Farewell 2023 and welcome 2024

Farewell to 2023, a year when I went to York twice, London twice, Glasgow twice, Basingstoke once, Bishop Wilton once and Northallerton once.

I passed the ISC2 CISSP exam and the Amazon AWS Certified Security exams.

We converted the garage to an office space and built a corrugated acrylic roof to some of our outside space.

And I did a whole year averaging 10k steps per day…

2023 was pretty good, but it feels like 2024 is going to be great. I might even get a job 😉 Happy New Year everybody!

(Our traditional New Years vegetable pie)

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Topical old Peanuts strip

Today’s old Peanuts strip is surprisingly topical…

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Winning at steps

Looks like I’m on track to average 10000 steps daily across a whole year for the first time…

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Will Sergeant at Toppings

Off to see Will Sergeant speaking at Toppings Booksellers tonight. I hope they have Q and A at the end…

“The guitar riff on The Back of Love was an integral part of one of the Bunnymen’s most successful singles. What were you thinking of, when you dreamt that up?“

#WillSergeant #ToppingsBooksellers #EchoAndTheBunnymen #DadJoke

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Sarah Lucas and social media

Lucas doesn’t do social media, not just because it is a massive time suck but because it’s work. And work that gets someone else paid. “These are dangerous times when what’s on your phone can be dug up at any point in the future by someone with more power than you to disseminate that information, to make money from you. Why is that worth doing?”

From a profile by Stuart Jeffries in today’s Guardian.

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Museum of Ephemera

If the government or some rich benefactor were to open a Museum of Ephemera, prefererably in some town that needs levelling up, it could receive hoards from mad collectors, provide employment for hoarders who feel the need to collect and catalog this stuff, and provide a psychological backstop for people who get into collecting crisp packets etc. — you don’t have to do this, someone else is doing it already…

(picture above from Jarvis Cocker’s guest editorship of the Observer a couple of weeks ago)

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/may/08/jarvis-cocker-interviews-six-collectors-peter-blake-andy-holden-loretta-pettway-bennett?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

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#ATuneADay day 149

#AfricansWithMainframes #VibrationsFromTheSerengetiII #SoulJazz #SoundsOfTheUniverse #ArtAndSound

Would make a good Top of the Pops theme if they ever bring it back…

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Anglesea Arms #LondonTrip

I made it to the Anglesea Arms about three hours before opening time.

This signage was all there, last time I was here back in 2002.

I only went to the Anglesea once when I was a student. Morris dancers turned up and performed, but I don’t think that was the reason we preferred the Hoop and Toy amongst the South Ken pubs.

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It was a different story when I worked at ICR 15 years later when the Anglesea was a favourite of mine and the rest of the IT department.

Maybe if I had waited until opening time I would have seen Julian Lloyd Webber who was also there most evenings.

Back in 2001 we had finished work early on the Friday before the August bank holiday. A very drunk French lady (not with us) drove off against the protests of everyone in the pub that she was in no fit state, and managed to hit three vehicles before reaching the junction with Fulham Road.

The police sent two vans, two cars and 14 officers who patiently calmed her down before hauling her off to the station.

Apparently they planned the Great Train Robbery in the Anglesea Arms. Maybe that’s why the police came mob-handed to arrest one pissed French lady…

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Ennismore Arms no more #LondonTrip

Wandering around South Kensington yesterday, but couldn’t find the Ennismore Arms. The closed pubs site confirms it is no more… https://www.closedpubs.co.uk/london/sw7_southkensington_ennismorearms.html

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Scottish Football Writers Association speaker named

This is the first time I’ve seen the speaker at last week’s Scottish Football Writers’ Association awards named. Not sure why the broadcast media didn’t name him at the time. No idea who Bill Copeland is, but he sure didn’t read the room that night…

From today’s Observer

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