A Bit of Everything | The Friday(ish) Update

Welcome to this week’s edition of the Friday(ish) 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?

Over the course of the last week, I think I’ve done a bit of every single part of my job.

Firstly, I finished the script for the next video!

As some of you will know (from me going on about it in these updates), I’m getting married this weekend. And, as such, I’m going to be doing something I very rarely do: taking a week off! In order to prepare for this (and ensure the wheels of our little bootstrapped video-making operation keep turning), I’ve raced ahead with finishing the script to the next video.

I’ll reveal what it’s about in a future update (got to keep you sticking around somehow!) but I think it’s gonna be a good video. It picks up on a bunch of themes from the last video in terms of Big Tech, venture capital and mission creep; but in a much more focused way (and no, it’s not about Twitter). In fact, it might be a little controversial…

The writing process has been fairly smooth, although the final section of this one was a tough one to write. I went through five separate drafts of it! But I think the pain was worth it for how it turned out.

Secondly, I filmed the next video!

That’s right, it’s already wrapped and being edited. This is partly to do with my wedding but also partly to do with a big push we’re making on getting ahead with each stage of the process.

In recent months, everything’s been a bit to the wire with us generally finishing each video on the day of the deadline by which it needs to be done. This isn’t great for if/when stuff goes wrong and definitely isn’t good for our mental states, so we’re trying to get a little bit ahead of ourselves. Which, as me having filmed an entire video just a week or so after the previous one has been released suggests, appears to be working!

Thirdly, I recorded a podcast!

My podcast Induction has recently been operating on a three-week rather than two-week release schedule. This is simply a result of the main channel video absorbing all our attention and meaning we didn’t have a huge amount of time to put into recording new episodes.

Nevertheless, last week I recorded an episodes on climate interventions with Simon Clark. And, it was great to be back making the show again!

One of my personal goal with Induction was to use it as a chance to work a bit more collaboratively and with clever people whose stuff I enjoy. Simon was a fantastic guest and it really made me excited about making more episodes!

And outside of work?

Last weekend, I had my stag do. Which, for anyone outside the UK, is the party that a groom conventionally has prior to their wedding.

Myself and some friends hired a narrowboat for the weekend and went on a journey down the Oxfordshire canal.

We did have a night out in Oxford and get up to a lot of drinking. We also went to the loudest mini-golf place I’ve ever been to.

But, the canal journey itself was pretty chilled. There’s some work involved in steering the boat and raising/lowering locks takes a bit of effort every so often, but it’s very peaceful on the canal with loads of nature.

I’ve wanted to do a canal boat holiday for quite some time now but my partner hates the sound of the idea. She was very much hoping that this might get it out of my system but I’m actually pretty keen to do another!

What have I been reading/watching/listening to?

The new season of The Bear was released in the UK recently which I have been very excited about. I adored the previous season and so was disappointed when it got held for a few weeks between being released in the US and here.

For anyone who hasn’t seen it, The Bear is about a team of chefs trying to run a restaurant in Chicago. But it’s also about so much more than that: it’s about ambition and family and pressure and kindness.

The second season absolutely lives up to the first. The first season had the ability to make any scene incredibly tense. It brilliantly recreated the organised chaos of a restaurant kitchen during service in a way which made you feel genuine anxiety for whether it was gonna turn out okay.

The second season replicates some of that but within the context of the team trying to refurbish their restaurant (the high pressure of trying to cook quickly without burning anything gets replaced with the high pressure of trying to do DIY without blowing oneself up. But, it also has these excellent moments of tenderness and transformation which will stick with me for a very long time.

There’s an episode which focusses on the character Richie (who’s a bit of a loveable livewire) which made me want to punch the air with joy at one point.

If you’ve not watched it already, do so now!

That brings us to the end of this week’s edition of the Friday(ish) 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!!