Weeknote 27/2025

As I type this, my 18 year-old son, Ben, is on a lads’ holiday in Tenerife, my daughter’s treble-winning football team (which reached the quarter-finals of a national competition) is imploding, and my health is such that I’m struggling to get much done in the gym.

As I’ve said to our two teenagers multiple times over the years, people can only treat you the way you let them. Connected to this, at least in my mind is the quotation I have on my desk: “Being challenged in life is inevitable, being defeated is optional” (Roger Crawford). There will always be setbacks in life, but you need to think about the bigger picture and the person you want to be.

In the world of appearances, which is the only one you really know and understand when you’re young, people’s worth is determined by the way they present themselves; shows of power and wealth are important. As we get older and (hopefully) wiser, we come to realise that it’s the intangible qualities that are displayed over time that are important. Things like the Stoic virtues of wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance.

Part of what makes for a virtuous life is avoiding what I would call moral deficient people. These are people who only ever deal in tactics rather than strategy, employing fluid ethical frameworks based on providing advantage for them and their associates. We can almost always justify a decision to ourselves — I’m pretty sure that some of the worst people in history managed to do so — but how we act over time reveals our character. As the comedian Harry Hill famously said, “I’ve found you can tell a lot about people…. from what they’re like.”

This week, I had a CT scan as part of the ongoing tests attempting to diagnose the symptoms I’ve been experiencing. Up until January 15th this year, I was running around 25km per week and going to the gym three times. I was pretty fit. From that date onwards, my heart rate started going through the roof at the slightest thing, and I was struggling to walk to the end of our street. Taking calcium channel blockers and statins mean I can now do some physical activity, but it’s much reduced.

I got the results of my scan the same day, and it came back fine. So now they’ve ruled out issues relating to: the structure of my heart, anaemia, thyroid issues, and blood clots on my lungs. My next test will be to see if I have a pheochromocytoma, the medical term for a rare tumour of the adrenal gland. If it’s not that, then I’ll have a tilt table test which I guess would be checking for Dysautonomia.

I’ve decided to be thankful that it’s not a problem with my heart. I’ve decided to be grateful that I can still do some exercise. I’ve decided to be relieved that it does not affect my working life.

So, work-wise this week, we’ve pretty much finished the AI Literacies report for the Responsible Innovation Centre for Public Media Futures (RIC), hosted by the BBC. Rhia Jones, the RIC’s Research Director, helpfully reorganised what we’d written to be less narratively-structured and more useful at-a-glance to BBC colleagues. We’ll be publishing more about this project openly soon.

With the Amnesty International UK (AIUK) community platform project, we had a meeting with Torchbox (TBX) and the AIUK team to figure out areas of overlap. There are decisions we need to make collectively about platforms for which TBX is responsible, and the community platform about which WAO is advising.

We’ve started writing up the report from the DCC Summit to capture most of what was discussed and decided, and I’ll be working on this next week while Laura‘s off. Other than that, John and I sent off a proposal to one potential client with whom we had a meeting, and I’ve sent one to Skills Development Scotland for a couple of workshops relating to digital badges.

What else have I got to share? Our air source heat pump is pretty great, and so I’ve been investigating the obvious next step of rooftop solar and a home battery. We received a quotation from Octopus that was very attractive, but then found that we need to upgrade our electricity meter box and consumer unit before they can start on that. We’ve got local electricians coming to have a look at that on Monday.

It looks like we’re getting another Polestar 2 after finding a fantastic deal through my wife’s work salary sacrifice scheme. It should arrive in August, with my business lease ending in September, so I’ll probably end up giving our current one back early. We’re upgrading from the standard range, single motor to the long-range version. All of the 2025 models have the ‘Plus’ pack meaning that we get a panoramic roof, which will be nice. We didn’t get a choice of colour, but we’ve ended up with the new ‘Storm’ variant.

This is usually the time of year when there’s not very much football to watch, but with the Club World Cup and Women’s Euros, there’s plenty. There’s also Wimbledon, and I’m (re-)watching Money Heist with my daughter. So, despite it being the summer, I seem to be more than ever spending my time on screens. I’d love to be getting out there, walking and camping. I just don’t think that walking into the wilderness with an undiagnosed health condition would be a wise decision.

So I’m keeping on keeping on. I’m attempting to deal with roadblocks and setbacks, which is something only really possible when you know what it is that you want and the things you stand for. Peace out ✌️

Trees and a path in Carlisle Park, Morpeth