Weeknotes #379 — Parched

This old Metropolitan Line train at Chesham is nearly ready to go, with its cargo of parched weeds.

We’ve properly entered Phil Collins season, with extremely hot temperatures dominating the week. My morning walk from Euston to the City of London is now on hiatus until either (a) it cools down again, or (b) the Tube goes on strike. The train line between Berkhamsted and London couldn’t take the heat; the rails weren’t happy, so I had to use the Metropolitan Line to and from Chesham for a day and a half of the three that I spent in the office. For some reason that I can’t fathom, this week I also had the habit of waking up at exactly 5am each day, checking my watch and then trying to go back to sleep for the hour before my alarm went off.

One evening we popped up to see my wife’s parents to check they were doing ok in the heat. Having them five minutes from us makes an emergency ice cream delivery feasible. It’s been lovely to find that their house keeps cucumber-cool in the summer and cosy in the winter.

On Saturday I annoyingly woke up even earlier than usual with a sore throat, doubly frustrating as I was due to wake up a little later — but still early — to ride the Tour de Ricky for the second year in a row. After popping a couple of paracetamol tablets and squeezing in another hour’s disturbed sleep, I got up at 5am and headed out to meet other cycling club members in the high street for the ride over to the start. I found this ride really tough this year, mainly due to the heat, but also because I wasn’t feeling well. For a lot of the ride I had it in my head that “I just want this done now”.

But it wasn’t all bad. About a quarter of the way around we found ourselves in a village, clustered with a bunch of other groups of cyclists on the same ride. The road opened up into a beautiful, smooth and flowing descent. I got myself behind Phil from West London Cycling and hung on as we breezed past everyone, with me hardly pedalling and being pulled along by the draft. It was joyous.

After a typically glamorous lunch standing on the pavement outside the Nisa convenience store in Silverstone, we set off again to cover the remaining slightly-more-than-half of the ride. I quickly spotted that my back tyre was a little squidgy but hadn’t gone flat. There was only one obvious mark on the tyre, a small cut, but whatever had got in there seemed to have left again. I decided to fill the tyre using one of my CO2 canisters and to cross my fingers that it would stay inflated. A few miles later I had my answer, leaving me no choice but to change the inner tube. You can go for many months without having a puncture, and suddenly something happens; I suspect I must have run over a piece of glass or other sharp object that cut through the tyre and nicked the tube.

By the time we made it back to the start, I was more than done. A year after it first happened, I now know that my feet get very painful in hot temperatures. When I take my shoes off I expect to see blood-soaked socks, but there are no visible marks whatsoever. London Wales London may be twice the length of Tour de Ricky, but the cooler temperatures and slower pace made it feel easier in some ways than this ride. At the end, my face was so salty that I looked like I had been prepared for long-term meat storage. I’ve spent the rest of the weekend trying to rehydrate and get some electrolytes back into my body again.

Disgustingly salty.

This was a week in which I:

Was meant to have taken the week off as holiday, but decided to cancel my leave as I had too many things going on at work that I wanted to come in for.

Enjoyed a bank holiday ride with both of my boys again, along with one of their friends. We tackled a lovely flat route north of the Chilterns, with one big climb up Ivinghoe Beacon at the end.

Learnt a bit about my family history on my dad’s side. My father-in-law has been researching the family tree for years and has been slowly discovering things on my branch too. The 1921 census is amazing, showing that my one-year-old grandfather was living in a small terraced house in Twickenham with nine other people.

Joined the inaugural project meeting with colleagues across our organisation to expand an area of our business. It’s exciting to be involved in something that is visibly growing.

Met with colleagues to discuss our first intake of summer interns, how the logistics of their first few days will work, and how we will organise the placement and work for the intern who will be joining my team.

Finalised and submitted our draft proposal for an internal scorecard.

Reviewed the final technology bill of materials with our chosen vendor for a new office.

Met with colleagues who are responsible for managing policies and standards for our group, reviewing our department’s current processes for assessing and adopting them.

Had an excellent in-person meeting with the CEO and Director of Enterprise Sales of a well-known technology company, which is also one of our vendors. As well as hearing about where their products and the company are heading, we took the opportunity to present the capabilities of our own firm and how we might be able to help their business.

Caught up with the project manager from our sister company to hear about the latest developments with their office refurbishment project, as well as changes that the landlord is making.

Went for a local team lunch in the City. The restaurant and food weren’t great, but we didn’t let it get in the way of how lovely it was to get together outside of the office as a team.

Popped back into the optician to order my new glasses and shades. Getting old is an expensive business.

Wrote to my financial adviser to see what approach my pension funds will be taking to the upcoming planned mega-IPOs of SpaceX and various AI companies. These IPOs are so large that the index providers are looking at relaxing their rules about how long it takes for a recently floated company to be included; one argument is that if these companies end up representing a massive percentage of the stock market, then buying into an index isn’t really buying the basket that is meant to represent the market as a whole. Katie Martin at the Financial Times has warned that this may be “the ‘enshittification’ of markets”:

Companies come and go out of indices all the time and investors generally do not and should not care. And if Musk’s company really is worth $1.75tn then, sure, indices would be weirdly distorted if they had a SpaceX-sized black hole in them. But if SpaceX stumbles after it lifts off and hooks straight into the veins of passive flows, there are consequences for all investors.

Had a lovely Sunday afternoon at the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust’s Nature Discovery Centre in Thatcham. My wife used one of the tools to find a halfway point between Berkhamsted, our home town, and Bristol, where her brother and his family live. It was a perfect meeting point, with lots of outdoor space, extra-long picnic tables, a good café, a beautiful lake with a path to walk around, and a playground for the youngest member of the family. Our picnic was excellent and we topped it off with a cake-fuelled celebration for my wife’s mum’s birthday.

Went to two album club events in the same week, both of which were excellent. On Tuesday at the WB-40 Album Club we heard some 1980s Australian country music courtesy of Graeme Connors, and on Friday at the original Album Club we heard the most contemporary album that we have ever played, Gans’s Good For The Soul. One of the things I love most about both of the Album Clubs is exposure to records that I would otherwise probably never have heard.

Media

Podcasts

The FT News Briefing podcast had an interesting report from their Chief Data Reporter John Burn-Murdoch about how global birth rates are falling, linking this to mobile phones:

So this is another one where I should just say, you know, everything we’re talking about here, there are theories, there are arguments. Some evidence seems stronger than others, but none of this is completely watertight. But the reason that a bunch of the researchers I spoke to are starting to point the finger more at technology and devices is that this is a simple question of time use.

If the age groups that would typically be the ones settling down and having kids are spending significant amounts of time on their phones, that is time a lot of which might previously have been spent hanging out face-to-face with their peers. And we have hard evidence on this, that the amount of time young people spend socializing in person has fallen very steeply from the late 2000s in high-income countries through to the present day.

The deep, strong relationships that lead to things like marriage, perhaps children, are the result of a lot of time hanging out with people to get there. You hang out with a lot of people to find the right person, and then you hang out with that person long enough to settle down. And if we are simply hanging out a lot less, by some measures, half as much as we used to, then that process is going to take a lot longer if it happens at all.

Articles

It was interesting to read in the Financial Times about a tool that automatically removes safety protections from AI models.

Simon Willison has an excellent write-up of Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical on AI.

I hadn’t heard about Apple’s Stolen Device Protection feature until I saw John Gruber’s mention of it in his post about a New York Times article.

Video

Finally finished The Tony Blair Story. I’m not sure that a biographical documentary made in conjunction with the main subject can ever be completely forensic in its analysis, but this wasn’t bad. I remember those first few years of his time as prime minister being full of hope, but it all went sour very quickly after 9/11. I don’t think that he could ever fundamentally change his view on whether the Iraq War was a good thing, as it would involve dismantling all of the structure and scaffolding that he has built his mind and his life around.

Continued with season two of Rivals, which is still an enjoyable romp.

Watched the BikeRadar documentary on Michael Broadwith’s record-breaking ride from Land’s End to John o’Groats in 2018. I’d struggle to maintain his speed on a club ride, let alone for 839 miles.

Started watching series two of The Assembly. Most episodes bring at least one tear to my eye. The whole series is available on YouTube.

Also started watching Paradise on the recommendation of a few different friends. We’re a couple of episodes in and I am not convinced that I’ll be able to go the distance; there’s something about it that seems wooden and contrived, with a slow reveal of the backstory through lengthy flashbacks.

Audio

It was sad to hear about the passing of Rob Base. I Wanna Rock was one of my favourite tracks on one of the first CDs I ever bought.

Watching a random episode of Top of the Pops on iPlayer uncovered I Won’t Let You Down by Ph.D., which I must have heard at some point but which felt completely new to my ears. I love that there are still so many gems out there that I haven’t heard yet.

Books

Reading Tsunami Kids has put me off eating watermelons.

Next week: Rain.