This week I was back in London for my mother’s 70th birthday. My mother reaching “three score years and ten” feels like a real milestone.  Turning seventy is more than just a number; it’s a testament to resilience and a life well-lived. Seventy years, filled with countless memories, laughter, lessons, and love.

She threw a party on Saturday bringing together the remarkable collection of friends she’s gathered over the years together to celebrate with music, dancing, cake and wine.

I guess that’s where I got my love of all of those things from. Along with my fondness for travel and eternally itchy feet.

Some things I did this week

It was a short work week as I had commitments back home.

The finish line is in sight on one project. I’m proud of how much progress we’ve made, but also daunted at how much there still is to do. We’ve got a to-do list longer than a Leonard Cohen song. But I’m confident we’ll get there.

Our other project has been frustratingly stop-start, as we’ve struggled to get time from stakeholders who are dealing with a lot of other change at the same time.

Non-work things

Nothing to report this week – no gigs, no films!

What I’m reading

I feel like I have over-indexed on books about how and why Britain is broken this year. But this week I added another to the list: Sam Freedman’s Failed State: Why Nothing Works and How We Fix It.

Over the last fifty years, changes in how the government operates have made it hard – arguably impossible – for even the most skilled and well-meaning prime ministers to be effective (and those have been in short supply). The central government is simultaneously over-powerful and overburdened; harmful incentives are everywhere; short-term thinking dominates; and the mechanisms of power aren’t effectively linked to the system that should carry them out.

Connections

While I was in London I had the chance to catch up with Matt O’Neill. I knew it’d been a while since we last met, but was pretty staggered when he told me it’d been fourteen years. A lot’s changed for both of us, and we had a lovely long chat about AI, VR and becoming a futurist.

Travel

I’m briefly back in Amsterdam for a few days, before heading on a holiday to somewhere that’s been on my list for ages – Georgia 🇬🇪