Skip to content

practicalli

Cooling off over the week

A drop of temperature down to the mid 20's feels a huge relief. On Sunday it was a nice day and I could have the windows open all day without the house melting.

I have been riding on the hotter days so that when I come home the house is nice and cool.

On Sunday I organised all the pension documents I have gathered over the last 3 decades, much of which is ready for shredding. I amalgamated several pensions into one large one, keeping those pensions already in a sustainable plan.

Entertainment this week involved revisiting many classic movies:

  • Barbarella possibly one of the strangest mainstream Sci-Fi movies ever made. I love the surreal designs in the movie and the extreme quirkiness, along with the innocence of Barbarella character (Jane Fonda).
  • Outland a movie I remember watching with my Dad (now deceased), a tale of a space outpost controlled by greedy corporations with Sean Connery trying to uphold justice against all odds.
  • Morons From Outer Space
  • Saturn 3 British Sci-Fi film from 1980 with Farrah Fowcett, Kirk Douglas & Harvey Keitel, a tranquil hydroponics research station is disturbed by a disturbed visitor and his equally strange robot.
  • First Men in the Moon a British film from 1964 based on the H.G. Wells book of the same name. Stop-motion animation by Ray Harryhausen. A film I have a fond memory for.
  • Crack In The World
  • Krull

Working in the dark

I continue to work in the evenings and through some of the night (or all of the night if I slept enough during the previous day).

Experimenting with tools to generate data overlays for cycling videos. GPStitch looks promising and I can just generate the overlay video for editing later in Blender.

An appointment with the podiatrist this week has cleaned up my foot, after a blister occurred over the area where my hole appeared previously.

Tuesday was the 21st anniversary of the London bombings on 7 July 2025. I was a cycle courier at that time and was working that day, in and around the area where the bombings took place.

Luckily I wasn't near enough to be directly affected and didn't know about the incident until later in the morning, as I was busy delivering packages.

As the news broke, our controllers told us over out radios that something had happened, although details were not clear for several hours.

My working day finished early as most people wanted to get out of central London, so requests for package deliveries dried up quickly. London was eerily quiet for the rest of the afternoon.

I didn't really comprehend what had happened until I got home in the evening and watched the news.

A welcome drop in temperature

The heatwave dissipated briefly, although its still very warm weather with little respite overnight.

Movies this week

  • The Running Man was a well-made action movie, following the original story much more closely than the Arnold Schwarzenegger version. Apart from the visuals, there wasn't much new with the movie and lacked some of the humour that the first movie had. Worth a watch, but not something I would be eager watch again.

  • Sponge Bob: The search for SquarePants is the latest animated film from the franchise. There is something about the character that is enjoyable, I guess Spong Bob is just the right amount of silly. Very eclectic music choices, including "Holiday in Cambodia" by the Dead Kennedys (without the lyrics of course).

Heatwave and Tropical Storms

A mixture of the hottest days ever recorded in the United Kingdom (39 Celsius) and tropical storms set the scene for this week. Exercise in the early mornings and sleeping in the afternoons is helping get through this week.

I am not sleeping so well at night, but getting just about enough sleep each day.

Monday was a ride to the Archive Cafe, taking the longer route around Redhill Aerodrome for a nice 105km ride.

Tuesday was a relaxing day (due to the heat) and I set up Proton Plus as my new password manager

Wednesday was a trip to the Velobarn. I had not slept much the night before and was awake around 5am. As I couldn't sleep I got ready to cycle and when out just after 6am for a warm-up ride along the A21. There was a nice breeze to keep my cool.

Thursday was another early start, 7am for a ride to Chiddingstone cafe with Emma, indulging in a slice of American Cheesecake.

Movies

The Old Guard 1 & 2

Its an okay action romp with interesting characters and background story.

The second movie seems to be a 2-part movie after ending half way through its storyline. It is unclear if Netflix (or anyone else) will make Old Guard 3 and complete the story.

Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose

A fun and quirky movie with Simon Pegg, Minnie Driver and Christopher Lloyd. A parapsychologist is intrigued by a story of a talking Mongoose that lives with a family on the Isle of Man. They set of to investigate if this is real.

Its interesting story about what 'real' actually means. What is real to one person may not be real to another. Its a very subtle story that touches on very deep feelings and beliefs that we all have.

Simon Pegg gives a stirring and enjoyable performance.

TV Shows

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century

Ironically the fact that this series shows its age is actually a positive reinforcement on some of the light social commentary it tries to convey.

Its a fun show and has very likeable characters, even if the story is fairly predictable. It is nice to watch something for the pure joy and escapism it provides.

Duck Dogers In the 24th and a half century

Looney Toons cartoons took the Daffy Duck character (one of their most richly developed in my opinion, up there with Bugs Bunny) and turned them into a Spaceman. There is something about this particular cartoon that always makes me laugh.

In Babylon 5, the character Michael Garibaldi (Chief of Security) refers to Daffy Duck as the "Egyptian God of Frustration", which is a very succinct way to sum up that character.

The Devils Hour

I crime mini-series with Peter Capaldi as the 'devil'. Its a curious story and I am enjoying the distraction from the heat of the day.

Its the final countdown

Its the Dragon Ride at the weekend and I am almost over the flu that knocked me out for the last week or so. I had some trouble with a heart rate monitor, but managed to resolve the issue.

There are engineering works on the train route I take for the Dragon Ride. I got in touch with GWR support via WhatsApp and they said 'the train should run on time', with a caveat that the train could be cancelled if the engineering works overran.

Luckily a friend can take me in their car and put my bike on their bike rack. This seemed the more reliable option.

I am still fighting off the remnants of the flu, which keeps persisting despite serious levels of vitamins and paracetamol. I am taking the opportunity to sleep as much as I can this week.

Today was the first session of the AI School from Google. The first session was a fluff piece, trying to inspire, but I found it too much hype and lacking in substance. Hopefully it gets better as the week progresses.

OMG its hot

Temperatures over 30 Celsius means more cycling, as moving on the bike is an excellent way to keep cool.

Practicalli tasks this week:

  • Attend Clojure Dev Call 26th May (Missed, watch video)
  • Fit Dell monitor to arm, with RogueOne laptop
  • Fit LG monitor to arm, with RangerOne laptop
  • Check OBS setup for creating screencasts
  • Review scripts for Neovim screencasts
  • Update book publishing workflow to use Zensical

Bike maintenance tasks this week:

  • Bianchi flight controller adjustment
  • Bianchi new bar tape
  • DONE: Ribble deep clean chain, cassette & derailleur
  • DONE: Ribble fit Fulcrum wheels with Vx disc brake rotors
  • DONE: Ribble adjust brake disc calipers with Vx disc brake rotors (the back rotor is good, getting Erick to sort the front)

From cold to hot

A cold but sunny start to this week should turn into a mini heatwave by the weekend (maybe). No excuse to go cycling several times this week.

Practicalli work this week was on the Sustainable Life and Cycling books.

The Megalinter GitHub workflow generated a failing issues on the Practicalli Journal repository yesterday, indicating it failed because it couldnt find something to check.

Its an opportunity to review linters Practicalli uses to support quality of docs and code.

Took the Bianchi in to get a new bottom bracket fitted. The bike has lasted 20 years and a lot of kilometers. Unfortunately there wasn't a Strava back in 2006 when i got the Bianchi bike, so most of the distance on the bike was never captured until 2019.

Resiliance is coping with chaos

The week started full of promise but quickly fell to pieces 🤣 By the middle of the week I was starting to get some traction again and things were good again by the weekend.

A fairly pragmatic view of 'AI' tools was discussed in the DevEx Summit 2026 online conference.

After a false start, I have a fully working road bike again and am back on the road again. A nice long and hilly ride to end the week and a lazy Sunday recovering and organising camping gear for the Dragon Ride trip.

May the Forth be with you

May the fourth (be with you) is a celebration of Star Wars.

As it also happens to be a public holiday (bank holiday) in the UK, a few friends and I did a celebratory cycle ride to Chiddingstone cafe for some delicious cake.