Beach cleaning after (Storm) Ellen.
Managed a little time on the beach before the rain hit.
I couldn’t figure out why my mouse wasn’t working this morning, until I turned it over.
Well played, daughters of mine.
Fiddling around with a side project while my daughters do their martial arts class via Zoom.
So much “nope” in this vision of a home office cubicle.
The faceless mob of Twitter accelerants.
Sea swim with my tiny limpet. 🌊
Trying a small productivity hack today: doing half hour bursts of email, and then closing the app for a couple of hours.
🤞🏻
Beach life.
I’m currently reading The Daring Of Della Dupree by Natasha Lowe 📚 to my daughters. They are absolutely loving it. Just enough peril to keep them hooked, but some genuine history in there for them to learn from. 👌🏻
The “aircraft engine housing and car wash brushes” look for garden gates is in, in, in, this summer.
John Witherow, editor of The Times, in his morning newsletter:
Put simply, Britain is an over-centralised state that is weak at the centre.
Hard to disagree.
In praise of the cloudy summer's day
After a week of glorious sunshine and sweltering sunshine, it’s a relief to see clouds overhead again. Oh, it’s still warm, but it’s the lack of sunshine that’s the point. It’s freeing. We’ve been to the beach, and over the river to town. My eldest and I cycled, without becoming sweaty messes. It’s been a lovely day.
I know this is heretical in a sun-worshipping age, but you can do so much more outside on days like this than in the relentless heat of a sunny day. You can stay out longer, you don’t need to avoid the middle of the day and, most of all, we’re not inundated by half-dressed visitors.
Oh, I know this is very much a first world problem, but our beach gets absolutely bombed when the sun comes out. It’s been far worse this year, as people who are — quite understandably — choosing not to go abroad this year head to the local beach instead. We don’t go to the beach much on sunny days. We’re happy to cede that to others, because we get to use it for the rest of the year. We can swim when there aren’t people messing around in powerboats and jet skis where they shouldn’t be, and can enjoy an autumn or springtime picnic on the beach.
The sun’s gone in. The vistors have stayed at home. And the beach and the river are ours again.
Bliss.
The over-50s are coming for your TikTok. And they’re taking no style prisoners.
As soon as the sun goes in, we get the beach back to ourselves. This was absolutely heaving a few days ago.
There are worse places to catch up on a few emails.
Tempting.
Upgrade for our Zoom future.
Right here. Right now.
Well, this is not great. I hope this does not survive the beta into release: Apple News+ in iOS 14 Opens Article Web Links in Apple News, Intercepting Traffic From Websites
Chris Eccleston returning to Doctor Who in a series of full cast audio adventures.
What fantastic news.
Evening in the Quay.
Absolutely absorbing read from Ed Yong at The Atlantic about the complexities of the immune system, why they confuse even other biologists and what that means for COVID-19.
Currently reading: Ring The Hill by Tom Cox 📚
Stunning skies yesterday evening.
