It's an Exciting World

Budapest

Steph and I decided to take a weekend in Budapest, mainly so I could see an immersive theatre show, but we still made a full weekend of it.

I got in Friday late afternoon, and wandered Margrit Park in the afternoon, then went to the show Walk My World. It is in the style of The Burnt City and Sleep No More. The set was extensive, and not as detailed or cohesive as the sets by Punch Drunk, with most rooms being somewhat independent of each other instead of connecting through. This didn’t take away from it much, especially with the addition of the acrobatics. They had all sorts of rings and ropes and poles for doing dozens of types of acrobatic performances. They also had a giant robot arm, which was incorporated well into the performances. I thought I’d found all the rooms on Friday night, but I was very wrong. I still got to see so many performances and the finale was spectacular. I’m especially happy to see this kind of performance being done in more places. I’d say it was more entertaining but slightly less immersive compared to The Burnt City. I liked The Burnt City more, but that just means Walk My World is my second favourite piece of entertainment of all time. Were it in London I would be going at least twice more.

Saturday I went to meet Steph at the train station as her sleeper train from Zurich came in. We dropped her stuff off at the AirBnB, then walked down to the Central Market. It was an impressive building, but seemed a little odd with all the small stalls built in the massive structure. We got a fried bread with lots of toppings, and it was delicious, but hard to eat.

We then went to the Light Museum. It was an art gallery, not a museum, and they clearly ran out of light based things and had a few artists just put objects on display. They had some really amazing light based art. I was disappointed in one of the exhibits because it was supposed to be an apparently static water drop in a strobe light, but the drops weren’t calibrated to the strobe frequency, so it didn’t hit the effect at all.

We walked by the parliament building, then up to the castle. We went through the entire castle museum, which was way bigger and more interesting than I was expecting. We then walked through castle district on the way back to the AirBnB before dinner at an amazing little restaurant, Mandragora, on the way to the theatre. Steph and I went to Walk My World together, and I realized just how much I had missed from the first night. I found at least 10 new rooms and 3 new acrobatics apparatuses. I know I missed at least one other, but suspect there were several more I missed. If it has a long run, I may return.

Sunday we checked out of the flat, and got a breakfast of a Kreme, which is like a custard sandwiched between two puff pastries. It was tasty but hard to eat as we couldn’t cut the puff pastry without squishing it. Then we took the cute old subway line, which has only 3 small cars and tiny platforms to the park. We had a nice lunch at an art nouveau / art deco restaurant, Gundel. After lunch we made our way to the Rudas Spa. The Turkish baths part of the spa was my favourite, with old stone and gorgeous lights in the roof. We spent hours switching between the hot baths and saunas before I had to leave for the airport. Steph stayed at the baths for a few hours longer since she was catching a train instead of me needing to get to the airport.

March 8, 2026 0

Spring!

Steph was gone to Zurich most of this week.

I got out of the house for some amazing weather. Monday was nice enough to walk to and from choir. Then on Thursday I walked along the canal to Regents Park, then walked down to Hyde Park. Some of the cherry trees were in bloom, and it was gorgeous to see the hyacinths and daffodils.

Friday morning I headed to Budapest.

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March 8, 2026 0

Spring Singing

The first signs of spring are coming out around London with daffodils and hyacinths starting to bloom. I’ve been buying a hyacinth a week at Waitrose because they smell so good and I love their flowers. The cherry trees are also starting to bloom, so I’ll want to go to some of the great cherry tree walks in Hyde park next week or so.

I also did a lot of singing with RS1 choir this week. I organised a nice dinner at 7 dials market on Monday, with eight people joining for dinner. I’ll do that again when possible. I also went to the Tuesday and Wednesday sessions since we were doing run throughs of the songs so far. It is always more fun when we sing many of the songs all the way through compared to when we note bash. Note bashing is needed, but I’m not going to do multiple days of note bashing the same songs unless I really need it.

I also went to two museums this week that had been on my list. I went to the Transport Museum and the V&A East Warehouse. They were both fascinating, and well worth it. I’m going to these on weekdays during the day, so they should be less buys than normal, which helps a lot. I’ll have to make a larger list of museums that I want to go to and work my way through it. This is somewhat related to my newest project, which is for events around London: Another Like That (anotherlikethat.com).

On Friday I hosted a lunch at Caravan in Kings Cross for the StartX people in London. Only four came by, but it was still a great chat. The four people I get along with best were there.

Friday evening, I went to Giulio’s place for karaoke and games. It was fun to talk to everyone there, and we did some songs in other laguages that were challenges. Giulio also happened to know the piano part for Lumier, one of the video game songs we are singing in choir. I tried to sing along, but I know the bass part for it, and his arrangement was slightly different than the one I know. It mostly worked.

Saturday Steph got back and we lazed about for the day. Then on Sunday we went to the Dive Show near Birmingham. I got my last few things for the dry suit setup I needed, which were a hood and boots. I’ll set up some time to try it out and join on some trips this summer to the channel. We also signed up for Scapa Flow, which has been the next big dive site I’ve wanted to go to. It is north of Scotland in the Orkney Islands and has many WWI and WWII ships that were scuttled there.

Sunday evening we had a book club discussion on Everything is Tuberculosis. It was an interesting discussion, although not surprisingly low attendance for it.

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March 3, 2026 0

Hanging with the Choir

This Monday, Steph and I went to Yonder to work together and do some climbing. I had a great time climbing with her, and it is nice having the walls mostly open during the day. We came home early so I could try my hand baking some cheddar and marmite rolls, which turned out really well. I took them to the triple choir workshop, and they were a great hit. The workshop was interesting, as we worked on hearing the harmonies of the other people around us. It was a lot of fun, but didn’t seem particularly well structured, or at least the structure and goals could have been explained more. We went for drinks afterwards in the basement of a pub nearby.

Tuesday was a boring slow day, but I tried my hand at cooking pancakes for pancake day. Steph had a recipe from Fallow she wanted to try, so I gave it a go. It was ok, but more of an egg dish than pancakes.

Wednesday we went back for the last time to the Slomo sauna in Kings Cross. It has been a great experience in the sauna, and I look forward to doing it more next year.

Thursday, Steph headed to Mexico for a cave diving course. I helped her get her bags to the Thameslink train.

Saturday I hosted some people from choir at my place for board games. It was a great time and we played codenames, mysterium, a quiz game, and a mantis shrimp themed matching game. I served some drinks and pizza, and it was a lovely time.

Sunday was a Mercato Mayfair day for RS1, and I had a great time performing. I love doing those Mercato performances because we get to sing so much together. Afterwards we had a book club discussion of the first book in the Murderbot series, All Systems Red. It was a great discussion and I think I’ll join for book club going forwards.

London Weekly 163

February 23, 2026 0

Full and Fun Week

I had a great week, with a normal Monday choir and then we stayed in the larger room at the pub afterwards which had much better acoustics.

Tuesday evening I organised some games at a place called Boom Battle Bar, which was a ton of fun. We started off with Shuffleboard, then grabbed some drinks. Then we tried our hand at axe throwing. I did really well at the axe throwing, but the scores were all still quite close. Zaheer even hit the tiny extra points target.

Then we played one of the most unique mini golf courses I’ve ever done. They had a series of unique holes that each had special rules. They included a tilt maze race, a hole where you could block the person’s ball with some foosball players, a slingshot at targets hole, and a hole that had conveyor belts. All in all it was a really fun night.

Thursday we did the sauna again, and then that evening I had a StartX CTO neighbourhood meeting.

Friday was the RS1 Ceilidh, which is Scottish line dancing. It was amazingly fun and I can’t wait for another one. I met a lot of the other RS1 groups and got to dance with some amazing people like Petra, Morgan, Raiad, Maggie, and Madeline. The dancing was hard to learn, but once I was in the groove of it a ton of fun. My feet and legs were sore for days afterwards.

Saturday, Steph and I went to the Cirque show Ovo. It was really well done and a great visual display. The costumes were so interesting and the performances were impressive. It felt more coherent than many of the other Cirque shows I’ve seen. Afterwards we went to Akira at Japan House for afternoon tea. We happened to see Petra and Morgan there, who I had really just met the night before at the dance.

Sunday I met Stacie at Light Room for the Dinosaurs exhibit. As expected there were a ton of kinds running around, but it was still really interesting to see. My favourite part was when they did the real scale display, and some of the dinosaurs were taller than the room, which was already 12m tall. We walked around Coal Drop Yards afterwards and got some amazing cookies at one of the shops there.

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February 16, 2026 0

Fun and Games

Monday’s Choir rehearsal was hard, and I went straight home after as I wasn’t feeling up to sitting in the loud bar afterwards.

Tuesday afternoon Steph and I did another sauna session, and then in the evening Steph and I did ClueQuest on the fourth mission of theirs that we’ve done. It was a really fun mission and we did well, escaping with just the two of us and not getting any hints. I thought they did some of the puzzles really well.

I mainly worked the rest of the week.

On Saturday I went to the V&A and walked around the keys area and then tried to find the corners I hadn’t been to before. Then I met Zaheer at the Power Up exhibit at the Science Museum. It was an interesting hall of all sorts of video games. We played some Wii Super Smash, N64 Mario Kart, Golden Eye, and then some Halo. I still have the magic with Mario Kart and Golden Eye, as I played way to much of those growing up. We were some of the few lone adults there, as most of it was families with kids. It was also pretty much packed, and after we couldn’t find a good open game we headed out.

Sunday I went to Anthony’s place to play a social deduction game called Blood on the Clocktower. It is like Werewolf or Mafia, but with a lot more control and roles and scenarios. We played some really fun sessions, but with so many rules and roles it was hard for me to bluff anything. I ended up doing decently well, and I had a great time. I look forward to playing again and I’ll read up more before the next session now that I know the format.

London Weekly 161

February 16, 2026 0

Too Much Work

This week I went to choir, but otherwise worked. Steph was away for the week in Zurich, so it was just me with the kitties.

Friday evening I went to board games at Giulio’s place near Stratford. It was a great time and I showed off some of my real time video streaming as well. We played an async information coop game about diffusing bombs. We started off really badly, but quickly picked up how it should be played.

Over the weekend Steph and I visited some of the new bib gourmand restaurants of 2026. We went to Kricket on Saturday, which was a tasty Indian place. Then we got pasta at Bancone on Sunday. Sunday evening was book club for Someone You Can Build a Nest In, which is an amazing and interesting book.

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February 16, 2026 0

Sauna and Magic

I had a good choir rehearsal on Monday and got to chat with Zaheer at the pub. The songs this session are more challenging that the previous sessions, and that is saying something.

Tuesday Steph and I went to the Hitchhiker’s Guide. It was an interesting experience, and just as strange as the books. They try to keep some through lines, but even having read all the books I missed many of the references and had forgotten many of the characters. The level of interaction was low, but not terrible, and it was a little slow paced. I still enjoyed it.

Wednesday we went to the Slomo sauna in one of the squares in Kings Cross. We plan to go once a week while it is open. They have two really nice sauna rooms with optional steam. Then four cold plunges with different temperatures and a hot tub. It is a really nice setup and amazingly relaxing.

Saturday I took a long walk along the canal and through Regents Park. I walked along the canal through Camden Market, and up into the park. I walked all around the park including the rose garden and tried to find all the interesting nooks that I hadn’t been in before. It was a gorgeous day and I got to listen to the audiobook the whole time.

Sunday Steph and I went to the Magicians Table, where they had ten different magicians doing short acts and then rotating. I had a great time and it was a fun format to get so many different styles of acts. There was also an overarching theme and some tasty drinks.

London Weekly 159

February 16, 2026 0

Singing!

I really enjoyed the song for choir this week, as the bass line had the melody, which is rare. It was also just really fun to sing, with some humming and whistling thrown in.

Steph was in Zurich for the start of the week, and I got access to a great coworking space nearby, which is where I spent most of the week during the day. The weather was cold and wet, so I didn’t get around much otherwise.

For the weekend I hosted karaoke on Saturday, which was great fun. I had some people from choir as well as Stacie, Aaron, and Giulio. It was a smaller group, but it worked out really well. We also played some Drawful 2 and then some Code Names which was great.

Sunday I went to Mercato Mayfair in the morning and sang with people, which was great fun. I really enjoyed it, and getting to chat with everyone was also great.