Wasn’t a bad week but I was a bit flat performance wise. Emotionally and mentally last week took quite a bit out of me and then the announcement of a new acquisition for the Group that would (eventually) be joining us in F4 was quite a lot to take in. Never a dull moment.
I’ve just come off an all hands call where we met the CEO of the new company and I have to say I do think it is exciting. They bring a lot to the table that is complementary without replication and some of those things they bring are just bloody hard to get right. From a product management point of view just knowing we have those skills in-house is going to make life easier.
Some themes for this working week included – IR35 changes, Statements of Work, transiting from Alpha to Beta, fixing my mistakes, capturing the ‘personality’ of our ways of working better, contemplating a change in my role and blogging block.
Also it has been a strange couple of days.
Yesterday I heard someone I’ve known since they were in Junior school had passed away. I haven’t seen her for a few years but she was a pretty constant presence in my life – she was friends with my brother, best friends with our neighbour growing up, went to school with us all the way through to A levels and then married someone I played football with. I’d see her about. Bump into her on the train back from London or in the pub.
I guess she was only 45. It is just really sad.
Then this morning I got invited to get the vaccine next week. Which I am genuinely happy and excited about given my last 12 months but…
I filled in the Census. I am the world’s most vanilla entry I suspect but I found it to be clear, simple, fast and refreshingly simple. Well done to everybody at ONS who worked on it.
I really enjoyed ‘Moxie’ on Netflix. It is basically a #metoo era teen movie but it was nicely done and the way they dealt with the male protagonist and how people responded to him was really good. The one distracting thing was just how much the star Hadley Robinson looks like Kirsten Dunst from some angles.
Totally loved the documentary ‘Biggie: I’ve Got a Story to Tell’. I’m from an era of hip hop fans who believe the death of B.I.G. signalled the end of the Golden Age of rap music and what I loved about this documentary is it basically talked about his journey and his skills more than his feud to Pac or his death. The section comparing his rhyme cadence to jazz drumming is wonderful. GOAT.
Completed ‘WandaVision’ this morning (to avoid spoilers). I still begrudge Marvel those first couple of episodes but my god it has been a masterclass since and all the bait and switches never got in the way of the emotional heart of it all.
I read ‘This Book Has Balls’ by Michael Rapaport over a few days. Basically it is a collection of rants about US sports by the motormouth NYC actor. I enjoy his Instagram more than I don’t and this is basically an edited extension of that and anyone who loves A Tribe Called Quest as much as he does will also find a fan in me.
Digital by Default 