Week commencing Monday, 2 December 2024
Quantified Self
- This week: Stand 7/7; Exercise 7/7 and Move 7/7. (100%). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 63,405
Life
- How is it already Advent? Our advent calendar is coffee-based (thanks J&M!).
- I learned that the Holderness coast of East Yorkshire is the fastest-eroding coastline in Europe at 2m a year. Scary.
- Delay repay update 2: TfW agreed and were ”sorry that you experienced a delay to your journey”. My faith in the process is restored.
- More train delays on the day the government announced that South Western Railway would be the first train service to return to public ownership. But what will that do? It’s so frustrating. See below.
- Unexpected discovery of the week: my driving licence has expired. Renewal was easy, but not as easy as not noticing. The new one is issued without the EU flag on it. It saddened me.
- Christmas party 1: I don’t enjoy attending parties where I’m unsure how many people I know, as I’m not good at making small talk with strangers. I was very restrained, still really enjoyed it, and was grateful the next day.
- Related, I didn’t make my own cocktail but got one of the staff to make me an espresso martini. My drink did not look as lurid as some of them.
- Last week I listened to a lot of discussions about energy use. This week I read that the UK has likely reached “peak petrol”.
Delay (should repay)
- I’ve mentioned a lot of train delays recently; here’s this week’s adventures. I write this so that in a year I can look to see if taking trains back into government control has made any difference.
- Tuesday: Cancelled trains into Waterloo, OK homewards.
- Wednesday: Cancelled trains into Waterloo. The next train arrived with packed 4 carriages. I abandoned.
- Thursday: Morning, another packed train short-formed. Delayed homeward (train skipped all stations before Raynes Park).
- Friday: More cancelled Waterloo-bound trains. I noticed with sufficient time not to miss my on-time Portsmouth connection.
Media
- Dish podcast: Kirsty Young (Lebanese-style lamb) and Monty Don (Daube de Boeuf with macaroni gratin) were both lovely listens.
- One of those led me to Young Again with Jamie Oliver: seemingly very honest. Which led to the Malcolm Gladwell episode. I like Malcolm’s podcasts, but I felt not engaging with the premise of Young Again made him sound difficult.
- Gay Marriage and Me on iPlayer. I’m not sure why I just came across it, but I am reminded that it’s only been ten years, and less in some parts of the country. Interesting to see how many gay people of faith would like their church to marry them.