This is a blog post in three parts, starting with my final pre-election week in London (which already feels like a lifetime ago!) before I headed up to Midlothian. Monday kicked off with Andrew and some very sweet strawberry cider after work, over which we marvelled at the looming scale of the likely Conservative defeat.
The next evening I was thrilled to welcome Christian, Erica and their two kids to our local area and enjoy a meal outdoors at the Perry Hill pub. Christian is Catherine’s brother and we’d never actually met in person before, so in addition to all the stimulating conversation it was great fun to listen to someone with a very similar sibling version of Catherine’s voice. Also, despite this visit coming at the end of a long trip, Christian was still game to push a double buggy up Blythe Hill so that we could all enjoy the view before sunset.
Later that evening I popped over to see Angela’s new flat, and the following night I spent a wonderful couple of hours with Bill in the pub at King’s Cross before his train home. I felt a little bad because I had saved up about seven years’ worth of questions to put to Bill for our next 1-1 conversation, so it may have felt more like an interview than a relaxed after work chat, but it was lovely to see him and I learnt a lot on all sorts of topics – from the SDP to LLMs by way of Wittgenstein.
On Friday night it was my turn to catch a train from King’s Cross, as I headed to Scotland to help out with Labour’s campaign for Midlothian in the final week before the general election. This was a pretty intense period of all-day door knocking as we tried to speak to as many voters as possible about Kirsty, although one of the most rewarding things was the number of people who said “I’m voting for Kirsty!” before we’d even had a chance to speak! This is all thanks to the incredible campaign which Kirsty, Randi and an amazing volunteer team have been running for the past year or more, and it was gratifying to see it pay off.
Other highlights included Feargal Sharkey’s visit to the constituency to lend his support to the campaign (OK, not particularly exciting for me personally, but others were very enthused to see him!) and then a very long shift leading a team of canvassers on polling day. But the best part, of course, was having the privilege of attending the count itself. As someone who has always loved politics, especially the drama and traditions of a British election night, it was obviously exciting to be there in person, taking part in sampling and looking out for any stray votes in the wrong pile. It was also a reminder of how lucky we are to have a functioning democracy, which – in the end – comes down to anonymous ballot papers, treated equally seriously no matter who cast them or for which candidate.
Around 3.30am we had the official declaration – although the result was clear from early on – and I know everyone in our team was incredibly proud to watch Kirsty give her acceptance speech. This also meant we could finally relax and celebrate the national picture which we’d all seen from the moment the exit poll was released at 10pm!
Thankfully Randi and I could take it easy the next day and barely left the sofa, with Katie making an impromptu visit around lunchtime with some freshly made baps. Finally, on Saturday we headed back down south to King’s Lynn for the third part of this post: Cat and Brian’s wedding!
Happily, we had booked into the same hotel as Josh, Anna and Cora for Saturday night so got to enjoy a meal together (and prove to Cora that Randi is still a real person) before getting a full night’s sleep and then heading to Pentney Abbey for the wedding on Sunday. It’s a truly beautiful venue, with all the history which travelling Americans deserve if they’re going to be forced to visit the UK, and after a wonderful ceremony – first time I’ve seen a poem read at a wedding by its actual published author – we basked in the sun playing lawn games before dinner. (Well, strictly speaking, we watched as Randi and Christa challenged each other on the wedding-themed crazy golf.)
After an evening of roasts and rainbows, plus plenty of dancing, we retired to our fancy tent on the campsite. The whole day was perfect, and I’m so grateful that Cat and Brian were able to include us and co-ordinate the scheduling of their wedding with Rishi Sunak to avoid an unpleasant election clash. Thank you guys!
Finally, on Sunday we shared the train journey back to London with Amy and Craig – and reminiscing about Groupon days gone by – before Randi finally got back home after six weeks in Scotland. In some ways, we’re both sad that the campaign is over as we both got to work with some truly inspiring people. But thanks to their hard work, there’s now a hell of a lot more for the country to look forward to. Onwards!
When I left off on my last post I was down in Exmouth visiting my mum, and after hitting publish (and waiting for my team of proofreaders to spot all my typos – thank you!) we decided to pick a random film to stream together. After a random browse we ended up watching/slating The Outfit, a ‘psychological crime drama thriller’ (supposedly) set in 1950s Chicago and starring a fairly tedious English tailor (who insists of being called a cutter, not a tailor, but I’m not playing along) who monologues a lot.
I had much more emotional investment in The King of Kong, a quirky 2007 documentary which Katie recommended about one guy’s attempt to challenge for the world record Donkey Kong high score. The reason it’s so gripping is because although this man – a maths teacher named Steve Wiebe – comes over quite well, almost everyone else from the 1980s arcade gaming world seem like absolutely terrible people. They’re either cheats, sycophants or sanctimonious self-appointed referees, and you’ll want to chuck barrels at the lot of them.
The weekend after Devon I went up to see Oliver and Abi in their new house, albeit before they’ve really moved in for real. This meant we were a bit short on pens to our Wingspan scores, hence the silverly splodges, but I enjoyed my first ever game (despite losing badly) and wanted to record my performance so that I could discuss it with Wingspan experts Katie and James the next day. Saturday evening also included a walk around their shared garden/lake area – complete with majestic but sadly fallen tree – and a ton of tasty tapas at their local tapas place.
The next morning, after staying the night, I headed up to Cambridge to enjoy a stroll along the river and pub lunch with Peter Mandler. It was a stunning summer’s day and we were both in cheerful spirits, especially with Labour’s pledge to end the tax break on private schools generating some public discussion on a topic which is dear to both of our hearts. (In case you think I sound complacent, a few days later – after watching the first debate between Sunak and Starmer – I had a genuine nightmare that the Tories won another term unexpectedly and woke up in cold sweat.)
As part of the summer birthday season™, my mum also visited London and took me and Tash out to see Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York). This is a delightfully fun and uplifting musical romcom in which a naïve, perennially optimistic (but also somehow wise and grounded) Brit, Dougal, lands in New York for his estranged father’s wedding and is very reluctantly shepherded around by his future step-mum’s siter, Robin. Both performances were excellent, and a couple of the songs have since entered heavy rotation on my Spotify playlists. Tash and I did have a few quibbles about certain plot details, which resulted in elaborate WhatsApp discussion threads and me reaching out to every New Yorker I could think of to clarify key details about Flatbush in Brooklyn.
I also had a really great time at our work summer party held at Lord’s Cricket Ground, although you won’t be surprised to learn that I did not opt-in to the ‘cricket taster experience’ and stuck with the beer & Pimm’s taster experience instead. Aside from being able to be outside in the sunshine, the other big benefit of throwing a summer party rather than a Christmas do is that staff could bring their families, and it was really nice to see lots of kids running around and playing together!
Last weekend I made my penultimate pre-election trip up to Scotland to see Randi and get stuck in to a full weekend of canvassing. I know I’ve said this before, but it really is so rewarding to talk to voters on the doorstep, especially when they’re genuinely undecided. (On the other hand, it’s significantly harder to efficiently whip out leaflets and post-it notes in the pouring rain, and given that it’s June I think we’re due for some relief.) I can now also say I’ve been to the famous National Mining Museum, albeit only for a quick bite to eat at the café between sessions. Randi and I also took an evening off to go to the pub 😀
I’ll be back in Scotland soon for the election itself, but in the meantime I was delighted to be joined by Angela and a very enthusiastic Conor for some local leafletting duties, during which I tried to explain the concepts of unions, elections and MPs to a six year old. I may not actually be the most qualified person to do this, because I also managed to mess up my own postal vote by posting the two envelopes separately rather than together! Thankfully, the Electoral Commission has a whole flowchart which explains how they compensate for idiots like me, and the nice woman at Lewisham’s electoral services confirmed that I haven’t accidentally disenfranchised myself.
In my defence, I was actually just excited to vote on my birthday, but my decision making was impaired after a really lovely birthday evening with Tash in an outdoor pub garden followed by outdoor pizza garden. She very kindly came to Forest Hill after work bearing cake and gifts and word puzzles, adding to the birthday puzzles which I’d already received from Katie in the morning. Suffice to say I’ve made good progress but have still not completed them all…
And finally – yesterday was the Doctor Who season finale, and I’ve absolutely loved the twists and turns this year. It was also a bit surreal – but very sweet – to have Beth and Stewart message me as they caught up on each episode too! I can’t wait to watch it all over again with Randi post-election. In the meantime, today I also spent a very happy afternoon catching up in Abbi and Rob’s garden: basking in the sun and drinking wine while Rob spoilt us all with an assortment of delicious burritos and accompaniments. I always feel slightly bad visiting a professional chef (it’s not as if I’m expected to product manage for guests) albeit not bad enough to stop coming. Thank you both!
It’s unexpected election season! On Wednesday, at 12.18, Randi messaged me with “okay ppl are saying an electin is going to be called” and from then on the nervous atmosphere inside our flat grew and grew until Sunak’s rainy announcement outside Downing Street made it official that evening. (Dear Americans: you have no idea what kind of emotional rollercoaster you’re sacrificing by sticking with fixed election dates.) Now we’re off! Obviously this election is about the country, but it’s also the unexpectedly early culmination of a major subplot of our lives over the past year. In short, Randi will be in Scotland for the rest of the campaign and I’m going to include “REMEMBER TO WATER RANDI’S PLANT” in capital letters in this opening paragraph in a desperate attempt to remember it.
Back in the misty pre-election days of early May, the big family news was that Tash and Cormac had returned from their world travels! So I had a lovely Early May Bank Holiday afternoon catching up with Tash, starting with a haggis toastie lunch (just to further the Scottish theme, albeit at Deeney’s café in Leyton) before continuing at the pub opposite. That Saturday, my mum gathered the whole family for her newly-traditional ‘Birthday Season Kickoff Meal’ which – following a ranked choice voting mechanism which some of us slightly gamed – was held around a lazy Susan at Pearl Liang in Paddington.
That evening, Katie and James stayed at ours for a bumper evening of Doctor Who and Eurovision, the latter accompanied by Randi’s incredibly tasty halloumi fajitas which were a big hit. To start with Eurovision: as usual, the semi-finals had inexplicably booted out some of the best songs, but nothing compares with Europe’s desultory reaction to Finland’s Windows95man. Sadly, I guess people simply don’t share my nostalgia for old operating systems. On the other hand, this was the first time in a while where I thought the actual winner deserved it. Switzerland wasn’t my favourite, but it was a good song and a good performance.
More importantly – Doctor Who is back! Yes, the space babies in the opener were creepy, but the second episode was much better and Steven Moffat’s Boom was exceptional. It always takes a little while in my brain for any new Doctor to mentally click into place as The Doctor, but this time around – without doubt – the definitive moment came as Ncuti Gatwa perched precariously atop a landmine on Kastarion 3. I’ll remember this one for a while.
Last week was Randi’s birthday, but (fun fact) one year + one week ago it was also Randi’s birthday, and that’s when Reema had gifted us a voucher for cocktails and cake at Cahoots London with a one year expiry date. Due to all of the London/Scotland hopping we’d struggled to book a lot, but thankfully Randi remembered just in time and we enjoyed a great afternoon at this meticulously WW2/London Underground-themed bar. (To demonstrate the power of psychological expectation: I was genuinely thrown into confusion when my cocktail served in a tea cup wasn’t hot.) Thanks, Reema!
For Randi’s latest birthday, I travelled up to Midlothian so that we could walk part of the bittersweet Penicuik-Dalkeith Walkway together. The route is a beautiful nature reserve, but at the same time it’s yet another example of a former railway killed by the Beeching cuts, and by rights this should still be a railway. The 1960s robbed us of a lot! Still, it is a very nice walk, from which we eventually veered off to visit Rosslyn Chapel.
Built in the 15th century and now a bona fide tourist attraction (probably because The Da Vinci Code filmed scenes here), Rosslyn Chapel was on our list because Kirsty gifted us a voucher for tea and cake here. (We’re very easy to buy presents for, clearly.) But after enjoying our afternoon treats on the visitor centre’s sunny balcony we did appreciate our visit to the actual chapel, in large part because of the entertaining stories about its deranged stonemason. According to legend, this guy was so enraged by his apprentice’s superior stonework that he smashed his skull with a mallet.
While this story might not actually be true – in the sense that there’s no evidence whatsoever that it happened and it’s almost certainly made up – it is true that one of the columns is significantly more impressive than the other one. So, draw your own conclusions. And talking of murder: during this trip we were also made encouraged to watch Channel 5’s documentary Murder in a Small Town on the horrific killing of a Scottish teenager in 2003, for which her boyfriend was convicted under somewhat ambiguous evidence. Frustratingly, however, the documentary also simply ignored a lot of obviously pertinent facts, casting some doubt on the idea that the My5 streaming service (which is terrible, btw) is really the best way to uncover miscarriages of justice.
The following evening, Kirsty and Roger very generously took us to dinner in Edinburgh to celebrate Randi’s birthday, followed by drinks at the bar of The Scotsman Hotel. This is a beautiful Edwardian building formerly occupied by the newspaper back in the days when newspapers could afford beautiful Edwardian buildings. Oh, and after much cajoling encouragement we also finally spat on the Heart of Midlothian too. It was a wonderful night. Finally – as usual – on Sunday I slipped away from this world to go watch classic Doctor Who with Katie and James. This time it was the turn of 1979’s The Power of Kroll, which has an abysmal reputation amongst Doctor Who fans but was actually not terrible. And now Katie and I have an excuse to chant “Kroll! Kroll! Kroll!” at each other.
Back in London, I’m very excited that after years of procrastinating, Randi and I finally got our act together to fix our garden. And sure, by ‘fix’ I mean we asked Angela’s incredible friend Pierre to de-weed everything, followed by a not-very-subtle “so, how difficult would it be for you to lay turf as well…?” and before you know it we have an actual lawn! I will save the triumphant photo until the next post – once it grows in a bit – but we’re already looking forward to cosy post-election lunchtime picnics.
Finally, after parting drinks in central London on Thursday night, she went up to Scotland while I headed down to Devon to spend the long weekend with my mum for her birthday. (In fact, I’ve commandeered her desk to write this very blog. It’s a great desk!)
Yesterday we celebrated her birthday with a long walk along the coast from Sidmouth towards Exmouth, although it should be noted that neither of us have a stunning sense of direction and spent part of the walk going the wrong way along a road away from any coastline. Still, it was a stunning day, and in the evening we toasted getting back to Exmouth eventually with a delicious dinner at The Chronicle.
The next six weeks are going to be hectic, even at a distance. But we’re on our way. Let’s go!
Fun fact: on 27th April, this blog turned 20 years old. It started on Blogger, which shockingly still exists, albeit presumably only because there’s still an active email thread bouncing around Google trying to figure out exactly which team owns it so that they can shut it down. April 2004 was only two months after Facebook launched (for Harvard students only), two years before Twitter and six years before Instagram. It was, in other words, before everything turned a bit rubbish, and my stubborn determination to keep this thing rolling forward has been a great insulator from social networks over the years. Even if it is just a very inefficient way of writing a diary. Onwards to the next 20 years!
Of course, in 2004 I was still in secondary school, and a few weeks back I got to nostalgically relive the secondary school experience by signing up for a project and then leaving all the work until the night before the deadline. This was part of a Sense About Science project to crowdsource ratings on the quality of government publications – which is about the coolest sentence I’ve ever written – and as a result I now have random nuggets of information in my head fighting to get out about both leasehold reform and Universal Credit’s Work Capacity Assessment. Fortunately neither of these topics came up when I had dinner with Andrew and Bonnie a few Fridays ago, but we did stay up so late discussing theological differences between Protestantism and Catholicism that I had to crash overnight in their spare room. (And yes, this is the kind of engaging content which has kept this blog going for so long. You’re welcome.)
Other highlights of April included being invited to Conor’s birthday party in Mayow Park – where I was delighted to discover that an updated version of Punch & Judy is still going strong – although this was also where I discovered that Randi and I have been pronouncing the name of Chandos pub totally wrong all of this time. (We still prefer our version, though, and are sticking to it.) I also finally got a chance to watch What We Left Behind, a really lovely retrospective on the making of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in the 1990s. I loved watching this with my dad growing up, and it was his joint favourite Star Trek (along with The Next Generation) so it was a little sad to hear that the cast and crew always felt a little unloved and unappreciated compared to their sister shows. We loved you!
The really big thing last month, however, was Catherine & AJ’s long-awaited visit to the UK. Randi and I were both very excited to see them and took the week off work, starting in Edinburgh and then migrating down to London midway through their stay.
Well, I say “took the week off work” – this was mostly true, but Randi did force them to canvass with us in Bonnyrigg on Sunday afternoon before a very lovely Midlothian dinner with Kirsty and Roger in the evening. Through this process I discovered that having an adorable two-year old with you on the doorstep is a great way of melting the ice.
Other holiday meals in Scotland included the classic Dishoom dinner (where I bullied everyone into trying the Liberty Punch with me) and a trip to the excellent Makars Mash with Katie and James, which I am desperate to return to so that I can work through all of the mash potato varieties.
We also visited Edinburgh Castle (which I’ve done before) and the Botanic Garden (which I hadn’t – and it’s free!) in addition to lots of nice walks and – as you’d expect with a two-year old – sampling the quality of many different playgrounds. I also got in trouble for teaching the next generation how the on/off switches work on noisy Fisher Price toys. I regret nothing.
Wednesday’s train to London was significantly enhanced by loading up with a plentiful selection of wine and cheeses for the journey, so we were well-fed by the time we arrived back at our flat. Catherine and AJ had stayed with us back when we lived in Tulse Hill, but this was the first time they got to see our Forest Hill home in person and Randi and I had spent weeks strategising about how much of the local area we could plausibly show them over a few days. In the end we managed to pack in a fair amount! From morning cardamon buns on the High Road to the playground at the top of Blythe Hill, the Waterlink Way, the Horniman Museum and Gardens (including the aquarium and petting zoo!), the Crystal Palace dinosaurs and the Perry Hill pub, we covered a decent amount of our South East London slice.
We also had a two year old’s birthday to celebrate, for which we turned to the ultimate birthday destination of all time: the London Transport Museum! Having clamoured around the buses (she really liked the UK’s buses in general) we stocked up on gifts from the glorious shop, although TfL have not yet released official merchandise for the new London Overground line names so – clearly – I will be back.
That evening we also celebrated with a classic Colin the Caterpillar birthday cake, which went down well with everyone. Other meals in London included sharing every single vegetarian dish on the menu at Padella (no regrets) and an evening at the Mayflower pub before an evening walk along the river to Tower Bridge.
On Sunday, Catherine and AJ’s friend Mark had managed to get us all tickets to West Ham vs Liverpool, so we set off for Stratford for only my second in-person football match (PE excepted). On the plus side:
- The inherent pessimism of Forever Blowing Bubbles is genuinely charming.
- It was only £6.50 for a pint, which is much less than the outrageous markup I was expecting.
- The guy seated behind us offered an excellent running commentary – not only about the game, but also useful contextual information about West Ham’s woes (“moving to this soulless urban hellscape”, “not having anyone with strategy” etc.) and, as a bonus, the improvement in his previously fractured relationship with his father.
On the other hand, the atmosphere was more ‘weary resignation’ than full-blooded enthusiasm, which I guess is in keeping with the song. And it was a 2-2 draw, so the whole thing could have been written off from the start.
(Here ends Dominic’s match report.)
After the match we wandered down to Victoria Park, which surely must win the award for the most expensive and impressive children’s playground of the week. The next evening, on Catherine and AJ’s last night in London, we met up with Mark and other friends in a pub in Leytonstone: the good kind of pub, with space for kids to run around while the adults talked about football or (in my case) learnt super-interesting things on non-football topics like universities, organ donation and GP funding reform. (Still no opportunity to slip anything into conversation about leaseholders or Work Capacity Assessments, though.)
That’s probably enough incoherent rambling for now – I’d hate to get burnout and fail to deliver on my “another 20 years” promise. Although, in closing:
- We very much enjoyed watching the Science Fair documentary together, so thanks to Katie for the excellent recommendation!
- I was very much creeped out watching the BBC’s Why Planes Vanish: The Hunt for MH370 on my own.
- I am hugely relieved at Sadiq Khan’s re-election, and that my jitters about the polls were wrong. The fact remains – as both Catherine and AJ agreed – that Sadiq’s text layout choices in the London Elects candidate information booklet were… questionable. Call us next time. (Congrats also to Count Binface for defeating Britain First – this does make me proud.)
This post is dedicated to the Lazy Chef café outside Forest Hill station.
Randi and I used to go for brunch at the weekend, but the last few times she’s been in Scotland.
The staff clearly believe we’ve broken up because they no longer ask how she’s doing.
We went to Norway! It was a relatively last-minute decision to spend a long Easter weekend in Bergen, but it’s such a quick hop from London that it seemed irresistible once we’d thought of it. It wouldn’t be your first choice to escape a rainy British bank holiday, since Bergen (or “Bergen?”, as the playful sign outside the airport puts it) is even more famous for rain, but as it turned out we got lucky with plenty of sun and only tiny smatterings of rain.
As a politics nerd, the joke about Scandinavian countries is that they’re all little social democratic utopias which those on the left will always reach for as the league-table-topping exemplar of what we should do. (“In Finland, all children learn quantum physics through outdoor play! In Denmark, prisoners produce award-winning plays about restorative justice! In Sweden, there are more weekend days than weekdays!”) Of course, all of these places are not mystical fantasy lands but actual real places which you can always just go and visit. But with all that said, things do seem pretty great in Norway. The country’s rich, everyone seems to be out jogging all the time, and the walls of the tram tunnels have been decorated with brightly-coloured party lights seemingly just for the hell of it. Let’s all move to Norway!
We joined a walking tour on Saturday morning to get acquainted with our new home, and benefitted from a great guide who had moved from southern Italy to Norway during a quarter-life crisis and massively confused her parents in the process. A lot of the tour focused on Bryggen – the area of Bergen where colourful warehouses owned by the medieval Hanseatic League sit up against the harbour – and it felt like a good sequel to all of the prime Hanseatic League content from our walking tour of Gotland in Sweden last year.
For more recent Bergen history, we also visited the (free!) Bergenhus Fortress Museum which focuses on the city’s local resistance movement against Nazi occupation between 1940 and 1945. It’s obviously very moving to see the faces of ordinary people who were arrested and sent to camps, and you wonder – in a place as relatively small as this – how many local visitors would still be able to recognise family members in these photographs.
The most accessible mountain in Bergen is Fløyen, which can be reached via a couple of different walking routes starting just behind the city centre. There’s also a funicular, which runs frequently, although the first time we just chose to walk through the fairytale-esque mossy green forest. Near the top sits some kind of nursery/daycare centre, which seems excessively idyllic, while the summit itself is a busy and popular gathering place with your standard café, playground and troll garden. (There are lot of trolls in Norway.)
We waited until Monday to do our proper hike from Fløyen: the 13km Vidden Trail, which runs along the mountain plateau to neighbouring Mount Ulriken. We weren’t 100% sure whether we were going to be able to do this, since it’s only ‘recommended’ to tourists between May and October, and our walking tour guide (who self-described as absolutely not a hiker) wasn’t encouraging. Fortunately, we got talking to a solo Norwegian tourist from Oslo at dinner one night and he confirmed that all of the ice on the route had indeed melted, leaving only snow, and that it was perfectly manageable in hiking boots. Thank you, random Norwegian man!
After some debate, we also chose to walk from Fløyen to Ulriken rather than the other way around. This meant going slightly more uphill than downhill, but to be honest – on a sunny day with no wind! – it didn’t make a great deal of difference as there isn’t a lot of elevation change either way. As always, the hike proved to be the highlight of the whole trip, even though towards the end I was grumbling about the combination of snow and rocks which result in some very, very tired legs. It’s worth noting that although Bergen itself is full of English-speaking tourists, we passed almost no-one on the Vidden Trail speaking English. Instead, they all seemed to be Scandinavians making everything look absurdly easy: jogging up and down rockfaces without a care in the world. We got to Ulriken in a perfectly reasonable time, but I don’t normally feel like I’m part of the absolute slowest group on a hike!
From Ulriken we took the cable car back down to Bergen and headed to a Thai restaurant for a much-needed warm dinner. In general, as you’d expect, eating out in Norway is incredibly expensive – with variable results – but the three places which really made me happy were:
- Fjellskaal, an amazing fish restaurant by the harbour where everything tasted delicious. I had the smoked salmon starter and the salty pickled herring Spekesild for main, but Randi’s soup was also incredible. This was also where the helpful Norwegian hiker encouraged us to pursue our Vidden dreams.
- Trekroneren, the internationally-renowned Bergen hot dog stand. One prime reason to move to Bergen is so that I can complete my exhaustive journey through the menu.
- The Godt Brød bakery chain, which is everywhere, meaning that tasty cardamom buns are also everywhere.
We also spent a fair amount of time just chilling in our delightful Airbnb, which was within easy walking distance of everything and made impressively efficient use of all available space. Bizarrely, I stumbled across a channel devoted exclusively to classic episodes of Robot Wars, so I had the unexpected joy of reliving great childhood moments like Panic Attack flipping Matilda, competitors messing up the pinball challenge, and a hyped-up crowd chanting PIT PIT PIT. We also used this opportunity to finish Season 2 of the The Bear, which was great, so now Randi and I are in the unusual situation of being fully up-to-date and just waiting for the next season to come out like everybody else!
On our last day we had time for one final, beautiful walk from Mount Fløyen – much more gentle, no rocks or snow this time – before grabbing a hot chocolate from Fjåk and realising that, oh no, they actually have a huge range of different hot chocolate options and we’ll just have to come back to Norway again to try more. And then, sadly, it was time to come back home. Bergen was such a perfect Easter break and just what we both needed during a busy time at work. In short: highly recommended if you’re looking for astounding views and tasty fish.
Finally, I popped over to Carolyn’s yesterday for Austin’s Peppa Pig-themed birthday party – happy birthday Austin! – which was really lovely. On the way I listened to a lot of silly AI-generated music courtesy of Suno, which is finally a generative AI tool which seems actually useful to me personally. And yes, I define “actually useful” as the ability to instantly produce catchy tunes on very niche topics – like some 90s Europop about the evils of Daylight Savings Time, a Broadway ode to the Waterlink Way or an upbeat rap anthem for our Ops team at work – because deep down all I’ve ever wanted is to live inside that musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer…
Jeff DuBowe on Haarlem globetrotters: “One of our favorite spots. Super walking city. I think we were the ones who told your In-Laws about it…” Oct 14, 15:15
