🏳️🌈 I’m going to need a lot more coffee before I’m in full London Pride mode. But once I am, I’ll be unstoppable… 🤣
🏳️🌈 I’m going to need a lot more coffee before I’m in full London Pride mode. But once I am, I’ll be unstoppable… 🤣
📸 Survived another week! Here’s to an excellent Pride weekend in London.
🏳️🌈 Really looking forward to marching in tomorrow’s London Pride parade.
I’ll be with the LGBT Humanists. Give us a wave when you see us! I had an absolute blast the last time I marched in the parade. Such positivity, such joy. Thousands of smiling faces.
🏋🏼 I had the gym in our building all to myself this afternoon.
Until the last ten minutes of my workout, when this giant beast of a neighbour came down, dressed in street clothes, and chose the treadmill next to me for… a walk. And a telephone conversation. While on speakerphone. Loudly.
I glared at him pointedly - I could hear him over my own headphones and this is something he always seems to do - and he moved one machine away. Then he switched to French and started talking about me.
No, I’m not paranoid. I can speak French.
Anyway, it was soon time to wrap up and leave him to his stroll. I didn’t want to be there for his inevitable heart attack. The man is a utter pig and I’ve seen him ogling the women in our building like someone the police have a thick file on. He gives out major “How much for the blonde?” energy, like a basic villain in an Indiana Jones flick.
I don’t even want to share the gym with him.
On the plus side, I got a solid 45mins workout on the elliptical, some much needed stretching, and an episode of The Boys Season 4 before it was time to leave.
🗳️ I missed last night’s political debate between Sunak and Starmer, opting instead to enjoy dinner with friends.
Rather than getting frustrated with an evasive, prickly and out of touch Tory laughing stock spreading outright lies about the Labour party’s plans for government, I enjoyed a delicious tasting menu at ‘Six by Nico’ and tales from my friends' recent cruise on the Queen Mary 2 back from New York.
I think I made the right choice.
☀️ My main objective at work is to stay cool in the office. It’s going to be 28C again in London today. Hurray for shorts!
🚶🏼 As there were more delays on the DLR this afternoon, I decided to walk home from the office. Yes, it was 28C, but I was by the canal and there was a lovely breeze. And it only took me 35mins door to door.
I’ll be doing that more frequently in future.
😬 I appear to have eaten something that is violently disagreeing with me.
📸 Once again, I’m very grateful for the sofa in my office. Time for a post-lunch break and potentially, a quick nap.
The fact that my local council (The Kleptocracy of Tower Hamlets) says it’s fine for building sites to start work at 8am on a Saturday is all I need to know about who’s interests they’re looking after.
🧠 Again with the anxiety dreams?!
Last night’s included:
I have absolutely no idea what my brain is trying to tell me with all this nonsense. Though it wold at least be fun if I didn’t wake up in a panic at the end of each one. Sleep? I don’t know her…
Four very different performances. John Swinney from the SNP was calm but fighting a losing battle with a largely English audience. Ed Davey was human, polite and seemed very genuine. Keir Starmer was competent, a bit awkward (isn’t he always?) but better than at previous similar events.
But Rishi Sunak stood out for me. He was simply dreadful. And bear in mind this is the Prime Minister, with an army of PR experts, spin doctors, media gurus and the like at his disposal. And he still managed to come across as an unlikeable, impatient and condescending tech bro who feels you just don’t ‘get’ his product.
He seems like a guy who’s never had to explain himself to anyone before. Someone who simply gets what he wants. Someone who surrounds himself with people who think like him (or know enough to act like they think like him) and has virtually no empathy for people who don’t share his background or world view.
He struggled to explain his ‘plan’ for national service, couldn’t explain how he’d make like better for young people and got particularly evasive when asked about his regrets. He was genuinely rattled by a couple of audience questions, looked puzzled and then angry and simply oozed impatience to get the hell out of there.
Like everyone else in the country (world?), he knows the writing’s on the wall. He’ll be out of a job in less than two weeks and nothing he can do will halt an inevitable landslide win for Labour and the gutting of his own party. After fourteen years of mismanagement, sleaze and ineptitude, it’s not a moment too soon.
The sad thing? I don’t think it’ll change Sunak one bit. Rather than wonder why he’s getting thrown out, he simply thinks the public are too thick to understand his ‘plan’.
😴 Last night’s sleep destroyed by a horrible dream that I was in Egypt, stuck in a hotel due to some kind of coup, and unable to find my passport. Gunfire and screams outside. It all felt so, so real. Woke in a panic and had to check it was where I always keep it.
Thanks for nothing, brain.
🗳️ It’s like a game of fascist bingo…
Nigel Farage has praised the misogynist influencer Andrew Tate for being an “important voice” for the “emasculated” and giving boys “perhaps a bit of confidence at school” in online interviews that appear to be aimed at young men over the past year.
Of course.
When asked to list the best leaders in the western world, Farage named Hungary’s rightwing leader, Viktor Orbán, a “strong leader”, and his “friend” Donald Trump, the US presidential candidate.
The Guardian: Farage said Andrew Tate was ‘important voice’ for men in podcast interview
📸 Enjoying a lovely cool breeze out on the balcony this evening. Plus this incredible view.
☀️ Successfully avoided another game of international kickball. Popped in my Airpods and lay out in the sunshine on my balcony. The streets below were deserted as everyone went in to watch “Ingerlaaaand”…. draw with Denmark.
Ahem.
🎧 Podcast edit: complete!
Now it’s time to go outside and experience some of this lovely sunshine that has finally arrived.
And politicians wonder why the public has lost trust in them?
Another Tory candidate has allegedly placed a bet on the date of the election. And her husband is the Tory head of campaigns. Who has just gone on a ‘leave of absence’…
Tories gonna Tory.
From The Guardian:
The Conservative party has confirmed its director of campaigning Tony Lee took a leave of absence on Wednesday. His wife, Laura Saunders, is being looked into by the gambling watchdog over an alleged bet on the general election date.
📸 A relaxing post-work seat on the balcony, enjoying the very welcome sun.
Might summer be finally making an appearance? ☀️
Day One today reminded me that it was exactly ten years ago that I emailed my resignation to the CEO of the last company I ever worked for. An uncomfortable thing to do in the moment, but the best thing I’ve ever done for my career.
Ten years of running my own business later, and I can safely say I don’t regret that email for a second.
🎹 Proofing slides for a workshop I’m running next month, while listening to some Nina Simone. What a fucking genius she was.
📸 Goodnight 😴
We’re two weeks out from a general election, but at 6pm, instead of the news, the BBC is showing (wait for it) football. Turkey vs Georgia, to be precise. This country’s obsession with football is something else.
📸 Feet up. Time for a quick post-lunch nap. Love my office sofa.
I’ve just been for a lunchtime walk around my office’s neighbourhood in East London.
I was blown away by the number of drivers I saw driving while using their mobile phones. Virtually nobody had eyes on the road and both hands on the steering wheel. Narrow streets, cars parked on both sides. A recipe for an accident - made all the more likely by this kind of bullshit behaviour.