Week 376: Thirsty Rando
November 8, 2025
- Final ejection from the institution that is the Financial Times creeps closer.
- Thursday was my leaving drinks and goodbye speeches. I’d have liked to have had a video of them for my mum. Four of my colleagues said very kind things about me and were extremely generous in omitting all of the bad parts. I got a front page that is so rife with in-jokes every time I return to it I find some more.
- Leaving drinks were also very good. I’m sorry to everyone I was too nice to. You’re just a good bunch. You deserve to know about it.
- Kara made me a cryptic crossword which I am about half way through. It includes the answers “yeet”, “thirsty rando”, “details matter people” and a neat little clue that requires you to know the name of the FT’s content API. Truly a dream cryptic.
- Because I wanted to leave in as neat a way as possible, with minimal fussing about what I would want for a leaving gift, I asked for donations to the Crew Club in Whitehawk. The Crew Club is a youth club for local children and young adults. I’m not sure how the numbers work on this but on Thursday the amount raised was at about £750 - which is amazing! Helpfully the FT will also match it. Regrettably I did cry messily when I tried to explain to my colleagues what the crew club is and why it’s so meaningful to me as a place for donations.
- Post couch to 5k I was worried I was going to find it hard to keep up the three runs per week, but I’ve got quite a good thing going where I almost… look forward to them? As long as I don’t have a dicky tummy or a hangover. I’ve got 3 5kish runs, one up one hill, one up a different hill and one along the flat bit, and I just iterate through them.
- We went to see Stewart Lee on Friday. Very good. Much better than a certain contemporary ceramicist that we won’t discuss further.
- YOu know what’s absurd? We don’t know how the universe started. We don’t know how the universe started. There are people out here (me) thinking about things like Lily Allen’s relationship with David Harbour, when I could be thinking the fact that we have no idea how the universe came to be.