This month has been about trying to keep on top of things. And about rest – partly enforced, due to catching covid. I also visited Liverpool for the day, saw John Higgs talk about Lynchian in Halifax, and organised my first spoken word event since I-don’t-know-when.
The event was great fun. I was very nervous in the run-up, even though I told myself it didn’t matter how many people turned up. In the end, we had a great audience, most of whom joined us in the pub, and there were wonderful performances from Lou and Toria Garbutt. I’ve written more about the event elsewhere. I loved putting it on, and want to do other events in the near future.
I don’t think I’ve ever been as idle as I was during my covid convalescence. I tried to go back to work as soon as I could, but ended up taking three days off to recover fully. I’d not realised how fatigued covid would leave me, and it was a week or more before I was back to full strength. I still don’t feel like I can climb hills as well as I could beforehand. I wrote a separate blog post on getting covid, a late addition to my lockdown retreat series: Day 2105
The covid helped me drop a little more weight, with 1.8 pounds slipping off over February. I am still a long way off where I want to be, and only exercise will fix things properly. I despair at that – between writing and work, it’s hard to find spare time in my life. But I can also feel myself getting less flexible, so I need to take action.
My aim for writing in 2026 was to set up a flow of work. Most of February was spent finishing the Mycelium Parish News and preparing a piece for the spoken word night. That piece, The Haunting of Wuthering Heights was fun but I’m not sure how effective a use of time it was – I don’t think I’ll use it again anywhere. I attended both Wednesday Writers sessions for the month and enjoyed seeing everyone. I’ve also been experimenting with writing longhand, which I’ve missed. I sent two stories about tarot readers out on the mailing list, both originally written for Wednesday Writers: Cloudy Days and Transfers. But I want to be sharing new work more consistently.
I read a good few books, including a re-read of Wuthering Heights. I finally read Stephen King and Peter Straub’s The Talisman, which I found to be an underwhelming portal fantasy (I am however loving the sequel, Black House). Other highlights were Saraswati and On the Bullet Train with Emily Bronte. John Safran’s Squat was fun, but didn’t always feel plausible.
Due to the long time off, I watched 18 movies during February. My favourite was probably Marie Antoinette, which I’d put off watching for years as it’s Olive’s favourite film and I worried I might not like it. Perfect Days was beautiful, and I’ve been enjoying receiving photos of the film’s location from Laurence’s visit to Japan. The recent Candyman sequel was a brilliant slasher flick. I loved “Wuthering Heights” – mostly for Emerald Fennell’s refusal to produce a faithful rendition of the book. We already have enough of those. I also loved how the marketing for Wuthering Heights made it a talking point – was Fennell vandalising a classic or reworking it?
I’ve been thinking a lot about the best way to pick films from my Letterboxd watchlist and I’ve settled on ordering this by popularity. I’d previously tried ordering by average rating, but that surfaced a lot of old and sometimes obscure films. Putting it in order of popularity tends to overlap with things other people I know have watched. Letterboxd is what I want from social media, in that it encourages interaction. But feature creep is already starting, with Letterboxd opening a streaming video store. It’s worth noting that Letterboxd’s popularity rating is, at heart, a closed algorithm, but one that does not currently have a hidden motive.
Speaking of social media, I finally closed the substack, as I realised I’d been holding on to it, and people were only going to keep subscribing and need moving to the current list. I’ve still not removed Whatsapp from my phone because there are a couple of useful lists on there. A friend describing this as ‘liking the taste of steak’ – we know these things are a trap, but we prefer living in the Matrix.
Work continues to be chaotic, with too much happening at once. One of the big problems with remote work is that you don’t have the dampening effect of physical space. People can’t see how busy you are, so you’re receiving constant notifications. You don’t have to walk between physical spaces for meetings, so they pile up on one another. On top of this, consultancy is inherently about having to choose between competing demands. I’ve been trying a process of mise-en-place to keep control, but this was overwhelmed after a couple of weeks of February. But I am going to keep on at it.
I gave a talk at work on MCP using Spring AI. I don’t get much chance to work with GenAI tools at my current client, so I’m having to keep up in my spare time. The software industry feels very unsettled, with large numbers of redundancies being ascribed to AI. Personally, I think that’s spin about reducing headcount due to the sluggish economy. In the long-term, I’m confident that GenAI will be good for job prospects, but the short-term could be a very bumpy ride. As powerful as GenAI is, code was never the bottleneck for most companies, and I don’t think agentic tools will replace all roles.
February was a good month. When I read back last year’s monthnotes at the end of 2025, I realised how stressed I’d been all year. I’m still not as calm as I’d like to be, but things are on the right track.
- There are so many things and places I’d love to see in America, but stories like this put me off travelling.
- I loved this short story by Jubilee Finnegan: The History of Coming Out To Your Parents Any% Speedrunning
- I recorded a podcast interview with Echologorrhea about my favourite work of art. I’ll share the link on the blog soon.
- As much as I love living in an old house, my life sometimes feels like a slow panic about maintenance.
