Archives for November 2024

One of the things that stood out to me when I visited Chartwell House, Winston Churchill’s home, was the number of books he owned. There were thousands upon thousands sitting in luxurious built-in bookshelves, and over 173 books on Napoleon alone.

My father-in-law recently shared a concept with me about how it’s important to have unread books in your library. That although you may not read them now, or need them now, they sit there because you may need them in the future.

I’ve been thinking about this as I sometimes look at the unread books on my shelf and feel a bit guilty. So I decided to do a bit more digging on the matter.

I then came across the concept of the antilibrary, from Nassim Nicholas Taleb. He says, “Read books are far less valuable than unread ones. The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allow you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary.”

I now look at my unread books with a little more perspective.

There is a polaroid picture that’s framed and sits on my bookshelf. It’s a photo of Maru and I on the day we got engaged, but it’s before Maru knew a proposal was coming.

We’re standing on King Charles Street just across the road from St James’ Park. I’m brimming with nervous energy, and Maru is relaxed and elegant as always. The marble facades loom in the background, and we have the street to ourselves.

Although the polaroid has faded substantially in the past 5 years, I’m glad we captured this “before” moment.

I got this one from Anne Lamott’s excellent book, ‘Bird by Bird’.

E. L. Doctrow once said, “Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

Lamott rightly points out that this wisdom is equally applicable to life.

We don’t need to see the whole journey ahead.

I’ve been seeking out the most challenging tennis partners I can find. Despite getting beat consistently, I’m learning a lot!

Facing more skilled people is making me think more, move faster, and build more intuition with every match.

It’s fun winning, but the real value is where the most learning can be found.

I’ve been running to and from work for almost a year now, save for a couple months injury break.

The commute time is the same (about 30 mins) whether I’m running or taking the tube, so I figure I might as well exercise than get sandwiched amongst strangers.

One of the challenges of running home in winter is the sun setting so early. However, I bought a small headlamp to light the path a few steps ahead of me, and it’s amazing the confidence it gives me to know I’m much less likely to roll an ankle.

Without it, I’d be much more likely to make an excuse to not run home. It’s funny how such a small change can get rid of old excuses.

I’ve harboured a quiet desire for a few years to go to the Glastonbury Festival at least once in my life. But it always existed as a bucket list thing that I never did anything about.

However, earlier this week close friends of ours suggested pulling together a ticket-buying group for the 2025 festival. Because each person gets to buy six tickets (if they’re lucky enough to get through), you increase your chances of getting a spot if you have a larger group trying to buy.

I’m thrilled to say that someone in our group was lucky enough to get tickets, and Maru and I are pumped to be heading to Glastonbury in 2025!

Sometimes you need to make things on your bucket list happen. And there are other times when you’ll have friends who’ll drag you along and help make it happen for you.

Say yes to both.

Your coach looks you in the eye, they tell you where you’re getting things wrong, and they give you specific techniques to get better.

You feel awful at first because nothing is working. You try again, and again, and again, but things aren’t clicking. And as you’re seemingly getting worse, it feels like your coach is doggedly searing the tactics into your brain to no avail.

But eventually you start getting some of the mechanics right. A few things start working. You build some confidence, and you start developing some muscle memory.

At this point the coach then says, “Now, you have to feel it.”

At a certain point the theory takes a back seat, and our gut, intuition, and instinct takes over. We don’t achieve a state of flow by thinking our way into it. We have to learn to relax into it.

Why don’t we just add a little more?

More process. More flavour. More rules. More checks. More steps. More estimates. More analysis.

Everyone is tempted by more, and on the surface of it, more feels like progress.

Yet the more we add, the slower we move, and the more difficult it is to make any forward progress.

Strip it back to the essentials, and only add more when things start to creak and break.

I’m two weeks out from my first half marathon, and I’m buzzing. My body is coping well with the training and I feel confident in my plan for race day.

However, I don’t have a target time. My goal is to finish the race and enjoy every kilometre.

I can worry about performance later. This time, it’s about finishing and having fun. Nothing else.

Us humans have harnessed fire for hundreds of thousands of years. Fire provided our ancestors with warmth, protection, a means of cooking, and light—and it’s likely many of them survived due to fire’s helping hand.

It’s no surprise to me then that the dancing flames have an almost-hypnotic and calming effect over us.

I write this post whilst sitting by a fire in a cosy cottage in the English countryside, I feel my face run hot from the strength of the blaze, and I have a book by my side that I’m about to pick up.

I’m content.

I love this quote from Oasis songwriter Noel Gallagher when talking about his brother’s voice.

“Mine’s half a Guinness on a Tuesday. Liam’s is ten shots of tequila on a Friday night.”

The metaphor says so much in so few words. And it’s true. I tried to sing along with ‘Cigarettes and Alcohol’ today in the car and Liam’s voice has a depth and richness of tone that’s hard to describe.

But ten tequilas on a Friday night is pretty accurate!

The topic may seem banal, but I’m going somewhere with this.

I’ve been on a multi-year hunt for the perfect scrambled eggs.

Everyone has their own ideas on how to make them. Some prefer a fluffy, soft, golden cloud, and those people would be correct. Others prefer a dry, leathery mess.

I recently came across three Michelin star chef Marco Pierre White’s video on how to make scrambled eggs. One of the things he says, seemingly to the eggs and the camera at the same time, is “only a fool would rush scrambled eggs”. The heat should be low and slow, and you shouldn’t need to move your pan on and off the stove to get the right cooking temperature.

The eggs don’t require a vigourous whisking with a fork prior to going in the pan. Not does the spatula need to be in a hurry. What’s needed is patient, deliberate movement while the eggs do their thing.

Although this post is ostensibly about scrambled eggs, it is really about craft and care, and how even seemingly small things are worthy of an immense amount of effort.

It’s okay to start with a bit of guess work on a blank piece of paper. Most new and hard things often don’t have a map to follow.

At some point the guess work needs to turn into an estimate, maybe a plan, or even a commitment. At some point, guess work no longer becomes an excuse.

This makes sense, because when people succeed, they never give call it guess work.

I was recently reminded that when we make a decision we’re simultaneously saying ‘yes’ to one thing, and ‘no’ to everything else.

If we keep this idea in mind when making decisions, all of a sudden the bar for what we spend our time and energy on goes up dramatically.

I had a wonderful time in Prague last weekend with Maru and my in-laws. It’s a city famous for its beauty, and it more than delivered. I loved walking its streets, seeing its historical sights, and visiting its cafes and restaurants.

My two top highlights were (1) a tour on the history of the Jewish Quarter and the Jewish people in Prague, and (2) learning about the life and work of author, Franz Kafka—I loved eating in Cafe Louvre and Cafe Savoy and imagining him talking philosophy, politics, and writing with his friends.

As I’ve written about recently, I’ve been taking photos on film. Here are a few of my favourites of the wonderful Prague.