Weeknotes 151

Some disappointments and failures this week, so I’ve had to just put on my big boy pants and deal with it.

It has of course instantaneously become Christmas and every pub has a Christmas tree in the window. It feels premature but it’s kind of cosy all the same. It’s certainly cold at last.

I haven’t had a mince pie yet.

I had another great experience with the NHS: after the usual struggle to see an overworked GP, it was a very smooth process of getting blood tests the following day, a scan at the hospital the day after that, a timely follow-up call, etc.

The saga continues but every interaction makes me grateful that the vestiges of this system still function as well as they do, and that there are still good people hanging in there and doing these vital jobs. I assume it’s only a matter of time.

After 16 months of nothing happening I asked my energy company for a deadlock letter (which, to their credit, they provided quickly) so I could start a complaint with the energy ombudsman. This system is working impressively well so far — the online tool for making a complaint, for example, has much better service design than any actual energy company site — so I’m hopeful something will happen, although I have no idea whether it will.

I managed the traditional two streams and semi-unintentionally made lots of progress on the abstract syntax parser.

The first session did turn into a bit of a slog as I spent the best part of six hours on a tedious mechanical extraction of leftover parsing code from the interpreter, leading to a moment of clarity which had me questioning the entire purpose of the project.

As James pointed out, I’ve felt this emotion before.

Fortunately the second session went much better, and I even felt a twinge of satisfaction when something unexpectedly started working.

Andor: what a show. Adventure! Excitement! Believable characters who make sense! I don’t think I’ve seen a better first season in the last few years. I’m surprised to feel that way about a Star Wars property but there you have it.

I also watched relaxing one-shot restaurant drama Boiling Point and enjoyed it a lot. It’s less audacious than Victoria but still gripping and novel. Its only shortcoming is that after plenty of subtle plot development it kind of peters out at the end.

I had lunch with Alice on Thursday, which was like being hooked up to pure oxygen for a bit, probably.