In the christmassy magical time, I:
🎭 Saw The Importance of Being Earnest at the NT, on boxing day. Camp fun with Ncuti, Sharon and Hugh.
🚘 Drove the length of the country in thick fog.
🏡 Stayed in a nice airbnb near some chickens (pictured) and the dreaded mother-in-law (not pictured).
🚘 Drove back in the sunshine.
🎤 Saw Stewart Lee Vs the Man-Wulf. His best show in years.
🎭 Saw The Lehman Trilogy at the Gillian Lynne Theatre. Incredible! But the subject isn’t scintillating to me.
🍬 Ate my own weight in crisps, cheese and chocolate but breezed through my 9th sober Xmas in a brand new onesie.
🧩 Did a jigsaw.
♟️Played board games (a newly acquired expansion for Boss Monster).
🕹️ Finished Zelda, started Bear & Breakfast and Arise. Bought Astro Bot cos it topped many a list.
🎬 Rewatched Apocalypse Now (xmas day), The Substance (NYE), Withnail & I, Barton Fink, and 24 Hour Party People. (FYI The Substance is a perfect new year film, ending with that big NYE live TV show).
🎧 Listened to much-loved tunes featuring samples from the above films: Life of the Mind by Plug, Planet of the Shapes by Orbital, London is a Country by Wagon Christ.
📺 Watched xmas specials: Doctor Who, WILTY, Buzzcocks, Quiz of the Year and Top 100 TikToks and other crap. Will get going on The Traitors tonight. Yet to watch Taskmaster’s NY Treat.
🎧 Listened to Adam & Joe’s xmas podcast (meh) and both Noel Fielding’s and Derren Brown’s Off-Menu menus (both good fun).
📓 Read all of Love as Always, Mum by Mae West. Utterly fascinating on the extremes of human behaviour and psychology, and the cultish potential of families.
📓 Started two slim tomes: Aspirationally Idle, a book on IT leadership recommended by Tix and Orbital, the 2024 Booker winner. Getting a head start on my Goodreads challenge.
🎬 Tried Megalopolis but it’s unwatchable.
✒️ Wrote up my films etc of the year and a year-end round up and resolutions. Continued to fail to write any blog posts about any things from any shops in Crystal Palace.
A few good links
I’ve mostly been trying to avoid thinking too much about work but these 5 belters snuck through.
- Things we learned about LLMs in 2024 🤯
- How we are using Service Patterns + How Service Patterns are improving UX and efficiency at EE
- 18F project defaults and must-haves when starting or joining a product team (via Matt Jukes)
- Safe or safer? How to think about cyber risk
- Designing on a cold rainy night in Stoke
Distractions
- Stevie Martin’s alternative things to cheers to
- This is a nice thing: yearly love notes 2024
Right, that’s us all caught up before January proper. I’m looking forward to a productive week from tomorrow, including first round of interviews for the brand new post of BFI’s Head of Cyber Security.
