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.)
Time for the traditional rubbish first-few-months-of-the-year blog! You know the one: where most fun activities still take place indoors, sans Christmas decorations or scenic summer vistas, so instead I need to keep thinking of different synonyms for “I had a drink with…” to keep the blog going. Oh well. You can follow Tash and Cormac on Polarsteps instead, if you prefer.
Drink #1 (in this narrative, at least) was actually a mimosa with Kira over bunch several weeks back in Dulwich Village. Drinks #2, #3 , #4 etc. were a few days later on a wonderful night out with Matthew, who I hadn’t seen for years and years! In return for my willingness to hop over to Ladbroke Grove on a school night, he crafted an excellent local pub crawl for the two of us, during which we caught up on the last decade or so, apologised unnecessarily for weird things we both said when we were 17, rehashed our mind/body debate from the Brent-Eton summer school (I’m still right) and started a whole new battle on the merits of the Central line. It was a blast.
Later that week I also hung out with current/former colleagues Klaudia and “three schwas in my name” Vanessa, which – as you can tell – descended unexpectedly into some really quite delightfully nerdy linguistics chat. Usually you can immediately spot people’s eyes scanning for the exit when I say something like “Guess what I learnt from a YouTube video on rhotics!” but this was the perfect group for such matters.
Randi missed all of this, just like she missed my spontaneous outing to Morden and Morden Park (the perfect place to stride across a muddy field while listening to a hypnotic 13 minute-long BBC News countdown theme remix, since you ask), but she was back in London the week afterwards in time for Caroline and Josh’s dinner party. Caroline and Josh are basically the only couple we have left who are still committed to the classic ‘invite a bunch of people who don’t know each other’ dinner party concept, and it’s great to be able to freeride off their hard work by meeting a bunch of interesting new people all at once. (Including someone who worked for my aunt, which briefly made me nervous.) Oh, and the food was delicious too!
A weekend later we finally hosted Alix, Adam and Austin at our flat – they have been very slow and nervous about venturing south of the river – and devoured Randi’s incredible smoked salmon frittata before enjoying a walk up Blythe Hill. Many thanks to Austin for being a legitimate reason to see the cool playground up there! My mum has also stayed with us a couple of times recently (despite fierce competition from a plethora of London options) and we all had a lovely evening together in our local fancy Italian, Nonna Maria, where my mum was delighted that her Italian is still good enough to pick up rude words on the menu.
Last weekend I joined Randi in Scotland for an extended weekend trip to celebrate Kirsty’s birthday! As you’d expect we celebrated in the traditional way: canvassing sessions, fondue, a Randi-made chocolate birthday cake, haggis cigars and a three-part Channel 4 documentary on the 1984 miners’ strike. (Clarification: haggis cigars consist of haggis in spring rolls, and are not smoked.)
On Sunday I had my usual day off from door knocking for another classic Doctor Who session with Katie and James. After a long break, we decided to return to Tom Baker’s ‘Key to Time’ season with The Androids of Tara, a jaunty low-stakes adventure set in a medieval society which just happens to have electro-swords and androids thrown in. Despite a lacklustre ending this was pretty pacy and fun for most of the story. It probably peaks at the point when the evil Count Grendel’s poor, loyal servant Lamia – a lovestruck peasant who is also the local expert on androids – is mercilessly killed off by a stray shot and completely unlamented. #teamLamia
I’m really not sure when I last saw my American cousins David and Ginger – quite possibly as far back as 2016! – so it was very exciting to see them again on Monday night after we had trained back to London. Randi and I notched up another Ottolenghi restaurant with a meal at NOPI (such exceptionally tasty food) before taking them to A Mirror: an extremely funny play-within-a-play political thriller set in a heavy censored, totalitarianish state. I loved it, partly because it was just so enjoyable to watch, but also because it had a more sophisticated take on politics and art than your bog standard 1984-inspired dystopia. (Side-note: I recognised one of the actors – the electrifyingly charismatic Jude Akuwudike – from last year’s Immersive 1984, where he played a very similar role. My conclusion is that Akuwudike is not, in fact, an actor but rather a genuine totalitarian bureaucrat who has simply slipped through the gaps between worlds.)
I feel a little bad about all of this because all of the preceding paragraph was originally Alix and Adam’s plan for themselves. Unfortunately for them, work got in the way and so Randi and I were the happy beneficiaries of their beautifully-crafted evening. Sorry! On Thursday night we also took advantage of our Chicago friend Karol being in the UK for a wedding, so were lucky enough to get to host him in London for a night and fill ourselves to bursting at The Mayflower pub in Rotherhithe. Oh, and talking of weddings: congrats to Jess and Adam, whose beautiful ceremony was admired by all the Selfs on the livestream today! I hope Katie packed her speech with enough Scottish-themed jokes.
Finally: Portugal! Last weekend, Randi and I popped down to Lisbon to join Mike and Melissa for our first trip of 2024, and – given the comparative warmth and sunshine compared to London – treated it as a summer holiday even though all of the Portuguese locals were walking around in heavy duty coats as if it was cold. (Seriously, the receptionist at our hotel was genuinely concerned about my welfare in a short-sleeved shirt and asked her colleague to check up on my welfare/sanity the next day.) From our perspective it was lovely and sunny!
After arriving on Friday night – and admiring the efficient metro ride from the airport, naturally – we spent Saturday morning wandering through Lisbon’s gorgeous cobbled streets in the vague direction of the Alfama district. In the same vein as London’s double-decker buses, Lisbon is clearly very proud of their little yellow trams which manage to weave up and down the narrow hilly streets. Later, after coming close to passing ourselves off as Mike and Melissa to their Airbnb host, the four of us took a less magical (but still very good) modern tram to a fancy restaurant for dinner, at which I very much enjoyed my ‘private pie’ in addition to duck rice.
As an aside, we also became very fond of the ‘intern’ working at our hotel whose duties included staffing the little rooftop bar. He didn’t seem entirely comfortable with his duties – most notably asking Melissa if she wouldn’t mind opening our bottle of wine as he didn’t know how to – but he won us over with his apologetic charm and constant refrain about his difficult internship. Wisely, he was not trusted to run the hotel’s breakfast.
The next day we took the train to Sintra, a town about 45 minutes away which is a major tourist destination thanks to multiple palaces and natural parks. We were there for the hike to the Moorish Castle, originally built in the 8th and 9th centuries and later taken by the Christians during the Reconquista. It felt like the absolute perfect time to be there – great weather for exploring and beautiful views, but not so hot or crowded that it was ever uncomfortable. At one point someone behind me did complain about the lack of a railing, but I wasn’t brave enough to suggest that she take this oversight up with the Moors.
Rather than heading straight home at the end of the weekend I had already had the glorious revelation that a fair few of my colleagues at work are based in Porto, so it was of course totally legitimate for me to take the train up there on Sunday night and invite myself over to work from their office for a couple of days. Huge thanks to the team there for hosting me and generously acceding to my eccentric requests, including asking Vitor to record the Portuguese pronunciation of the letter R at the beginning of words to confirm Randi’s mind-blowing discovery of how different it is to the Spanish R. (R is a tricky letter anyway. Honestly it’s best to avoid pronouncing it at all where you can.)
My journey to Porto was incredibly smooth – both the long-distance train and the impressive Porto Metro once I arrived – and I was only momentarily thrown by the weirdness of the ticket inspection on the Portuguese railways whereby they aren’t interested in seeing your ticket at all, but rather your ID (in my case, my passport!) under which you booked. It’s a little odd that you can travel across the entire Schengen area from country to country without any border checks, and yet it’s harder to be incognito on a train from Lisbon to Porto!
I’m hesitant to say too much about Porto because I was just working from an office most of the time, and so I had to demur when eager Porto residents asked me to compare it to the capital. I was very excited when the team agreed to take me to have Francesinha for lunch: a “strange cheesy bread cheesy cheese thing” which Steve at work issued as a warning but I took as an absolute must-do. A dish native to Porto, the name means ‘little French woman’ for some reason and is clearly a hangover cure, served with chips and an optional egg. It was delicious.
On Monday night my teammates Vitor and Paulo kindly took me down to the historic centre so I could get a little flavour of the historical tourist bits, although being authentic residents they didn’t actually know the names of the famous buildings we walked past. I did love the amazing walls of the central train station, but was not as much of a fan of the scary Dom Luís I Bridge which I refused to venture very far along. (Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fine bridge, but I was maybe starting to identify with the woman back in Sintra who wanted more railings.) After surviving the bridge we did the obvious thing while in Porto and shared some glasses of port together, which I wasn’t sure about but very much enjoyed. Perhaps this will finally move along the bottle of port which has been sitting in our kitchen ever since Beth and Stewart lifted it from a hotel room in Cambridge.
My final reflection on Portugal – other than that I loved it, and would definitely go back – is that I quickly formed a deep affection for the café owner on the route between my hotel and the office. Randi had already admired the Portuguese culture of standing together socially at the bar, sharing a morning coffee, and after coming to terms with my need for tea he seemed genuinely concerned that I wanted it ‘tomar’ – to go – in a lonely Anglo way 😉
But wait- we’re nearly a month into 2024, so let’s quickly catch-up on pre-Portugal events. Similar to last year, Randi spent New Year with Catherine and AJ in Chicago, while this time I hosted Oliver and Abi at mine for New Year’s Eve along with Sarah and Kat. Kat turns out to be a massive fireworks fan, so after watching the central London display on TV there was a sweet moment when everyone came up to our loft bedroom and took turns standing on the bed and sticking their heads out of our loft windows into the night air to try and catch a glimpse of other fireworks nearby. We also played more Cobra Paw and Bonanza, a bean-themed card game which was delightful.
After a respectful number of bottles had been drunk, and successfully convinced Oliver & Abi to stay overnight before going home in the morning, I spent most of New Year’s Day up in North London with Andy and Bonnie. After a hearty pub lunch, we enjoyed a muddy walk through Highgate Wood during which I was genuinely shocked by Bonnie’s ability to instantly recall intricate plot points from any Agatha Christie novel. Definitely a Mastermind specialist subject.
Other January adventures included a wonderful Saturday in West Hamstead with Josh, Anna and Cora (after which I accidentally stole Cora’s cat – sorry!) and the successful execution of a paid deep-clean for our flat. I mention the latter because, embarrassingly, it took so much longer than expected that the company ended up calling me with a tone of “we haven’t heard from our cleaner in hours… is she alive?”. But she did an amazing job, and our taps were so shiny that I sent Randi a photo of my face reflected in them before ordering a pizza, eating it straight from the pizza box while sitting on the floor of the living room (too terrified of touching any surfaces in case I ruined them) and then going straight to bed so that Randi could still enjoy the results of the deep clean when she arrived back the next day.
Randi and I also had an impromptu walking day one weekend through Wandsworth Common and on to Battersea Park, finishing at the reopened Battersea Power Station luxury shopping centre thing (I expect they don’t like it being called a ‘shopping centre’) which I hadn’t seen inside yet. It is very cool, although we just admired the architecture and didn’t actually buy anything. We also had a very fun pasta-based outing with Reema and Esther and have also officially started watching our next series – The Bear – so I look forward to telling you what I think about it in 2028 when we finish. (I joke: we’ll try to move faster, since Randi has a temporary Disney+ subscription just for this.)
Merry Christmas!
A few weekends back I made my final trip to Scotland in 2023 for a festive one-two punch of the Midlothian Labour Christmas party (featuring a tricky Midlothian quiz and a brava bagpipe performance!) and then a Hannukah celebration at Kirsty and Roger’s with Katie and James (featuring Randi’s delicious latkes and an improvised solution to a shortage of candles). In-between, Randi and I went over to Katie and James’s flat for the Doctor Who special which I’ve been most looking forward to – The Giggle, with Neil Patrick Harris as a perfectly-cast Toymaker – and it was amazing.
The following week I enjoyed a really lovely end-of-year virtual boardgaming night with my team at work, at which we all learnt that Zirak is absolutely fearless when playing Incan Gold and there’s no competing with him. Randi and I also said goodbye to Alex and finally made it to The Perry Hill pub for dinner and drinks. This is somewhere which should qualify as ‘one of our locals’ but just isn’t in the direction we’d normally think to walk – but I’m glad we did, because it was very cosy!
However, in truth we were merely warming up the cosiness level because our real Christmas treat was a long weekend to the German town of Bad Wimpfen for the authentic German Christmas market experience. This trip was masterminded by Randi as a way both of seeing a different side to the country than Berlin (which we’d both visited already) but also exploring how far we can comfortably get across Europe without flying.
To that end we started our journey on Thursday night with the Eurostar to Paris, and then checked-in to a private room in a hostel a short walk from the station. The next morning we had time to enjoy a long breakfast with Reema, followed by a brief wander around the banks of the Seine, before hopping back up to Gare de l’Est (much nicer than Gare du Nord) for our train to Mannheim. Our *sniff* high-speed *sniff* train, on a network which France has been developing for decades… and perhaps the less said about this the better.
In contrast, Germany’s Deutsche Bahn has been in ‘permanent crisis’ (the words of Germany’s public auditor, not mine) for years, with record delays and cancellations, so we were a bit sceptical that our change of trains at Mannheim would go smoothly. And it did not! But since we were on holiday we secretly enjoyed the chaos (is this train going to the destination displayed on the outside or the inside?) plus the cheer which went up when it finally started moving. This delay also meant we were inspired to break for dinner at our final changeover station (a.k.a. schnitzel at Sinsheim!) which was delightful. And, in fairness, the rest of our DB experience ran smoothly on this trip. It’s important that the German railways stumble every so often, in order to provide hope to the others.
Bad Wimpfen itself was truly magical. I had imagined a cute German town with a fenced-off Christmas market somewhere in the middle, but in fact the market stetches out to cover the entire historic centre. The crowds (almost all domestic German tourists) circulate gently around the hilly, cobblestoned streets – glühwein or bratwurst or both in hand – pausing to appreciate the brass band playing from the balcony at city hall, the stalls selling homemade wooden toys or the merry-go-round at the entrance.
We were particularly impressed by the Feuerzangenbowle – or ‘fire tong punch’ – a mulled wine variant which is served alight, although for ourselves we stuck with the safer, less fiery variant. (Full disclosure: if you looked through our entire set of photos from this holiday I think we’re holding glasses of glühwein in at least half of them.) We were also delighted to re-encounter langos, last seen during our Austrian Christmas market adventure of 2017, which came in a smaller, denser variant here but were no less delicious. I persuaded the German man behind us in the queue to help me practice saying all of the fillings (sauerrahm, knoblauch, schinken and käse) so that I could buy the one with everything.
During the days we explored a little further afield, beginning with a beautiful countryside walk to the neighbouring town of Bad Rappenau for lunch. Along the way we admired Germany’s well-signposted rural walking paths, admired the extent of the railway system (because of course Bad Rappenau has its own station for a quick journey back) and – in Randi’s mind at least – decided that Germany was much more reminiscent of “the American Midwest, but with trains” than anywhere in the UK. Which makes sense, given the German influence on the Midwest!
The next day we went on a longer journey to Stuttgart. This was less successful as a destination, since by the time we finally got there Randi was starting to feel a bit sick (for legitimate reasons) and I soon joined her (because I foolishly experimented with the glühwein + gin combination at the Stuttgart Christmas market). As a result we didn’t see a great deal of the city, aside from the main shopping street (bland, post-war architecture), aforementioned Christmas market (fine, but not a patch on Bad Wimpfen) and a legitimately nice park. With all that said, what did make the trip legitimately worthwhile was our initial train from Bad Wimpfen, which opted to become a tram halfway through and took us on a street-level tour of all of the local factories. Since it was a Sunday they were all closed, and it all felt a bit like a movie set, but it was a very very evocative German ambience of “look at all the industry we have”.
I’ll save Christmas itself for my next post rather than cramming it into this one too – but suffice to say we both brought back bits of Bad Wimpfen for our Secret Santas!
It’s December already? Wow, OK. I guess I should have known this was coming once I reached 2023’s ‘first mulled wine of the season’ moment (this classic phrase thrown in especially for the dom.blog bingo players) at Beckenham Place Park a few weeks ago. Randi and I were admiring the autumnal scenes (as they then were) together with her brother Alex, who is staying with us in London for a few weeks and is giving us the inside track on what actually happens in the city after we’ve gone to sleep.
If you are playing dom.blog bingo (and if you’re looking for an excellent stocking filler there’s still time to order from the merch store) another phrase you’ll be wanting is ‘trip to Scotland’, so I’ll oblige: a few weekends ago I made another trip to Scotland where political activities included a very well-attended canvassing session in Penicuik followed by a warming round of hot chocolates with some of the other volunteers, an awful lot of handwritten envelope addressing and a group rewatch of David Olusoga’s excellent first episode of Union.
On Sunday, before catching the train home, I popped in on Katie and James’s brand new flat (so much space!) and enjoyed another classic Doctor Who screening: 1967’s The Moonbase. Knowing that Patrick Troughton was my dad’s favourite Doctor growing up always makes these stories particularly special, which was in no way diminished by the fact that two of the four episodes are animated recreations paired with the original soundtracks. (However, the archival-loving tendencies of the original fans who made audio tape recordings from the original broadcasts have my eternal gratitude.) Anyway, The Moonbase was the second Cyberman adventure featuring an attack on an international weather-control base on the moon. In a nice show of slowly putting the continuity together in my head, companions Ben and Polly (along with Jamie) are the same Ben and Polly introduced in The War Machines which Katie and I watched back in 2021. Polly remains very smart. Ben remains infuriatingly stupid.
A few weeks later I went to Amsterdam on a work trip for a couple of days, for which I managed to swing Eurostar tickets rather than flying. This is obviously the superior experience for many reasons, and – as Randi ruefully notes – is actually faster than the train to Edinburgh. The Booking.com event I was there for was really great, although I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that I didn’t even notice the potentially historic (and not in a good way) election day going on around me. If future generations ask me what it was like to be there on that day, I’ll have to tell them I was too busy ordering a large portion of chips (with house sauce ) from Manneken Pis…
And now with Christmas fast approaching it’s time for the usual festive preparations, including this year’s Christmas tree which is an absolute triumph if I do say so myself. Ever since moving to Forest Hill we’ve always bought our tree and then carried it home from the same Christmas tree seller behind the station, and he says that we’re the only couple who ever arrive where both people look enthusiastic for the task. Purists might note that we got a bit over-ambitious with the height and that it doesn’t actually fit the dimensions of our flat, but we regret nothing.
Other wintery adventures this month have included pizza and homemade gingerbread at Matt and Laura’s – during which we spent many happy hours playing “escape the monster” games with Cress, and I feel like Matt deserves a lot of credit for nobly agreeing to be typecast as the monster each time – plus a really lovely evening of drinks and catch-up with Jill at The Island (which always brings back memories itself) and, of course, the first two Doctor Who anniversary specials featuring the return of David Tennant and Catherine Tate. I count myself firmly in the “this is awesome” camp, and I am beyond excited to have Russell T Davies’s vision for the show back on screens again. My only complaint – and here is a mild spoiler for the first special – is that Donna’s daughter Rose, who had literally just saved Donna’s life and is totally old enough to be a companion in her own right, made a polite request at the end of the episode to see inside the TARDIS which was totally rebuffed! The #justiceforrose campaign starts here.
Finally, this weekend Randi and I were invited to Caroline and Josh’s housewarming party in Streatham. As per usual we arrived slightly aggressively on time (3pm on the dot) but redeemed ourselves by joining the speedy chair assembly team. We had a great time, but it was particularly nice to be reunited with the Whitstable group from last year including Hilda the dog! And talking of wonderful groups: on Friday night we assembled Oliver, Abi, Sarah and Kira for a Georgian evening at Kartuli. I was so happy we managed to get everyone together to share several bottles of sweet, sweet Georgian wine and lots of general deliciousness, but I also appreciated the educational value after discovering that Kira and Sarah share an uncanny affinity for obscure animal facts.
Todd on 2024: My Year In Books: “I know what Glass Hotel is about. It’s about a bunch of loosely connected, barely developed characters, with their timelines…” Jan 4, 17:17
