Phil Gyford’s writing

Two weeks of notes, in the middle of which I went to Glasgow for three nights and then Edinburgh for the same. A “holiday”. I was lucky with the weather and had a good time. I was touristing with my friend J, from Germany, and despite having seen very little of each other over the past 30+ years, we got on fine, saw several sights, drank nice coffees, and ate nice foods. Neither of us had been to Glasgow before, and there: We did the Sightseeing Bus one day which does make you (me) feel like a…

After last week’s “Onward to next week. Nothing can go wrong, nothing.” how did I do? The week didn’t start great but generally, another good one. (Let’s take it as read that I will largely continue to ignore the wider world in these solipsistic weeeknotes right up until the point at which it comes hammering on the doors of me and my loved ones. A stance that would get me pilloried by the righteous strikeforces of Bluesky. But we’re not there, we’re here, and lacing every one of my “What I did…

This week I finished the final little bit (80%) of making PDFs of my mum’s local history books and booklets. It was inevitably more complicated and confusing than I expected so I’m describing what I did in case it helps anyone do something similar, better, in the future. I’m doing all this using macOS. Scanning inner pages I had extra copies of all the books so was able to cut all the pages out, slightly laboriously, using a scalpel and ruler. I could then feed all the inner pages through my…

It’s been a few months since the last post so here are some blogs and newsletters I’ve started following since. Here are the previous posts and here’s my blogroll. I should maybe stop splitting that (and this) into blogs / newsletters because that distinction seems less useful than topics. Blogs Ben Brown – Ben is blogging again! Good stuff. Building Slack – I’m surprised I haven’t mentioned this previously because I’ve been reading it a while. A history of Slack, the app(s) and the company.…

A good week, something I hesitate to say because my mind assumes something good is naturally followed by very bad things. But we must press on regardless. I felt good, busy, keen to get things done, and enjoyed doing them. § Lots of baking this week: a loaf of bread (this one, but 50% whole wheat); a surprise fruitcake while Mary was away, for her birthday later in the week; pizza dough for Friday night pizza; and two more loaves of the same bread. When baking bread by hand (instead of using…

Wales Goes Pop!, Garage shelving, ‘Deadloch’, ‘Minari’ and ‘Project Hail Mary’.

My notes from reading the book.

Spotlight, ‘This Farming Life’, ‘Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man’, ‘Last One Laughing’, ‘High Fidelity’, and ‘Dying for Sex’.

We emptied the beach hut I've been visiting since I was a child.

Birthday, folk night, Arc'teryx repair, Michael Barrymore, new lawnmower, sheeple, why code, ‘Sentimental Value’.