Weeknotes #296 — Tipping point

Autumn leaves in Virginia Water

A typically busy week. On a couple of days I finished work and felt good about all of the things that I’d completed. This was short-lived as I then took a look at the still giant ‘to do’ pile.

Our clocks went back by an hour over the weekend. Half of our meetings are scheduled from London-based diaries and the other half from those in Johannesburg. As only one of us changes our clocks, I’m expecting the usual diary bumps for a few days.

This was a week in which I:

Wondered if other countries have as much train-related drama as we do. For two days, my regular train approached us at the station, on time … and then whistled straight past as it was half its usual size. No explanation given.

Finished writing the script for our presentation at our quarterly Technology town hall meeting, and delivered it in the session. It was a wonderfully collective effort on the part of many members of our management team, knitting together some important strategic narratives for our company along with the day-to-day work that the team has been doing. I delivered the speech again at our all-team meeting on Friday. I quite enjoy being ‘on stage’, particularly when it’s from the comfort of my desk in my home office.

Prepped for and ran our programme Steering Committee meeting. We’re a couple of weeks away from our second big milestone of the year, so attention is already turning to the things that will happen after that.

Joined a Finance meeting to hear about the future technical treatment of specific types of costs.

Completed my annual self-appraisal.

Had an introductory call with a new account manager at one of our technology and staffing vendors.

On recommendation, met another recruitment vendor who might be able to help with the vacancy in my team.

Had a call with an ex-colleague who has declared that they are ‘#OpenToWork’ on LinkedIn to see if they would be interested in putting themself forward for the role.

Raised a ticket with QNAP as the cloud backup process that runs on my NAS drive has suddenly started to report a problem. I’d deleted a whole bunch of music files that I’m never going to listen to and the Hybrid Backup Sync process now aborts every night with a 404 ‘file not found’ error.

Went with my youngest son to a small careers fair at his school. There was a diverse mix of companies on show, from the military to small local startups. It was lovely to spend some dedicated time discussing his future with him.

Joined my son’s parents’ evening sessions online from my office. I couldn’t leave work early enough to join my wife and son at home for the first appointment, so stayed at work and dialled in from there. For me, online parents’ evenings is one of the best things to come out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Took an after-work trip to a cinema in Leicester Square to see Tears for Fears Live (A Tipping Point Film) (2023). I’m always swapping recommendations for music films and documentaries with the friend who came with me, so it was good to sit and watch something together for once. The concert was beautiful and the band sounded great; Roland Orzabal’s voice continues to stun even as he moves through his 60s. I’ve not heard much of their new music and now feel like I do need to check it out.

Had some pre-cinema food at Gordon Ramsay’s Street Burger on Charing Cross Road. Grim and expensive. Would not recommend.

Went to pump up my bike tyres on Friday evening ahead of the club ride on Saturday morning. As I unscrewed the dust cap on the rear wheel, the valve shot out like a missile and the whole thing rapidly deflated. I had no idea that the valve was a detachable part. I’d been meaning to replace my bike tyres but didn’t have the energy to start after a long week at work. Approaching the job on Saturday afternoon, I found that I couldn’t get the rear wheel off. One bent multitool, a visit to a friend down the road and a trip to the bike shop later and I was finally in business. (Embarrassingly, I think I was turning the bolt the wrong way.) At some point I’m going to tackle changing the disc brake pads which the Internet tells me is simultaneously “easy” and “quite tricky”.

Various levels of faff and drama

Took advantage of Sunday’s extra hour in bed by getting up early to go and ride the route I missed the day before. It was a glorious sunny autumn morning, the kind that fills your heart and makes you glad to be alive.

Had a lovely afternoon walking around Virginia Water with our friends, followed by a late lunch at The Wheatsheaf.

Didn’t expect to love the F1 Mexican Grand Prix as much as I did. Typically it’s a relatively boring race but this one was all action.

Media

Podcasts

I’m drowning in podcasts at the moment. I’m hoping that it’s just a ramped-up schedule of the imminent US election, UK budget and the fact that the F1 season has restarted again after a second break. If not, I’m going to have to start trimming my subscriptions.

Articles

Ian Dunt’s writing is consistently excellent. His thoughts on the upcoming US election are a chilling read. His review of Aftersun, which I saw back in August, is also spot on.

Watched this as I waited for a flight a few weeks back and finished it as we took off. Turned me into a snotty, crying mess with no tissues, and no ability to get up and find any as we went skyward. Incredible film.bsky.app/profile/iand…
— Andrew Doran (@andrewdoran.uk) 2024-10-21T16:36:59.713Z

Video

Watched One Day In October on Channel 4, about the attack on Kibbutz Be’eri in 2023. I knew the subject matter would be tough, but I wasn’t quite prepared to see people getting killed on screen. What happened there is beyond dreadful. What’s happening all over the region is also beyond dreadful. There doesn’t seem to be a beginning or a feasible end to the whole thing.

Audio

Spent a little time tidying up my home music library. Years ago I worked for a lovely man who used to pass classical music CDs on to me from his extensive collection, ones that he didn’t want anymore. Having these tracks in my library has caused me more problems than the joy they have brought, with the odd random movement being included in some of the auto-generated Plexamp ‘radio’ playlists. I’ve decided that if I ever, in my remaining years, get into a new piece of classical music, I can check out whether I own it already and then add it to my collection at that point.

Web

Stopped paying for Substack newsletters after seeing what they hosted on the Hope Not Hate documentary.

Books

Finished reading Kimberly Williams-Paisley’s Where The Light Gets In and started John Major’s My Old Man: A Personal History of Music Hall

Next week: A four-day week and a short trip.