Weeknotes 285

The brand guidelines oblige me to mention it’s hot. It was 30 °C on Thursday and reached 34 °C yesterday. I am boiling and I don’t like it.

Gym visits: three. The heat scuppered me for most of the week but then weeknotes scared me straight and I got off my arse on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The system sort of works.

Work has indeed settled down slightly. I’m not sleeping particularly well but on this specific occasion it’s the weather’s fault.

I got out a little more this week when I wasn’t cowering in an air-conditioned office, revisiting some classics to try to recreate past pleasures. We might as well enjoy it while we can.

On Wednesday I met Tekin for lunch as he transited the capital. We went to the new Club Mexicana location which is small with a limited menu but still served up the enjoyable burrito I’d hoped for.

Thursday was a federal holiday in the US, so in the London office we took the opportunity to finish work at a more conventional hour and have some beers together in the sunshine instead of the usual video calls. Two of my teammates smuggled some homemade mango sticky rice into the pub’s outdoor terrace and we had an impromptu picnic while we played card games. Good times.

On Friday I went for dinner at a restaurant in south London which has been a favourite for many years. They’ve changed the style of their menu since my last visit and I don’t think I enjoyed it as much; where it used to be hearty, generous and family-style, now it’s gone a bit small and fussy, replacing a satisfying spread with a bite of this and a smear of that. It was tasty but I came away hungry and feeling like I hadn’t got my money’s worth.

Yesterday I met Marina for lunch at the reopened Black Cat. It’s different but still good, and in their case the portions have become even larger.

It was baking hot and London Fields was rammed on the ride home.

Today I had lunch at Merkamo followed by a frangipane swirl from Okja. Both very good in the mercifully slightly cooler weather.

I reactivated my Audible subscription and spread my bets by buying Piranesi to make myself feel clever and Project Hail Mary to make myself feel ashamed.

I haven’t started either of them yet, though. And I didn’t really want another Adrian Tchaikovsky so soon after Children of Time, but Dogs of War was ”free” with my subscription so I tapped on it and now I’m a few hours in.

It’s already threatening to interrogate the question of whether animals can be sentient, which… look, it’s not the author’s fault, but I’ve only just finished hearing Gothi and Gethli bang on about that for hours, so I’m not really in the mood. The audiobook also has three different narrators which is less enjoyable than settling into a single reassuring voice. Fortunately it’s a good story so far so I’m sticking with it for now.

I finished the first season of Pachinko. It was okay but I don’t know whether I’m motivated to watch another whole season of it.

GUTTER PRESS: I noticed the gutter was filling with stagnant water again. Not today, Satan. I bought another litter picker (I had to dispose of the last one after its stinking ordeal), reached out the window and rummaged around where I now know the drain to be. I was relieved to discover it was only a collection of twigs — presumably a misguided attempt at a nest — that had blocked it this time, and the water gurgled quickly away.

What’s the point? We’ve taken it as far as it can go.

See you next week?