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9 – 13 March 2026
Radio edit: there’s a bit of a switcheroo this week and next, as I’m working in different offices or none. You can skip this, if you like, it’s definitely habit, not inspiration.
Monday
“This is her third war”, says the radio presenter, before cutting to an interview with a nurse in Iran. “It’s not as busy”, she says, “people are not injured, they are dead.”
Tuesday
Magnolia branches are weighed down with waxy pale pink flowers. Things I’ve learned from the internet this week:
- You can eat magnolia flowers and they taste like ginger
- You can pick camellia leaves from the most sheltered part of the bush, wash and dry them, and grind them to powder for ‘rustic’ matcha tea.
Wednesday
Twilight can take you by surprise. I don’t see it often as I’m usually working, but I snuck out today and was on the train by 6:15pm. Trees stand black against a dimming sky, electric lights shine against the orange-blue gradient and it’s beautiful. Today we had sunshine, and even now the sky is clear. In the UK it feels like we’re all still counting the number of sunny days on our fingers this year.
Thursday
First walk of the week. On the way to the wood everyone’s grape hyacinths are out and there’s a bright cluster of daffodils at the base of a cherry tree. Their heads bob and sway like enthusiastic fans waiting for the tree to bloom.
The wood anemones are finally here. More a small mat than a carpet, their white flowers are bent to the ground. Elsewhere, mushrooms have burst from the damp and settled on fallen tree trunks. The bluebells are coming.
Friday
The train smells of sweat and tarmac. On the way back I fall asleep between two stations and the next stop is mine. I wake in a panic to find my body is already at the door, pounding a button to no effect. Wrong side of the train. Good effort though, and with enough time for body and mind to exit the correct side of the train together.
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2 – 6 March 2026
Monday
Sunrise: 6:43am
Bright green velvety moss is slowly rising in the wood. It’s climbing tree trunks and coating boulders, encouraged by the endless rain . Although today I came this way – to the top of the hill – for the sun as it rises over the fields. Overhead a small plane glints as it catches the light and the resonance of the engines swells and thrums and fills the air. Tonight the moon will be full, a huge moon in a huge sky.
Tuesday
Sunrise: 6:40am
There isn’t a queue for the bus because the bus is showing the right destination but the wrong number. We mill around until someone shouts a question to the driver through the open door and the numbers flip and right themselves. We drift aboard and depart suddenly, leaving a cluster of confusion behind.
The bright sunrise evens out to a nondescript day. It’s been a while since I got the bus and for some reason everything outside feels like it’s playing in high definition. The people, their hair, their clothes and bags, the taxis and the bikes, the posh cars and the builders’ trucks. All of them with sharp edges and too-bright colours. New Look still believes “YOU DESERVE NEW SHOES” and I wiggle my toes inside my comfortable trainers.
The bus driver beeps the horn as a woman outside opens a car door and steps into the road. She’s wearing a black stab vest — all the car passengers are wearing stab vests and they glare daggers back at the bus driver.
At the sculpture there’s a small black mark where the umbrella used to lie, semi-concealed and useless in the rain.
Thursday
Sunrise: 6:36am
Last day in the office. Crows, not magpies, stand like shadows in the trees. It’s a classic pink sunrise, hazy. Someone’s blousy camellia is shedding pink petals like confetti across the street. But the moon though! Massive and full. Pale and wonderful and unexpected – so low to the roof tops. Outloud I sing-say oh my god and stretch every syllable.
There’s a fox in Green Alkanet Alley. It pauses before it turns to look and then, without effort or concern, jumps a high fence. Two magpies stroll in the road ahead. This is a good time for walking, before 7am when everywhere is quiet.
I let three busses slide past as I have the time to spare. On the other side of the road, the massive magnolia is out. On this side, the trees are full of smaller blossom and I inhale the peppery scent of spring.
Other things
- On Tuesday I typed ‘second to last day in’ – and the text autocompleted to ‘the world’.
- On Thursday most of the office went for a last lunch together and it was warm enough to sit outside. It’s been such a wet year so far that every day it doesn’t rain is genuinely remarkable. It’s raining as I type.
- I can’t write anything pithy or profound about the news, and if I could, it wouldn’t help.
- Hanlon’s razor, is an adage or rule of thumb that states: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” Why not both?
- This is a lovely (tech) article – The unlikely story of an e-mail time machine. I shared it with some people at work a while back and just found it again. Still good.
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23 – 27 February 2026
Monday
Sunrise: 6:57am
Sunrise before 7am on a work day. The first of the year.
Tuesday
Sunrise: 6:55am
There are tiny purple violets in Green Alkanet Alley.
I walk to the station with the sound of disaster ringing in my ears. The band’s next gig is disaster-themed and today’s ear worm brings an impending sense of doom. But I spot two magpies sitting together on a TV arial and wonder if I’ve picked the wrong tune.
There’s no let up in the traffic so I press the button and wait. A car screeches to a halt so fast that the one behind it physically jumps as it swerves. I try not to gawp, but for a brief moment it’s me and two wide-eyed drivers looking from one to another with our eyebrows in the air.
In Green Alkanet Alley there are wild violets – tiny deep-purple flowers. Last year I collected poppy seeds from self-seeded flowers in the garden. I’ll scatter them here soon and see if they can make it among the alkanet, the nettles and the trash.
Wednesday
Sunrise 6:53am
What a difference the weather makes: a big smile from Podcast Man; snowdrops are out in the wood; a dew-covered field shimmers in the rising sun. Birds are chattering everywhere and a woodpecker alternates between a loud cackle and a fast bass drum. It’s glorious. As I leave the wood I meet another regular. She’s lost Digby the dog again.
In the evening I go to the gym.
“Enjoy a challenge?” asks a poster. “Can you inspire that in others?” Well, I… “You sound like a prison officer.” Oh. The photo focuses on two people on a sports field, but a man is blurred in the foreground, doubled over – like he’s been punched in the gut or kicked somewhere worse.Thursday
Sunrise: 6:51am
“I’m worried about the dashes.”
“Yeah. You’d rather spend 10 seconds thinking than getting it wrong?”
“Yes.”
She proceeds to describe a cocktail including dashes and floats of rum.
“You see, you’re fine.”The person she’s talking to is confident and kind. He’s been testing her as she explains how worried she is on this journey into town.
“Remember, your Bramble is the same base as your French 75.”
I wonder how she got on. On the train there wasn’t a question she couldn’t answer, a cocktail ingredient she couldn’t list.
At London Bridge the white flowers are out in the magnolia trees, but it’s another wet morning. I walk halfway to the office and then catch a bus. Sneak to the Happy Cafe for a final breakfast + book. They’re closing our office next week. I’ll miss working with people face to face. I know it’s not for everyone, but it worked for me.
Other things
“Maurice Sendak owned Keats’s death mask, which he kept in a wooden box. He adored it. He liked to stroke its forehead. I saw it and it was very beautiful.”
Unexpected. Maurice Sendak’s illustrations are fantastic of course – you probably know Where the Wild Things Are. He did the illustrations for Open House for Butterflies too, and it’s a wonderful, often overlooked, book.
The bluebells are coming up in the wood. The wood anemones should flower first, but I haven’t seen any yet. Lords and Ladies leaves are everywhere though, as are lesser celadine.
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16–20 February 2026
Monday
Sunrise: 7:11am
This afternoon all the colour drained out of the world. In black and white a storm hurled itself at the windows while lightning cracked and drains overflowed. I saw myself flinch on a video call. On the street WhatsApp someone asked: “Did anyone just see a horse without a rider galloping up the street?!!”
I heard it but I didn’t look.
Is this how it all ends: each of us alone at home, messaging with increasing levels of desperation and punctuation?
Tuesday
Sunrise: 7:09am
There’s a Territorial Support van parked on the street. A quick glance places the whole team inside the caff, huddled around a corner table. Every one of them has kept their hat on: flat on top with a black and white chequered band around the side. So many chequers it feels like you’ll win the slowest Grand Prix just by walking past.
At the station an older man stares at his phone, taps in without looking and bumps into me on the platform. He looks up, mumbles an apology and carries on walking. His phone chirps in his hands. He walks onto the train unsteady, but absolutely absorbed. As we both sit, I hear it: the Duolingo fanfare. The train leaves the station and he takes his hat off, tips his head back and sleeps.
In town the sun is shining. It feels like you could grab vitamin D right out of the air and chew it.
Thursday
Sunrise: 7:05am
Outside the world crouches low to the ground. Above it – on it – a thick mist is pressing it down. Everything is quiet but for the birds. I couldn’t sleep. Awake at 2am, at 3, gave up at 5am and now I’m too early for the early train. Something about the birdsong feels lonely today, like the birds are only up because they couldn’t sleep either and they’re singing for the company.
Two men on the train talk about the helluva morning they’ve had so far. “You’re bleeding inside, you’re big, you’re tiny! If you can’t help yourself I’m not sticking around to help ya.” They fall silent as we head into the wet blue dawn.
In the city the colour has shifted with the sunrise and everything is a grey-muddy-brown. Tops of buildings are lost to the gloom. I check the ailing trees and see the branch stumps which bled when they were cut are slowly dimpling as they heal.
Friday
Sunrise: 7:03am
A nostalgic walk to Hanbury Street, where I worked a few years ago. Take the back routes along Fournier Street, Wilkes and Princelet to gawp at the big houses with great front doors and traditional shutters at the windows. Houses whose fortunes have changed considerably over the years. I take a different route later and two Great Tits are singing somewhere in a carpark as the sun starts to set. Somehow it cuts through the traffic of Tower Hamlets and bounces off brick walls.
Other things
Weird week for colour.
I’m in a book! ‘A History of Hardcore Stickers‘. They’ve picked the worst of the stickers I drew, but still, I’ll take it. A reminder of the days when I used to draw (badly) for fun and kicks – and when access to a photocopier was everything.
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9 – 13 February 2026
Monday
Sunrise: 7:24am
The Silent Wood is back to its old tricks. Something about it is wrong again. Even as I walk towards it, it seems to get more distant, like looking at the horizon through the wrong end of a telescope.
There used to be a step up just to get into it: a concrete block to climb between the field and the wood. But that’s gone now and a short muddy slope has replaced it. Instead of choosing to step in, it’s more like being pulled.
Inside it’s quiet of course, but nothing feels quite right. I follow the path around the bottom edge then decide to quit—to break out through the trees and back into the field; can’t do that. There’s a big ditch I’d not noticed before and it’s filled with debris and fallen branches. No way through. Instead I turn around and go back the way I came, but faster.
In the field the horses have churned the earth to peaks and waterlogged troughs. They watch idly while I work my way through. Artificial flowers feign a loud welcome in the graveyard while reedy purple crocus sit resentfully at the edges. Snowdrops gather around a bug hotel and under the ground roots shift and stretch. Over time headstones have toppled here, the arms of crosses broken. Now the flat grave markers are slowly rising.
Wednesday
Sunrise: 7:20am
An unremarkable sunrise but somewhere there’s news. The (regular) wood is humming with birdsong and chatter. The mud is thick still, and wet. In the deepest puddles it sucks at your boots, slaps and farts when you pull yourself free.
In the fields the cows turn to look as I pass. Two magpies stroll unconcerned at their feet.
When I get home I remember to upend my boot and tip out a stone at last. It’s been a few weeks. Tipping it out feels like a metaphor, but I’m not sure for what.
Thursday
Sunrise: 7:19am
“The sun’s coming up, Mum!”
A little kid shouts excitedly to his mum, who is focussed on heaving the buggy, with him inside it, onto the train. “It’s a sunset!”
“A sunrise.”
As they board, they face the morning sun which has just reached the horizon. It’s been wet for days but this morning there’s a real sunrise, with sunshine you can see colouring white walls orange and bouncing off windows. Closer into town it’s blinding. Concrete tower blocks stand crisp against an ash grey sky and their windows glitter.
It was almost daylight when I left the house – a first for the work commute this year. On Gracechurch Street the branches on three of the ailing trees have catkins which sway gently with the traffic. Proof of life.
I got the bus from Primrose Street and when I checked the sculpture, I noticed the hidden umbrella was finally gone.
At lunchtime the distant sky over the city was a deep blue-grey. Bright white clouds drifted in the foreground and for a moment it was breathtaking.
Friday
Sunrise: 7:17am
Almost daylight at Crystal Palace station and the wrens are in full throat. Their song is loud enough to drown out the magpies’ rattles until the train arrives and they fall silent. But magpies cannot be deterred, and instead get louder and more furious. “See it, say it, sorted” the train intones – perhaps they are, seeing and saying it at least. Inside the train the automatic doors close and all you can hear is an electric hum.
Other things:
Olympic commentary of the snowboarders:
“She’s a human cider wheel. Crushing her opposition”
“…If her opposition were apples”.
“Yeah.”—
I’m not sure which is more extraordinary: the memories we lose; the memories we keep; the memories we make up to fill in the gaps.—
The purple iris are out. I took no notes on Tuesday. What happened on Tuesday? These weeks. Honestly. Apologies all round.
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2 – 6 February 2026
Rain stops play.
Last night I thought “what if I died without writing a book?”. In the dead of night this felt tragic. Imagine it! Jesus wept there are so many books, as if the world needs another without a plot or a planned end.
Last week SW said, “I do reckon anyone can write a book—no, honestly! Might not be any good but—what? Don’t you reckon?” She cocked her head, the question dragging at her eyebrows. I said no, I don’t think so. Or not a long one anyway.
Everywhere you look people want to be writers. There’s social media for writers, competitions for writers, anthologies for first timers, ads for retreats, workshops. And what? Suddenly you’re watching an Instagram reel of an American you don’t know telling you why they decided to continue living in China after their divorce. Who cares? We can’t all be writers, but damn are we primed for stories. There’s a lot of ways to tell ‘em.
The weather is terrible and work is busy. On Thursday I watched a false dawn at London Bridge as a giant billboard flooded the early morning streets with electric light. When the adverts changed, the colour switched from unnatural white to unnatural green, which flared against the red of the traffic lights. Across the river the tall city buildings were lost to the rain and the fog.
On Wednesday I waited for a train at Euston Station while the Inspector Sands announcement played on repeat. “Would Inspector Sands please go to the control room.” Three short blasts of a horn. Rhythmic, controlled. “Would Inspector Sands…” Hypnotic. If someone told me it was a way of activating unwitting agents of evil, I’d almost believe them. Perhaps some among us left changed.
It’s rained all week and I’ve had meetings in other towns. These are not the right conditions for walking. But on Tuesday I escaped to the big park in the early twilight. The app said it would rain in an hour but it was already in the air when I left home and I pulled my hood against it and tried not to slip in the thick mud.
If I don’t walk, it’s hard to write notes. (I guess the clue is in the name.) But there’s always walking, really. The city or the wood, the park or the schlep to the station. What do you see? Gotta be something. Today when I walk down the hill from Crystal Palace a hard-looking man is walking in my direction. On the end of a loose lead is a small dog – a chihuahua. It’s dressed in an ill-fitting pink argyle jumper, eyes narrowed against the rain.
Other things
- Last week I met a friend for dinner. I was telling a story that made me laugh so hard I started crying. We had to change the subject. The last time that happened I was in Mexico.
- On a packed train last week I was close enough to read the screen on someone’s phone. He was writing a to-do list which included writing a ‘state of the world report’. I hope for his sake that was just a way of saying ‘project report’, otherwise I assume he’s still writing now.
- Last Sunday was Imbolc; “Imbolc falls about halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox”… “Imbolc was believed to be when the Cailleach—the divine hag of Gaelic tradition—gathers her firewood for the rest of the winter. Legend has it that if she wishes to make the winter last a good while longer, she will make sure the weather on Imbolc is bright and sunny so that she can gather plenty of firewood. Therefore, people would be relieved if Imbolc is a day of foul weather, as it means the Cailleach is asleep and winter is almost over.” Here’s hoping, Cailleach.
- Cailleach has some great legends associated with her. “The Cailleach displays several traits befitting the personification of winter: she herds deer, she fights spring, and her staff freezes the ground.” – She fights spring. Of all the seasons to pick a fight with.
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9 – 22 January 2026
Monday
Sunrise: 7:54am
On the walk to the wood I feel my fingers smart as I press the soft pad of a fresh blister. Yesterday I cut back a large shrub with a handsaw and clippers. The magazine said late winter is the best time to cut it back—but I was in a T-shirt and hoodie, and January felt like spring and the buds were already grown. It felt more like butchery than gardening. A robin settled in to watch, horror in its eyes and gossip in its beak. And here we are on the way to the wood and all the birds are chattering.
On the path of perma-mud I see the elf in boy’s clothing, but even he is sinking into the mud today. The edges of the path are heaped with ivy, stripped from trees or fallen. The ivy has toppled trunks and dragged down branches, is pulling down the fences. Perhaps it’s strong enough to tether a changeling, force an exchange, embrace a real boy.
Tuesday
Sunrise: 7:53am
I pack my Kindle into my backpack and plunge my fists into my pockets as I wait for the train to pull in. The stranger next to me is sleeping, head resting on the glass. It’s the last stop, and while I wonder if I should wake her, she wakes.
“Good timing.”
“Ah, thank you.”
“And you made it to the end of the day.”
“I’m so tired.”
“Apparently tomorrow isn’t even Friday.”
“I know. Today isn’t even Wednesday. It’s not even the middle of the week.”We give each other sympathetic smiles.
“But it is the end of the day.”Wednesday
Sunrise: 7:52am
Endless rain.
Unexpectedly well-timed journey to north London. Extraordinary.Thursday
Sunrise: 7:51am
As we approached the train I said: “Turns out my favourite seat is everyone else’s favourite seat too. These days there’s always someone in it.” And he said, “You have a favourite seat on the train?”
I do, and today someone is in it.
A few weeks ago, I heard two new (I assume) friends talking on the way home:
“You don’t do YouTube?! What do you do when you’re on the train?”
“Well I—“
“I mean, physically. How do you sit?!”
“Err, well, like this?” And she gestured to the way she was sitting.I still wonder what answer he was expecting.
Seems that other people’s train habits are a mystery.
As I head through London Bridge station I think about music improv, whether I’ll get the bus or walk to the office and a document I need to write, which I believe will have a high effort/ignore ratio once complete. Imperial March (Star Wars) plays loudly in my head, with a focus on the bullet-style beats that underpin part of the tune.
Sixteenth in the queue but the bus is full and I don’t have the patience, so I march on through the drizzle. Later I stop at the Happy Cafe for tea and a sarnie, mainly to get lost in Neal Stephenson’s Reamde and other people’s problems for 10 minutes. This must be one of the oldest books on my Kindle. It’s good so far, I don’t know why I didn’t read it before.
Other things
- Reading reviews on Goodreads for Reamde:
“This book is great, but it appears #TeamStephenson was expecting the opening of the Ark of the fucking Covenant.”
10/10 for the book review. - Matthew, who made the Sunlight Optimism Counter made the huge mistake of sharing a link to this game, where all you need to do is match things together in pairs and then in larger groups. I’ve been playing it for hours, if it can be called ‘playing’. I’m not sure at what point it started to feel like I was working for Lumon, but it was pretty early on. It’s either your thing or absolutely not your thing. Either way, don’t @ me, as they used to say. If you want to play something similar, but much smaller, try HodgePodge. A friend made it recently.
- Talking of things in pairs, Log in VS Sign in is interesting. Are these rules we’re all sticking to? You can @ me if you like. (Where ‘@’ is a very loose term for emailing me or filling out a form.)
- I keep coming across articles that say blogging is coming back to life (just google it, there’s loads). And also, the odd site that is trying to facilitate that, like this (via Jeremy).
- Oops. It’s 2026 – published this with the wrong title and updated it. Now the url is wrong too.
- Reading reviews on Goodreads for Reamde:
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3 – 9 January 2026
Saturday
Sunrise, 8:04am
God, it’s the best day for walking! On the way back to the wood the setting sun hits the trees, colouring trunks and bare branches bronze. On the ground a mist is gathering. The sun sets in nine minutes and I have all the time in the world.
As I head back into the wood the cold mist climbs my legs. A thin layer of snow highlights the open space left by December’s fallen trees. New growth is coming.
As is an occasional tradition, I made a little pilgrimage: through the wood and across the fields, down the valley and up the other side to where the old man’s beard grows and catches the setting sun.
I should’ve posted a photo in 2024. Shame.
Sunday
Sunrise, 8:04am
The moonlight is pooling on the floor. This moon is incredible; on the way home yesterday, just past 4pm, I took a detour to get a better look. It was pale gold, massive on the horizon.
Monday
Sunrise, 8:04am
It’s too early for the wood and too early for the earthworks. Pitch black. Clouds cross the moon like a ghost story in waiting. I walk from the small, half-lit park to the large unlit one and start a forced march, assuming that’s safer. There is, I think, a dog with a red light on its collar and a person who barely registers as a shape in the dark.
When it gets light I walk up to the wood. Contrails are pink now. Pheasants shriek and… woodpeckers! The woodpeckers are here.
Tuesday
Sunrise: 8:03am
Finally, the days are getting longer. Sunrise has been 8:04am since the winter solstice. Today it’s one minute earlier. So it begins.
From the right side of the train you can see the pink day as it dawns. From the left side you can see the blue-black night as it fades.
People stop at London Bridge to snap the sun rising over the Thames. It’s a fabulous morning. Gracechurch is in shadow as always, just the tips of buildings brushed by the sun, and heat tumbling from rooftop vents in dense candy-floss clouds.
Wednesday
Sunrise: 8:03
I walked to the earth works and back through the wood. But this is the first time I’ve smelled bacon from the caff. What if I just got a bacon sarnie and skipped the walk?
The path was icy: white ice, black ice. Treacherous.
Thursday
Sunrise, 8:03am
From the train window the world fades from black to grey and city lights shine through the mizzle. No pink sunrise today – a storm is coming. On the walkway from the station, a row of unhoused people sit on damp cardboard and glow blue. The huge digital billboard opposite encourages them to take a holiday. They could feel as fresh as the woman in red, swimming in the bluest of waters, if only they’d give it a try.
Walking across London Bridge I catch the exact moment the lights on Tower Bridge switch off. A proud-looking man wheels a baby in a pram through the flow of commuters and stops to make sure it’s properly tucked in. He bows and kisses the baby gently on the forehead.
I pass a woman talking on a phone. “Call me” she says, “if you’re worried about anything at all. And send me photos! But not too many of men’s bums. Well. A few.”
The office is 15.5°C when I arrive. An hour later it’s 16.5°C. We watch the thermostat and wait. By the end of the day it’s 20°C and a few people have finally taken off their coats and hats.
Other things
- The global news is both terrible, and unbelievable
- In the UK thousands of people are without power due to the storm, and St Michaels Mount has lost most of its trees
- The camellias are out in the house by the wood and bulbs are still coming up. More snowdrops have come out.
- I made a couple of casual new year’s resolutions: take a lunch break and don’t get stressed about work. Glad that around here, new year doesn’t start till 12th January (I have just decided).
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27 December 2025
Radio edit this week.
If you like books, these are good places for books in the UK.
Slightly Foxed, beautifully produced books – reprints of old novels or biographies which are worth the reprinting.
Rough Trade Books – from the Rough Trade records people, this is an interesting independent publisher. Plus Craig Oldham is the creative director there so everything is well designed. I spoke at a conference with him about 10 millions years ago: he was great and swore like a fucking trooper.
Other things I’ve enjoyed this year which are unrelated to the above and each other:
- Timothy Monger’s weeknotes. He’s a musician based in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
- James Reeves’ writing (previously Atlas Minor, found via Phil a few years ago)
- Breakfast with Russell and Matt – honestly meeting friends for breakfast is a really good way to start a work day. It’s a shame they’re closing my office in the spring, because it’s probably going to kill that dead.
- Singing with others – I went on two singing retreats for the first time. Such a joy.
- Planting seeds I was given by a friend and watching them grow and flower. Seeds are a good gift.
- Going to see more exhibitions – getting membership is actually great. You can go and see things even if you’re not sure that you’ll like them because there’s no extra cost. As a result, Ed Atkins and Emily Kim Kngwarray were two favourites which I’d never have gone to otherwise. There is a downside: it does make you stick to specific galleries. I’m trying to stop that.
Things I haven’t done enough of:
- Make things. I should make more stuff next year.
- Go to the gym, of course.
- See friends – even if they do live outside London.
Right, I think that’s me over and out until the new year. You could do with a break, and so could I. Let’s get this done – happy new year.
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