December 2023 - Life Update
As the penultimate month of the year draws to a close, now starts the time to reflect on the past year. 2023 has been a great year for me, both personally and professionally. Although there's not much left, I've got an exciting month ahead and I hope the same for you.
🤓 What I've been doing
- The rebrand for Nearly (which is now no longer Nearly), is finished and I'm hard at work creating the new screens and building new functionality. As I write more Swift code, I feel myself getting better and better. Already there's far less technical debt than in Nearly.
- I grew a moustache - my strategy for Movember was to grow enough of a 'beard' that I could shave the sides and have a moustache that didn't make me look like I belong on some sort of register. Unfortunately after a shaving incident that involved me trying to achieve moustache symmetry but repeatedly failing, I've accidentally removed it.
- My European trip has been cut short, but it has now started. I'm in Warsaw now and next week I head to Berlin, my first time in both Poland and Germany.
👀 What I've been consuming
- 🎬 Waterloo, Sergei Bondarchuk - Forget Ridley Scott and Joaquin Phoenix because Sergei Bondarchuk and Rod Steiger did it over 50 years ago. This film is a spectacular rendition of Napoleon's return from exile and the Battle of Waterloo. There are over 15,000 extras in it! And even better, it's available on YouTube.
- 🎭 The Mongol Khan, Hero Baatar - A limited-run play entirely in Mongolian. It follows a fictional khan and draws on the line of succession. The production quality was INSANE!
- 📚The Flashman Papers, George MacDonald Fraser - The fictional memoirs of an 18th century British officer who rises through the ranks thanks to his dad buying his commission (this was an actual thing!). Harry Flashman is a racist and elitist womaniser and despite this, continues to climb the ranks thanks to incidental events. A very fun and easy read.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Someone had blundered.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson - The Charge of the Light Brigade (the Light Brigade Charge in the Crimean War led to the abolition of buying military commissions)
🔮 What's coming up
- It's Christmas! I have a good friend staying with my family and I for Christmas, I'm excited to show him around my hometown
- Two days after Christmas, I head to Lithuania and then I drive to Riga to spend New Year's with a couple of friends.
