Now

Twenty twenty-five is the year I get my blogging groove back.

Listening

• Hell - Live at Roadburn, 2018, Dopesmoker - Sleep | Both of these are pretty “heavy” albums that I appreciate from an aesthetic point of view but which also I feel like I haven’t quite “earned” in that I’m listening to them on wired iPod earbuds from 2019 while at my remote deskwork job. Via The Verge.
• Inverse Field Vol. 1 - Inishowen | Airy ambient music from Ireland, apparently recorded on location in the Great Outdoors. Listened to this one with Ghyll on Saturday evening; the recording conceit probably comes across better when listening on headphones. Via Simon Collison.

Watching

Finished Wolf Hall. I feel a great sense of superiority at having read the books before I was even aware of the television programme, but not so great a sense of superiority that I forget that I read them after the first two were awarded the Booker Prize. So it’s not like I’m a champion of obscure literature or whatever. Anyway, the television series was terrific, elevating Mark Rylance to National Treasure status, perhaps.

Reading

Still working through Butter. It’s enjoyable but it’s not propulsive. It gives the impression of one of those video games with episodic quests. The characters all pop off the page, which is fun—except for the main character, who feels weirdly flat. Maybe it’s a reader-projection thing.

Catching up on end-of-year review posts from Simon Collison and Phil Gyford, the latter of which linked me to this interesting YouTube video about splitting a year into quarters to make life/work goals more manageable.

Outside

Ran a 5k in 19:57 on Tuesday, the culmination of a long process of training. Now I guess I need to figure out how to do this for 10k straight. Then I didn't run again until Sunday, nor felt any desire to: which is maybe a sign of something or maybe not a sign.

Spent a lovely night with Sam and Ghyll in Kielder at Flittingford bothy. On the plus side we brought in plenty of fuel for a toasty fire and we got to see an aurora, plus a skyful of stars; on the negative side Ghyll did eat human poo. I left a stern word in the overflowing bothy book.

On Saturday night it snowed heaps but was started melting before we even got up. Pottered about doing errands for most of the day, getting thoroughly cold and wet in some persistent sleet that fell all day. It's 9pm on Sunday now and my trousers are only just starting to dry out. A smarter man would have just changed trousers.

Inside

Trying to continue wrapping up projects from last year: installing a lattice above the garage door for storing e.g. plywood; finishing up the last of the grout in the back office. We will get there someday ok!