Andrew Doran

With this many crisps, it can only be an Album Club. August has been a strange month to work through. The office has been quieter than usual as people have been off for their summer holidays. Unintuitively, the emptier the office is, the harder it is to concentrate, as your ears tune in to individual conversations. I’m hoping that things will get bustling again as the calendar flips to September. This was a week in which I: Got plugged into an AI forum and turned up with a bunch of questions on…

The temperature dropped by about ten degrees, bringing clouds and even a little bit of rain. I went in search of a pair of jeans for the first time in a couple of months, putting away the shorts for a while. I promise I’ll never complain about regular old ‘mildly warm’ British weather ever again. It’s lovely right now. Work-wise, this week was a challenge. There are some big changes happening that bring some uncertainty, and by the end of the week I felt that I was even further away from…

Finished reading Steve Marriott: All Too Beautiful by Paolo Hewitt and John Hellier. I’ve been a big Small Faces fan since I was a teenager in the 1990s. I knew the basic story arc of Steve Marriott’s life, but this filled in lots of the detail. The book makes the point that if Marriott had survived a few more years beyond his horrible death in 1991, he would surely have had a big renaissance through the Britpop crowd. An informative read, but I found the writing style really grating in places.

I’ve been thinking more about these weeknotes, pondering whether it’s time to explore a different format. Six years ago, I made a note that I was inspired by Ton Zijlstra’s format, and it’s served me well. But I’ve stopped looking forward to documenting my week as much as I used to. Part of my reluctance to change is that I feel like I have less time than I did before, and that writing more freely will take more of it. Somehow — and I don’t know how — I used to sit down to write, edit and…

Back to work after being out of the office for a couple of weeks. I’d left myself a reminder to go to the right location, as we’d had a seating shuffle while I’d been away. We had an extraordinary number of people saying that they were cold at their new desks, but, weirdly, the complaints were distributed across the whole office. From the data, we could see that it had been gradually getting colder everywhere in our space over the past few weeks. I’m not sure what the opposite of ‘boiling…

I was about to use the word ‘proscribed‘ in an email. Something made me pause to double check what it means. It turns out that it means literally the complete opposite of what I thought.

Looking out over the valley towards Lucca. We spent this week on holiday in Tuscany, Italy, with eight of our friends. Our summer break was planned to be early this year as our eldest son heads back to university next week. This holiday came and went in a flash, as they always do. Our home for the week was Il Gelsomino Bianco, a villa in the Brancoli hills, north of Lucca. A stone in the wall of the guest house was marked with the year 1729, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the whole villa was at…

A stop to look at the view on the Isle of Wight. We only have another couple of weeks together as a family before our eldest heads back to start his sophomore year at college in Texas. Our youngest finished school last week, so my wife suggested that I take the week off and do something with both of the boys. Now that they are both into road cycling, the obvious ‘something’ was to plan a big bike ride. I wanted a distance that would be achievable for everyone, but significant enough to justify…

Finished reading Having Spent Life Seeking by Kae Tempest. My copy of the book came free with my ticket to see Tempest in conversation at The Roundhouse back in April. During the interview, he spoke movingly about “the incredible technology” of a novel, which allows you to put yourself in another person’s shoes, feel what they feel, and take that with you back into your everyday life. The best things I read are always those where I get a glimpse into someone else’s lived experience that I have…

I love it when a high street shop gets renovated, and the ghost of what was there long ago makes a brief reappearance. Jean’s Hair Fashions, which apparently was once a feature of Lower Kings Road in Berkhamsted. It seems that one thing that Berkhamsted has been consistent with throughout the ages is that there is no shortage of places to get your hair done.

Waiting for the start of Glengarry Glen Ross at The Old Vic theatre, 13 July 2026 A really big week. We spent the first three days on a management team offsite. It was bittersweet, as it was the last one we will have with someone in our team who is retiring later this year. We hadn’t been all together in the same place for about two and a half years, and it was excellent to reconnect with each other as a group. We spent the first day at The Old Vic theatre, with excellent professional coaches…

The latest heatwave has weighed heavily on everyone here. It is just too hot. All of my time seems to be spent working, watching World Cup football, or lying on my bed without any covering, hoping that I will be able to sleep. On Thursday I met one of my neighbours on the train and he offered to give me a lift home. Our conversation turned, naturally, to how everyone is coping with the heat. He revealed that he and his wife have two fans in their bedroom. It left me wondering why I hadn’t…

Finished reading Tsunami Kids by Paul Forkan and Rob Forkan. An incredible story of their unconventional upbringing, the tragic events of Boxing Day 2004, and their subsequent business success. For me, the book is let down a little by the writing style and a lack of editing, which stopped it from being a totally gripping page-turner. But the story is the main thing that I came away with. It’s hard to imagine what it’s like to go through such a life-changing catastrophe.

Lining up at the start of the JPMorganChase Corporate Challenge A fully-packed week with plenty going on. Multiple days of back-to-back meetings coupled with things happening in the evenings. And when things weren’t happening, the football was on. The football is always on. This was a week in which I: Have been really enjoying having an intern in the team. It has got me thinking about how much context someone gathers over many years of working that someone new to the workforce doesn’t have. The…

A swan and their cygnets on the bank of the River Bulbourne by The Old Mill, Berkhamsted. Boiling. In the UK we are not equipped to live through day after day of mid-30s°C heat, with the temperature only dropping into the mid-20s overnight with barely a breeze in the air. Sleeping was a tough gig, lying on top of our bed with a fan trying its best to help us get some rest. You wake up hot and dehydrated, lusting after a shower set to a cold temperature that you previously could never have…

My regular morning view from the hotel gym, looking out across the Rosebank suburb of Johannesburg. When last week’s Sun City-based conference was announced, I decided to extend my stay in South Africa so that I could spend some time with our team members who are based there. It wasn’t perfect timing; Tuesday was a public holiday for Youth Day, so many people chose to take Monday as leave in order to get a four-day weekend. But the time I did get to spend with the team and other colleagues from…

Just randomly recalled that as a kid, we used to say ‘fainites’ when asking for mercy or a time out. I thought it was a weird word made up amongst some friends. It turns out that it was a real word used throughout southern England.

An intriguing, ill-fitting door in the wall at Lancaster Gate tube station. Who knows what is hidden behind it? Two days in the office followed by two conferences, one in London and another in Sun City, South Africa. The morning agenda for the Gartner UK & Ireland CIO Community Executive Summit, 10 June 2026 On Tuesday evening and all day Wednesday I attended the Gartner UK & Ireland CIO Community Executive Summit for the first time. Compared to other Gartner conferences, this one is very…

Finished reading Sweating Bullets: Notes about Inventing PowerPoint by Robert Gaskins. I’m a big fan of dissections of all things pop, and although the topic of this book isn’t quite the same as a music documentary or a look back at 1980s UK TV programmes, the backstory of PowerPoint is in the same wheelhouse for me. It’s played a big role in my life and feels like a part of mainstream culture. The book scratched exactly the same itch. The author was hired by Forethought, Inc. in 1984 as Vice…

Last weekend’s sore throat and feeling parched after a very warm cycle ride turned into something else on Monday. It started as a head cold and then later in the week worked its way down into my chest. I didn’t have any kind of fever; it felt as though I was running at about 85%, enough to be a little frustrating but not enough to keep me away from work. The week consisted of copious amounts of tissues, menthol lozenges and smoothies. I’ve read somewhere that if you’re ill from the neck up,…

This old Metropolitan Line train at Chesham is nearly ready to go, with its cargo of parched weeds. We’ve properly entered Phil Collins season, with extremely hot temperatures dominating the week. My morning walk from Euston to the City of London is now on hiatus until either (a) it cools down again, or (b) the Tube goes on strike. The train line between Berkhamsted and London couldn’t take the heat; the rails weren’t happy, so I had to use the Metropolitan Line to and from Chesham for a day…

I was out the door early on Tuesday to head to Heathrow to pick up our eldest son, who has come back from university for the summer. It’s great to have him back; the house is a very different place with him in it. He arrived on a cold and drizzly day and had to listen to my insistence that this was an anomaly compared with the past few weeks. By the end of the weekend we were all trying to stay cool as the temperatures ramped up beyond 30°C. The cats have been expressing their views on the…

Springtime in full bloom. This week felt tough. I ended up in the office four days in a row. The end of each day arrived too quickly as I still had plenty of things left to tackle. It was great to get to Friday when I could get some exercise on my indoor bike trainer and then climb into my cave in order to catch up with some things on my own. This was a week in which I: Welcomed the newest member of our department, someone who has joined our small development team. It was a tough process to…

Bubbles looks like another useful website for surfacing interesting things to read from personal blogs. Users can log in with a Fediverse account and upvote items. You can subscribe to a thoughtful collection of algorithmic RSS feeds too.

Voting time for the local council elections in Holborn, London. I walk past this lovely London street on my commute to work. A four-day week due to the plainly named Early May bank holiday in the UK. Recovery from the big bike ride felt good; unlike the year before, I had no major after-effects apart from slightly stiff legs and feeling thirsty for a couple of days. I recounted the tale of the ride to colleagues who humoured me when they found themselves hearing my stories for a second or third…

I can’t read this label without hearing Boycie’s voice in my head.

A quiet week at work. There were two public holidays in South Africa on Monday and Friday, so quite a few of our SA-based colleagues took the other three days as leave. I had some nice gaps in my diary to allow me to get things done. I took Friday off to relax ahead of an early start on Saturday, but ended up spending a lot of it in Bedford, trying to work out how to contact my bank as we attempted to buy a used car. I’d sent the transfer on Thursday but the payment was blocked as suspected…

Me, at 5:48am in Chalfont St Peter Community Centre, having just finished the 2026 London Wales London bike ride. All week I watched the weather in anticipation of the London Wales London Audax ride at the weekend. I’m fortunate to have a real-life weatherman living in my street, so on Wednesday I messaged him to see what he thought. The news wasn’t good. Our spell of sunshine was going to be replaced by a band of rain moving up through England. I’d figured that by doing the ride at around…

🪟🦭

Looking out from a viewing point near Ivinghoe Beacon. Photos like this never do justice to how breathtaking the landscape is in person. One of my lifelong school friends recently lost his dad, so on Monday I took the day off to attend the funeral. It was a lovely service, with many heartfelt and moving eulogies from family and friends, and a mix of Indian and American musical influences that included Ravi Shankar and Elvis Presley. I’m so glad I went. One of my other school friends gave me a…