That Was The Week That Was — 31st May 2020

Danielle Newnham published an interview with me as part of her Beyond Work series, looking at how founders and innovators have been coping with work under lock down. In the interview I talk about how Slack is not for me, the terror of bin juice and other such things.

On the Tuesday night I had a call with my new Los Angeles based client, showing the latest iteration of the work so far. "So mesmerising I can't stop freaking looking at it" was a lovely piece of feedback, especially just before heading to bed. I slept well that night.

Thursday was the funeral of my dearly loved Mother-in-law Anne. Because of the restrictions in place, we could only have a maximum of ten people around the graveside, with no service in church. As it turned out, the shining sun and the tweeting birds actually made it feel extra special. Anne had been fighting cancer for three years, and I would often take her to the blood tests she needed before each treatment. We would always have a laugh whenever we went on these journeys, in spite of everything. I'll miss her loads — not least her incredible cooking like her bread n butter pudding or her now legendary pate. A force of nature who leaves a giant hole in our lives.

In the process of making this current web based work, I needed a way to make a GUI for debug purposes. I eventually found dat.GUI which was really easy to use and worked perfectly.

Loved this episode of Something Rhymes with Purple, about were surnames come from, including such gems as Fuckbutter and Windfuck.

After not allowing myself to buy a single thing during lock down, I finally gave in and bought an Armorial notebook, which I had been lusting after since first seeing one a few months ago. Whilst I'm a big fan of the Smythson Panama, and use one every day, I've always wanted the same but with blank paper, which Smythson — unlike Armorial — don't do at the pocket size.

Love this quote from Richard Feyman:

What I cannot create, I cannot understand.

Had word that a magazine UNESCO are putting together, featuring my Art of Cybersecurity work, is due to be published in June, albeit without the Paris launch event. A shame, as it would have given me an opportunity to visit Paris' paper street — rue du Pont Louis-Philippe — to browse the many fine stationery shops. Hopefully another time.