August 2-8, 2025
SATURDAY 2 One of our neighbours is so boring you wonder whether she was born boring, without personality, or whether boring took her on one unsuspecting night while she still thought she was interesting. There is another way of looking at this. That she is not actually boring, but that the way she chooses to express herself is boring. In other words, inside the person who has no talent for expressing themselves is a sparkling personality not known maybe even to the person themselves.
📌 Gill said she discovered she was short-sighted when she bought some maps for a holiday, noticed they were blurry and took them back to the shop to complain about the quality of the printing and demand her money back.
📌 My wife wants us to support the Arsenal Ladies football team, who play at the Emirates stadium, which is a short ride on the 153 bus.
SUNDAY 3 The New Statesman reveals that the youth vices of the past (namely sex and and drugs) have been replaced in the digital world by online gambling, which is seen by Gen Z as a social activity. The article does not state how much money Gen Z is squandering in Paddy Power or on Bet365, but if it is anything like the amount the young me squandered in the pubs of Liverpool, the future for these 18-24 year-olds could go a number of ways. Which brings us to the subject of Luck and its role in our lives. New World philosopher Nigel Warburton seductively uses the England Women’s triumph in the Euro25 tournament to illustrate that having luck is not the same as being lucky…
According to [Scottish philosopher] David Hume, what we call ‘luck’ is only our ignorance of the causes of things turning out the way they do. I suspect Leah Williamson, the England captain, would agree. She put it this way: ‘We have ridden our luck, but I don’t think we were lucky.’
📌 Nice line in the Guardian about an openly lesbian woman who has become an archbishop in the Anglican church: “She has well and truly broken the stained-glass ceiling.”
📌 Another Guardian article claims that Donald Trump is already in the Joe Biden wastelands of losing your marbles…
The president repeatedly drifts off topic, including during a cabinet meeting this month when he spent 15 minutes talking about decorating.
MONDAY 4
📌 RIP Stella Remington, 90, the subject of one of the best headlines I ever wrote at the Guardian.
📌 Liam Neeson doesn’t quite measure up to the comedy genius of Leslie Nielsen, but the resurrection of The Naked Gun is nevertheless a beautifully daft and downright silly romp, which kicked off my wife’s “birthday week”.
TUESDAY 5
📌 My wife’s birthday present was a hit, probably because she picked it herself…
📌 After a visit to the V&A we had a glass of champagne in Fortnum & Mason, came out, crossed the road to get the bus home and bumped into Martine, in London with friend Janet for a play, the brilliant Till the Stars Come Down. In June we were in Paris and bumped into Martine’s brother Gino. They are both very old friends from Brighton and meeting them both in succession after such a long time was a pair of rare coincidental delights.
WEDNESDAY 6 A zoo in Denmark is asking people with unwanted pets to donate them to the zoo as food for hungry animals. Menus include live chickens, rabbits and guinea pigs.
THURSDAY 7 There’s a cheesy article in the New Statesman about how UK prime ministers handled the publicity of being on holiday. It claims Harold Wilson invented the one-shot stunt in which photographers are allowed one seemingly private picture before being told to shove off. But it was a later PM who perfected the art…
David Cameron is perhaps the finest practitioner of the staged snap. Wear the same outfit: navy polo shirt, navy trousers. Do the same thing: point at fish. Always fish. Fish in Cornwall in 2011, fish in Devon in 2012, fish in a Portuguese market in 2013, and again fish at a different Portuguese fish market in 2014.
📌 Always nice to hear of a win on the Premium Bonds.
📌 I asked Matthew why he wasn’t in the gym this morning, doing his exercises as usual. He told me he was injured with a fractured shoulder. Sean interrupted: “He did it answering the phone.” Which turned out to be sort of true. Matthew had over-reached for a ringing phone and took a tumble.
📌 Just as I breathed a sigh of relief that the Big Brain stitchwork for the Royal London Hospital project is nearing completion, I got a message from Carmel that means I effectively have an extra month, which is fab news.
FRIDAY 8 I’ve often wondered during all the conferences and meetings I attend on power-sharing methods in large institutions whether any of the big lessons learned about dismantling hierarchies, etc, could ever be translated, or even proposed, as government policy. A recent article in the Guardian argues that big government could, and should, have the courage to let go of the levers of control. It reads like a manifesto for a New Enlightenment.
📌 CapX, the best site to witness cutting-edge capitalism, reports that Britain now has its first AI MP. He (he would be) is West Yorkshire MP Mark Sewards, who uses an AI chatbot to deal with his constituents’ questions.
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