Month: February 2025

Weeknotes #108: from Kyoto to Åre

A week of great food, entertainment, and cultural experiences.

Week commencing Monday, 10 February 2025

This image shows the exterior display of Sohoplace theatre at night, featuring a digital billboard for a play titled "KYOTO". The billboard includes the RSC (Royal Shakespeare Company) logo and the tagline "SAVING THE EARTH IS A FILTHY BUSINESS". The show's title is displayed in large red letters with an image of Earth in the middle of the 'O', surrounded by what appears to be splatter or debris effects.
Seeing Kyoto

Quantified Self

  • This week: Stand 5/7; Exercise 5/7 and Move 14/7. (66%). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 50,828

Life

  • It was pub quiz again. One of the rounds was really tough for us, but it turned out that it was tough for everybody. Mid-table seems to be our position.
  • Food that was batch-cooked last Sunday lasted the week. And it was very useful. Also, tasty.
  • We had an impromptu dinner at Mora Meza on Thursday night, and it was delicious.
  • If I wrote that we went to see a play that dramatises the 1997 climate change treaty negotiations in Kyoto, it would sound a bit dry. If I added that a big scene featured arguments over the placement of a comma, you might think to avoid it. In fact, the high stakes of the event – and the politics for the ten years leading up to the Kyoto summit – were gripping. A fantastic piece of theatre at Sohoplace.
  • Related, it was the first legally binding agreement to commit industrialised countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The US never ratified it. The UK met its obligations for the first commitment period, to 2012.
  • Our Valentine’s dinner was post-theatre. The later hour meant we were the only ones in the restaurant. They were packing up around us. The food was delicious, but the ambience was – perhaps – not so romantic.
  • Saturday, to see Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy at the Odeon in Streatham (£7 seems like a bargain ticket). I’m not sure I’ve seen any of the movies since the original. It’s always best to have low expectations because I came out having thoroughly enjoyed it. Bridget is now a single mother and navigating life once again looking for love, but older, if not wiser. Surrounded by the consistent group of friends (including Hugh Grant, Sally Phillips and Emma Thompson) that helped make previous films. No spoilers, but is Roxster even a name?
  • Relatedly, related. I never read film reviews until after I have seen the movie and have my own opinion. But I love how The Guardian’s website can simultaneously have a poor review (2 stars, Peter Bradshaw) and a much more positive one (4 stars, Wendy Ide). I am not sure who that’s trying to help. My review: engaging, funny and not as clichéd as imagined. Probably 4 stars.
  • We saw Patti LuPone at the Coliseum on Sunday night. As PY quipped, Old Compton Street must have been deserted. The show is just Patti and two on-stage musicians. It had ballads and musical showstoppers, and the music spans her life, woven into her story. I think it was supposed to appear unscripted, but it was a bit too slick into and out of songs to be anything other than pre-written. There was a lack of personal showbiz anecdotes and not much spontaneity, but it was a wonderful evening of song. Did we just see an icon of stage? I think we did.

Media

  • More crime drama. This week it was the turn of Netflix’s Swedish drama, “The Åre Murders”. I was expecting subtitles but got the dubbed version. It was only on episode 4 I realised I could have the original Swedish audio; by then, I opted not to. It’s good, but the underlying reason for the show – detective Hanna Ahlander retreats to Åre after facing suspension in Stockholm – is somewhat glossed over. Be prepared for a lot of snow.
  • While watching another video about Dutch transit, I discovered a new word for the bricks used in road building. Technically, it’s a Dutch word: klinkers. See also this video.
  • Jon Stewart & John Oliver Welcome America to Its Trump Monarchy Era went on a bit. The monarchy bit was funny.
  • More YouTube rabbit holes: it’s been seventeen months since I worked in Staines. But I think it now has TFL contactless payments; no promotion: Gen-Z are saying they have ‘no interest’ in middle management; James May admits he ‘weeps’ about Brexit’s impact on television.

Weeknotes #107: tofu and gardens

A week of discoveries, good food, and reflections.

Week commencing Monday, 3 February 2025

This image shows a winter scene at RHS Wisley, capturing one of its distinctive rock garden areas alongside a reflective pool of water. Despite being taken in February, the garden displays the characteristic year-round interest that Wisley is known for, with various textures and forms creating visual appeal even in the dormant season. The rockery rises in terraced levels, with moss-covered stones creating natural-looking steps and platforms. A gravel path winds through the rocky landscape, leading upwards through the garden.
A winter scene at RHS Wisley

Quantified Self

  • This week: Stand 5/7; Exercise 3/7 and Move 4/7. (57%). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 46,616

Life

  • To prove that I am nothing if not a mass of contradictions. After last week’s dive into, perhaps, useful AI, this: “The LAST thing we needed was a better way to generate plausible-looking horse shit for random gullible people to consume unwittingly, but here we are, and it’s only going to get worse.” Rachel By The Bay is also spot on. What a world.
  • Relatedly related. It was announced that Google’s Gemini assistant is being enabled at work. That would allow me to add material to the notebook service I talked about last week. I am not expecting hitherto unnoticed insights. Yet.
  • Thursday was too cold to sit out for drinks for our usual Thirst Thursday, so we moved to Mildreds, where I continued my rule of not ordering anything “chick+n” but broke my rule of avoiding tofu. The kimchi bokkeumbap, which contained salt and pepper tofu, was delicious.
  • Saturday, to the RHS gardens at Wisley. The Orchid House had colour, and there were snowdrops in bloom. I bet it’s even more impressive in summer.
  • Sunday to a crowded Ikea to buy a light. And then a tram and bus to Lower Morden Garden Centre, where we bought some new plants. To avoid carrying it, potting compost was ordered from Amazon for delivery tomorrow.
  • Note to future self: parsnip gnocchi was a lot of work, but delicious.

Media

Weeknotes #106: Happy Lunar New Year

AI experiments, personal reflections, life updates, and intriguing challenges explored.

Week commencing Monday, 27 January 2025

A sea view at Seaview

Quantified Self

  • This week: Stand 7/7; Exercise 6/7 and Move 5/7. (86%). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/5. Total steps: 58,567

The weeknotes are a bit different this week as I spent some time reading and playing with a number of AI tools, specifically using my own material—like these weeknotes—to see what the models might do with them.

Let’s talk about AI

  • Once again, there’s a lot of chatter about AI. The Chinese DeepSeek models made a big splash this week and caused US technology stock prices to plummet. It’s so overhyped.
  • Unrelated, I am experimenting with Google’s Notebook LM, using last year’s weeknotes and a collection of old blog entries from 2002/3. Even though the app says my data is not used to train the AI, I figured it’s public anyway. This is where the real power of AI will come to most people: when it can be used on their own data.
  • – I asked for a cast of characters, which came out OK, but I guess it’s a surprise for people I know IRL called Frank who the AI assumes are the subject of a drag musical. For clarity, they are not the same.
  • – Related, the AI says my weeknotes highlight “a lifestyle that values social connections, shared experiences, and cultural engagement”. I think that’s mainly because I don’t write about the hours I sit at my desk typing product requirements for work.
  • – I was pleased it said that the overall tone of the weeknotes is generally positive and reflective, but it’s missing so much information about me it made me think about how I am characterised online.
  • – In another task, the AI couldn’t distinguish between me and my father when writing about countries where I have worked.
  • In response to this, I asked ChatGPT if it knew who I was. It basically regurgitated materials I have online, which (I think) is good. Other AIs, including DeepSeek, didn’t come back with anything.
  • Google Notebook LM will produce what it calls an Audio Overview which, for me, was like somebody had created a podcast about my life as viewed through those blog entries. It was uncanny. And, yes, I think it’s very much like the fortune reader whereby much of the generic stuff sounds really personal but isn’t, but it was unnerving listening to a podcast about yourself; there was enough reality alongside the generic to make it seem like it knew more about me. It was capable of referencing cultural changes between the early 2000s and today, which made the analysis seem very real. A bit like listening to my own obituary. I can’t decide if I liked it or not.
  • There are a lot of interesting capabilities. I wonder how much longer before I decide to pay for access to more powerful models and tools?

Life

  • I am trying to arrange broadband for a place in Spain while not speaking Spanish nor understanding the format of many things. It’s more stress-inducing than I imagined.
  • On Wednesday, we passed into the Lunar New Year of the Wood Snake. At my Tai Chi class, we all wished each other a happy new year.
  • This week, I learned the government has a Hammersmith Bridge Taskforce. The taskforce met 16 times between 1st October 2020 and 25th November 2021. The bridge is still closed. Pretty terrible such vital infrastructure isn’t funded so it can be repaired.
  • Our first visit to the Isle of Wight for 2025. Delighted by how lovely it was.

Media