly told them not to worry, we’ll have to migrate away from it soon, because you can’t use software from a hostile foreign power. For context, [Miro] is banned in UK government departments because of its (now mostly historical) links to Russia.
Week 216: Reunited
L— came back from her climb up Kilimanjaro (and down again, and then a few days of rest and recuperation in Zanzibar). I missed her and I was glad to welcome her home.
Week 215: Landlords in the realm of pure imagination
I spent Thursday in a windowless basement room and it was actually really good. We had an all-day in-person workshop for everyone on the three separate but connected things I’m simultaneously working on, and it was my first time to see most of them face-to-face.
Week 214: I wouldn’t say I’ve been missing it, Bob
I had a short week of work as I travelled back from Brussels on Monday. The train left a little late and arrived 20 minutes behind schedule, but that’s on time by British standards so it wasn’t really remarkable.
Week 213: A weekend in Brussels
Ten meetings in one day (to the tune of Four Seasons in One Day by Crowded House) on Tuesday marked what must be the fullest extent of meeting culture. I’ve started working out which events I can get out of by identifying the ones to which I’m invited as “optional” (although finding out is a multi-step process) and adding a label that lets me filter them out. Perhaps that will improve things.
Week 212: Suspicious barcode
Over the sea in the west, a notorious criminal returned to the imperial throne after a brief interregnum. At the coronation, his pet oligarch performed a Nazi salute. Twice. The newly-crowned emperor immediately used his powers to announce a swathe of cruel diktats and to release his supporters from the prisons where they were serving their punishments for violent insurrection.
And that was just Monday.
Week 211: I killed David Lynch
I woke up on Monday to the radio telling me that the gullible rubes running this very unserious country have announced that AI is to be “mainlined into the veins” of the nation, a policy based entirely on the latest eructation from the Tony Blair Institute. I didn’t know that the TBI had any ideas apart from ID cards, but I’m beginning to wish they hadn’t.
Bullseye
The slang term for a fifty pound note is bullseye, but I’ve never actually heard anyone use it, and why would I? You can’t actually spend a bullseye anywhere.
Week 210: Back to work
Starting back at work was a bit of a shock after two weeks off, but at least my first few days weren’t too strenuous. I worked from home on Monday and even managed a lunchtime nap. I needed it, as my sleep pattern had diverged significantly from normal working patterns over the holiday.
Generative AI is the end of knowing things
Do you know what a pink fairy armadillo looks like? It’s a small mammal with whitish fur, big scaly claws, and a squirrel-like face from which a flat cloak of armoured scutes extends all the way to its hindquarters.
Week 209: Squared
Happy new year! It’s a numerically interesting one: