If sorting out the thousands of photos and docs on my ageing MacBook means copying everything onto an external hard drive, I guess I just sorted out the thousands of photos and docs on my ageing MacBook. Phew.

Another election done and dusted and hopefully that’s the last we’ll see of Winston. Any discussions of his legacy will be brief.

The left will be happy Labour got enough votes to govern alone. The right will be less happy but the positive for them is that Labour’s majority keeps the Greens’ hands off the big shiny levers. Act did better than expected and their challenge will be to keep their new MPs in line.

Labour’s challenge will be that but for Covid they would have been judged more harshly on their lack of delivery. Now they must deliver.

The media have been big winners too and have firmly cemented themselves as part of the whole shoddy system.

Blindness, by José Saramago 📚

An insightful look into human nature and what can happen when the thin veneer of civilisation slips, in this case into darkness. Some powerful moments, and don’t be put off by the weird style. #fiction

Films watched in winter: 🍿

Edge of Tomorrow
Hot Girls Wanted
Revolutionary Road
Athlete A
The Death of Stalin
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
The Big Lebowski
Under the Skin
Lady Bird

I thought we’d successfully eliminated long supermarket queues.

“You make me want to go back outside into that blizzard.” #thelastofus2

Reading Breath and thinking about how I use my nose… turns out I’ve been doing it mostly wrong my whole life.

We got new floors and they came up great.

Savage Son, by Jack Carr 📚

The third in a series. It was okay, but I’m done with James Reece for now methinks… at least until he pops up in a movie somewhere. #fiction

Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Pirsig 📚

I finished reading my battered second-hand copy, what a strange book it is, full of deep and practical ideas that for me left dog-eared pages and pencilled-in margins in their wake, scraps of which I’m sure will linger in my mind for some time to come. There a lot of philosophy-type stuff in there and some of it is hard going, and some of it is quite tedious too. I liked the father-son journey stuff, it captures some of the crazy concerns and emotions that being a father of a boy can bring. I wonder how much of it is true.

One especially memorable bit talks about a ‘South Indian monkey trap’, which I’d never heard of, and which supposedly involves a hollowed out coconut with food placed inside and a hole just big enough to admit a monkey’s hand. The monkey sticks its hand in and grabs a fistful of food, and can’t escape when the trapper comes because it can’t release the food from its fist. All the monkey needs to do is open its fist, but it is simply unable to reevaluate the positive value of the fistful of food vs the negative value of being captured and losing its freedom. There’s nothing physically keeping it trapped… it just can’t let go. #fiction?

Took a walk on one of the local maunga. Nice to feel some sunshine.

Soaking towel-loads of water up from the floors and carpets is a fun way to spend a sunny afternoon lol

Things I learned from five weeks working from home:

I don’t like working from home

My neighbour, who is Serbian, gave us a big piece of her daughter’s left-over birthday cake. It is Serbian too, and delicious, and now it is all gone. 🎂