Experimentally this week I switch from a card-holder to a chunky bifold wallet. On Monday I buy lunch in the canteen, and one of the servers chases after me to give me the wallet I’ve just dropped. Awkward! Right, that’s why no to wallets. This trial continues.
Between planning work that involves talking, reflecting and writing (and waiting) - this week I spent focussed time cleaning up old systems and code to simplify the planning. One involved removing a hack that Rhys, Luke and I did in 2019 which had made it into production, and another involved removing an entire line in our architecture by closing a Kinesis stream.
Later MS, MT and I meet up for dinner. We encounter an excitable man who eagerly expresses his sheer dismay at how quiet London is tonight, before asking us if we might know why - and - where he might find a crazy party. He pauses for long enough for us to send him on his way to Soho. As he walks away, I spot a toothbrush in his pocket. Dinner is fine: Katzenjammers was quiet for a Monday.
For reasons of childcare I end up doing my best improv of a food courier by collecting and carrying a few bags of Indian food up Camden High Street. Banging meal, fantastic evening.
The weather has been wet all week and the mollusks are out in full force, but my building remains unseasonably warm and nature-free. One morning a snail finds its way up multiple flights of stairs and internal doors, perching itself onto the doorframe right outside my apartment. No trail. It genuinely startled me. Suspicious.
FT Weekend Festival rolls around on Saturday, and I make the now-familiar trek to Hampstead Heath to meet DV there. I’ve been a few times now and make sure to wear long trousers and a sleeved shirt: important later. Grabbed a tote-bag on the way in and spent the day running between talks - whilst avoiding the topic of AI. My personal favourite was a panel with the author of Growth. Unfortunately I missed the Foreign Policy Briefing which was apparently exceptional.
Spotting the Raspberry Pi logo on a food truck, I strike up conversation with the people running it (FabFoodTrucks), and for £8 they give me a pile of the tastiest meats I’ve had since Fine Cut. After this point I keep being handed free drinks. We end up at the afterparty where the embargo on the topic of AI is finally broken.
Upon waking on Sunday, I realised that covering myself up was not enough: The mosquitos still somehow bit me all over, including somehow multiple times directly above my hairline!!!
EH invited a few of us over for “the last BBQ of summer”, which included meeting peoples’ partners and their kids, and a very intense game of Trivial Pursuit. I also got tips on how to keep the mosquitos away.
Some people are good with children and a few days over the past fortnight have reminded me that I am not! When we're young interacting with fellow kids (even across language barriers!) seems so natural, but as an adult it has become alien. One more for the "Things to improve about myself" pile.
