Week 26

📝 Life Notes

• Survived the heat wave. We got to the high 20s here which, frankly, is both scary and so totally out of our norm that it was a struggle. I do wonder what kind of world my son will grow up in.
• Speaking of, I had a day at Blair Drummond Safari Park on Saturday with Jack, got there at 9:30am, left at 4pm. He loves the play areas, and the animals —we spent 20 mins at the giraffe house alone. He’s just the funniest, curious, most lovable wee guy at the moment! Long may it continue.
• Vera failed her MOT so she was away to get her brakes fixed on Tuesday, and the headlight issue sorted too. Except, they didn’t sort it. Thankfully the MOT garage (different to the ‘fixer garage’) did a quick check and phoned me, rather than fail the MOT again. Tried to get the faulty unit out myself but it’s one of those super awkward spots that I just can’t quite get my hand into so… off to another garage she will go. Needs must.
• Scotland out of the World Cup, and the manager has quit. We looked reasonable in small moments in every game, but over the whole we didn’t deserve to go through. I think I agree with Ian Wright that the entire infrastructure needs looked at. If Norway can do it, why can’t we?

📚 Books

• The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn – loved it. A story arc that covers a small, oddly formed, family through their childhood and into adulthood during the Second World War. Gently touching on so many topics, whilst building entrancing characters, it was just a beautiful beautiful read.

📰 Articles

• swissmiss | Levels of Agency — Tina has a great eye for interesting things, this is definitely one. Which Level of Agency is yours? I’m a somewhere in the 3-5 mix I think.
• The French aristocrat and the all-American idiot: Henry v Lalas is the World Cup’s most compelling battle | World Cup 2026 | The Guardian — Not being American, or having access (thank fuck) to Fox, I wasn’t aware of this. But ohhh Thierry Henry is a class act!
• Newsonaut: Turning inner space into outer space — AI is not for writing. It’s a tool, handy for research, to challenge laid out ideas maybe, but it’s terrible at writing prose. I know. I’ve tried it.
• The WordPress exodus – Down the Road — More thoughts on WordPress which is making me have more thoughts on why I still use WordPress.
• The Seven Meanings of “Fine,” in Descending Order of Plausible Deniability – McSweeney’s Internet Tendency — I said, I’m FINE.
• Andrew Tate and the Business of Male Misery – The Grumpy Welshman — “The grift is convincing a generation of young men that their unhappiness is someone else’s fault”
• The Dirt That Refused To Die | Quanta Magazine — Go soil! Yay dirt! We still have so much to learn about this planet that we are slowly killing.

📺 Media

• Star City – It’s so good, the tension, the subterfuge, it’s all so well played out. Top TV.
• Sugar – forgot how stylish this show is, even in the first episode it picks up nicely where it left off (I did watch the recap as it’s been a while).

🎧 Music

• Alanis Morrisette, Skunk Anansie, Wet Leg – cos we are seeing all three live on Tuesday!

🫀 Health

• Current Weight: 109.4kg. Small drop but still, just, on track!
• Avg. Sleep: 6h 22mins. Almost the exact same as last week. Why? World Cup is why.

🗓️ Next Week

• Alanis Morrisette gig on Tuesday so I took Monday and Tuesday off work. I’ll then no doubt be cramming 5 days work into the remaining 3. Hopefully get Vera’s headlamp replaced and back for MOT.