Weeknotes 42

Although I try to affect a breezy manner in these weeknotes, I hate writing and resent the way it hangs over my Sunday. Enjoy!

I’m excited to be doing some mentoring at work. I’ve started working one-on-one with a couple of super smart people who are keen to level up, and I honestly don’t think there’s anything that I find more professionally satisfying. I’ll be happy if I can find more ways to do this with more people and still get away with it.

I don’t get meeting notifications on my watch any more because I haven’t connected it to my work calendar. Back when I worked in an office I was mostly away from my computer so I relied on the watch to nudge me to finish a conversation on time and tell me where to go next. Of course now all my meetings are in the same place and I can always see my computer screen so there’s no longer any need for these reminders to be wearable. I like the feeling of having reclaimed my watch for personal uses — it’s almost exclusively an exercise tracker and bulk fermentation timer now — but it’s definitely a less useful gadget than it was in pre-pandemic times.

We began, belatedly, to watch the current series of The Great British Bake Off. With each passing series it inches nearer to pure unwatchability and, although it still hasn’t quite crossed the line, it’s now getting incredibly close. I like watching people try to bake things, but having Noel Fielding lean into frame to say “imagine if, instead of a cake, you were baking the concept of regret! that would be mad!” every five minutes isn’t an improvement.

We watched Antrum, a spooky mockumentary whose vibe is woozy Boards of Canada occult dread meets simulated retro cinematography — a sort of Don’t Look Around You Now (I’m very pleased about this joke). It was watchable despite being one of those films that’s clearly better in concept than execution. The premise is creepy when you think about it but when you see the actual film it comes off as cheap and clichéd. I liked the squirrel.

I couldn’t face exercising to any more rubbish films so I’ve begun working my way through Community instead. It took me a few episodes to warm up to its wink-wink tone but then Introduction to Statistics made me laugh and now I’m fully on board. I just checked and am happy to report there are 110 episodes.

I enjoyed the extra hour of sleep this morning but didn’t enjoy the early sunset. The sole upside is a week of being only four hours ahead of my Canadian colleagues so I’ll get to spend a bit more time with them without sacrificing my evenings.

THE SYSTEM WORKS: Kelv was kind enough to clean up the old dates on gov.uk/when-do-the-clocks-change after I complained about it. Thanks!