Week 170: weeping fig

Monday 20 June 2022

• Some work.

  • The railway timetable data did disappear just as I said it might.

  • Mentioned in the latest Buses magazine. Morrisons has fixed its barcode database so it no longer scans as Barbie magazine, by the way.

  • It’s not the main thing, but maybe, as the owner of the #3 UK “ground transportation” website (according to the deeply dubious Similarweb) I stand to benefit in some small way from the upcoming rail strikes. Anyway, ✊.

• Went to a bit of a local technology conference, a bit of which left me fizzing with ideas, but with regret I didn’t feel like spending the hottest day of the year in a big room of nerds so instead I stayed in the shade, did some laundry, things of that nature.

• Bought some things on the internet, yes in this economy, which could be a response to the trauma of a weeping fig (ficus) plant shedding most of its leaves last week? Well I could afford them, lucky me, and I have no regrets.

  Most of all, a bicycle. The folks at Tredz Bikes are minimalist in their use of packaging materials, but they seem to know what they’re doing – some crucial sellotape had come unstuck, leaving the box flapping open, but it didn’t matter as the bike was uninjured. And now I know how to use a torque wrench, because it wouldn’t do to have an over- or under-tightened screw on your handlebars.

• 🎦 Morbius, the film of the summer. Now I’m not going to pretend it was good, but … it didn’t disappoint, I had a nice time, and there’s something to be said for being able to enjoy even mediocre things. Imagine how much my tiny mind would be blown by an actually good film.

  Only three other Morb-heads in (although there’d been several more seats blocked out in the interactive seat picker). One left before the mid-credits scenes, and they didn’t miss much.

• Elton John had his little piano sing-song next door. I was slightly annoyed by the diesel generators that were continuously running outside my window for a few days, but now there’s just silence and it’s all forgotten. Hope everyone had a jolly time.

• To “Laugh in the Park”. I don’t much like that name, but it was three evenings on the trot of live comedy in a big tent, you know, Edinburgh works-in-progress. On the final evening, in front of me sat the worst people – they kept getting up, going away, coming back, and conversing deeply, in a little world of their own. Even when a performer noticed and called them twats, they didn’t snap out of it. I couldn’t hear their conversation, but couldn’t help but be distracted.

• Bit under the weather now. Tested negative for the corona, but I don’t know, maybe I didn’t swab my nostrils properly.