Weeknote 758: 55

This week I have learned:

that I’ve only gone and submitted a finished book to a publisher! In a way it’s been strangely anticlimatic – we were 5 days ahead of deadline and everything went without any major snags. Having said that, there’s still lots of web content to create, and I’m also now thinking about a stageshow/presentation/workshop thing to accompany the writing.
this does of course mean a switch from writing a book to relentlessly plugging a book. That starts in ernest next week with the launch of Random the Advent Calendar – twelve stories about randomness and Christmas that will be released (in random order, of course) over the course of December. Hoping that pre-orders will open up in the next week or so, and publication is currently scheduled for March.
some of the accompanying materials online will include little web applications that I’ve created using Claude. This sort of coding is fascinating and a lot of fun. It also doesn’t pretend to be production-ready software engineering.
I’ve been returning to telling the story of post-war UK coal mining which I find is both inspiring and also somewhat tragic. Nearly 80 years on, and we’ve still not learned that you can’t just drop new technology into an organisation and expect positive change to happen.
starting a new piece of work with a client is fascinating. The planning and hypothesising beforehand change so dramatically when you actually start the work.
today is my 55th birthday. I awoke to the realisation that I’m as far away in time today from the day of my birth as the day of my birth is from the middle of the First World War. I’m struggling to get my head around that.
I also continue to wait for the year when I feel I have grown up.

The week in media:

Watched:

Jon Ronson’s stage show of The Psychopath Test at Richmond Theatre. It was very good, and gave me lots of ideas about how we might take Random the Book to audiences.
Andy Parson’s latest standup show at the Landmark Centre in Teddington. He seemed rattled by lots of things – not least the heckler who appeared to be a supporter of both Trump and Farage. To be fair, I think most people in Teddington were somewhat rattled by having a Trump and Farage supporter in our midst.

Listened: