Stream Success! | The Friday Update

Welcome to this week’s edition of the Friday Update, in which I give a little insight into what I’ve been up to for the past seven days.

What have I been up to this week?

I thought I’d use this week’s Friday Update to talk about something slightly different: and that’s the bi-weekly Twitch stream I recently started.

I don’t write much about the stream in these updates as I gather most of you are here for my “main channel” videos. But, it’s nevertheless something I’ve been really enjoying!

Back in October, Twitch got in touch and asked if I would be interested in trying-out some streaming. They offered some help in getting set up on the platform and a little bit of money to upgrade some kit.

Prior to launching my own stream, I wasn’t all that familiar with Twitch. I was obviously aware of the platform and had seen the occasional clip, but hadn’t spent huge amounts of time getting involved in chat communities.

So far though, I’ve really been enjoying it. It’s really fun to have an opportunity to chat with viewers. I also really like having the ability to be a bit more responsive to developing news stories in a way that the longer germination periods of my usual videos don’t really allow for.

We’ve also begun to really see some success with it!

While the stream itself continues to grow slowly, the clips channel we’ve put together on YouTube has begun to pick up some real momentum. Nothing like the main channel videos, of course, but it’s been fun to watch a new channel growing.

In fact, I’ve found myself over the moon at seeing one of the videos top 5,000 views which would obviously be a disaster for a “proper” video!

More than anything, it’s a really fun forum for testing out some ideas for videos and seeing what resonates. So, if you want an early look at some of the stuff we might cover later down the line, check out the clips channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@TomNicholasLive

Or tune into the stream at https://twitch.tv/tom_nicholas

And outside of work?

Outside of work, my main focus has remained on preparing for my honeymoon which my wife and I depart for in just days!

On top of that, it’s been a twin celebratory week containing both Valentine’s Day and Pancake Day!

As we often do on Pancake Day, we cheated a little bit and cracked out our crepe maker (a Billig I believe it’s called in Breton?). My wife’s brothers are half-Breton, so crepes and gallettes (a kind of savoury crepe) are a bit of a favourite in our house. Although we don’t make them nearly enough!

What have I been reading/watching/listening to?

This week, I went to see The Holdovers at the cinema. For anyone that doesn’t know, The Holdovers is a film starring Paul Giamatti as a teacher at an exclusive American boarding school in the 1970s.

The film is set over the Christmas break as Giamatti’s character is charged with looking after the “holdovers”: the students whose parents don’t want them to go home.

It was kinda weird that this film came out in February here in the UK. It’s very much a Christmas film and seems to have released in December in the US.

Seasonal-inappropriateness aside, it’s a really lovely, kinda bittersweet tale about loneliness and grief and isolation. At its heart, it’s a buddy comedy in which Giamatti’s teacher character, an irritating student and the school chef grow to be a pseudo-familial unit.

If you’re looking for something to watch next December—definitely one to add to your list!

That brings us to the end of this week’s edition of the Friday Update. I hope you’ve found it mildly insightful.

Thanks as ever for your generous support and I’ll look forward to updating you more next week!!