2026-10

I’ve been waiting for the plum tree in our garden to bloom since we moved in last year. This week it did.

I went to see York City play away at Boreham Wood on Tuesday evening. As is customary when I attend a game, we lost. In this case also ending a 24-game unbeaten streak. On the plus side I got to spend some quality time with my oldest friend.

I spent most of the day at Royal Brompton on Wednesday as part of the clinical trial I’m involved in. I’ve written a lot about what this involves in the past and there’s not much to add (I’m doing OK!).

Chelsea’s weird innit? If misfortune lands you in that part of West London have lunch at unassuming noodle bar Phât Phúc. It’s one of my favourite places to eat.

Chris and James travelled in to London on Friday. It was great to catch up - we sorted out some (r)admin, caught up on life, put the world to rights and ate some lunch. Restorative stuff all round.

In order to bribe reward the kids for being generally great while A- was away earlier this year we promised to take them back to Coral Reef Waterworld in Bracknell. It’s a bit of a shlep just to go swimming. But there’s no pool like it closer to home. We all had a lot of fun on the 5(!) waterslides, pirate ships and water volcano.

The Colonization of Confidence by Robert Kingett is a fantastic short story about writers fighting back against AI slop.

So the Tech Bros, in their infinite mediocrity, decided to bypass the human element entirely. They built a machine that scrapes our work—our pain, our joy, our very souls—without consent, grinds it into a mathematical slurry, and extrudes it as a flavorless, inoffensive paste that can be sold by the bucket