Weeknotes 223

Hello. While civilisation remains, here are some idle distractions.

It’s properly spring. It was twenty degrees yesterday which meant I could go for a bike ride wearing only a T-shirt (and, you know, trousers and that) for the first time this year. It felt good to be out in the sun and cool air, weaving through Shoreditch’s packs of brunching ladies in eveningwear and lads whomst lager.

I haven’t summoned the courage to return to the gym yet. I’ll keep mentioning it here until my guilt surmounts my fear.

I did not, in fact, mess up my ISA. I emailed the bank and they said:

We kindly ask that you allow one business day for the cash to clear and settle within your account.

Makes sense. Cash does need to settle, doesn’t it, like a small nesting bird? It shows up instantly when you pay it in, but of course you must let it settle before it’s safe to disturb it again, otherwise it might get spooked.

Don’t try to do banking at the weekend is my advice.

On Monday I went to LRUG, drank precisely one beer, saw good talks by Fred and Murray, then disappeared like a phantom as soon as the last nerd finished clapping.

Then on Tuesday I met Tom for a couple of beers at The Reliance again. It’s a good, infrequent habit.

CONSUMERISM CORNER: look, the less said about this the better, but undeniably the most exciting thing to happen this week is that I bought a new television.

It’s an LG C3, replacing my B7 from March 2018. Six years is probably a decent innings for a TV, although mine got a new panel in 2021 so let’s not think about that too much.

Anyway, the C3’s a significant upgrade. Aside from the much better panel, its support for modern standards means I can rip out a rat’s nest of boxes and wires, which both reduces cabling clutter and removes an entire category of split-brain HDMI-CEC failure modes.

I spent a therapeutic morning cable-tying the few remaining components neatly into place. Everything’s fine.

I re-rewatched Dune (2021) in preparation for the sequel’s digital release next week. I enjoy it more each time I see it, because more of the detail and scope soaks into my brain, and I worry less about the plot. I’m looking forward to part two.

I’m halfway through watching Fallout. I’ve not properly played any of the games — I tried Fallout 4 when it came out but lost interest after about ten minutes, obviously — and I assumed the TV adaptation would be dreadful.

So far it’s pretty good! The tone’s a bit uneven and it relies on Old-Timey Music for too much of the heavy lifting, but it’s got impressive production design, seamless visual effects and mostly good writing & performances. I have to admit I was delighted by the casting and writing of the Mister Handy.

I tried Magibles, a vegan simulacrum of Maltesers, which are quite nice.

Their packaging boasts they contain none of the “top fourteen allergens”, prompting a game with my teammates to see how many of those allergens we could guess. The biggest obstacle was that “████” isn’t a single category, but I was pleased I got “██” despite having no idea when or how you’d ever eat that.

It was definitely the most fun I’ve had listing foods since naming fifty vegetables.

It’s clear that “Magibles” is a bad name for a product — is it meant to be a portmanteau? a pun, or otherwise a homophone? — but it’s less obvious whether it’s an improvement over the original name, “Gnawbles”, to which the same questions apply.

I don’t have any great ideas for fake Malteser product names tbh. A competing brand has gone with “Ballers” which at least makes basic sense, although my research shows that these unfortunately don’t taste of hazelnut.