Andrew Doran
Andrew Doran
I write here in order to work things out and understand myself better. I write here in order to put things down that I have been carrying around in my head, so I don’t need to carry them around anymore. I write here in order to capture a moment and have something that I can look back on, remembering what I thought and felt at the time.
August 2026
September 2026
October 2026
Top Words
- weeknotes
- year
- born
- work
- life
- song
- london
All posts (101)
The temperature dropped by about ten degrees, bringing clouds and even a little bit of rain. I went in search of a pair of jeans for the first time in a couple of months, putting away the shorts for a while. I promise I’ll never complain about regular old ‘mildly warm’ British weather ever again. It’s lovely right...
Finished reading Steve Marriott: All Too Beautiful by Paolo Hewitt and John Hellier. I’ve been a big Small Faces fan since I was a teenager in the 1990s. I knew the basic story arc of Steve Marriott’s life, but this filled in lots of the detail. The book makes the point that if Marriott had survived a few more years...
I’ve been thinking more about these weeknotes, pondering whether it’s time to explore a different format. Six years ago, I made a note that I was inspired by Ton Zijlstra’s format, and it’s served me well. But I’ve stopped looking forward to documenting my week as much as I used to. Part of my reluctance to change...
Back to work after being out of the office for a couple of weeks. I’d left myself a reminder to go to the right location, as we’d had a seating shuffle while I’d been away. We had an extraordinary number of people saying that they were cold at their new desks, but, weirdly, the complaints were distributed across the...
I was about to use the word ‘proscribed‘ in an email. Something made me pause to double check what it means. It turns out that it means literally the complete opposite of what I thought.
Looking out over the valley towards Lucca. We spent this week on holiday in Tuscany, Italy, with eight of our friends. Our summer break was planned to be early this year as our eldest son heads back to university next week. This holiday came and went in a flash, as they always do. Our home for the week was Il...
A stop to look at the view on the Isle of Wight. We only have another couple of weeks together as a family before our eldest heads back to start his sophomore year at college in Texas. Our youngest finished school last week, so my wife suggested that I take the week off and do something with both of the boys. Now...
Finished reading Having Spent Life Seeking by Kae Tempest. My copy of the book came free with my ticket to see Tempest in conversation at The Roundhouse back in April. During the interview, he spoke movingly about “the incredible technology” of a novel, which allows you to put yourself in another person’s shoes,...
I love it when a high street shop gets renovated, and the ghost of what was there long ago makes a brief reappearance. Jean’s Hair Fashions, which apparently was once a feature of Lower Kings Road in Berkhamsted. It seems that one thing that Berkhamsted has been consistent with throughout the ages is that there is...
Waiting for the start of Glengarry Glen Ross at The Old Vic theatre, 13 July 2026 A really big week. We spent the first three days on a management team offsite. It was bittersweet, as it was the last one we will have with someone in our team who is retiring later this year. We hadn’t been all together in the same...
The latest heatwave has weighed heavily on everyone here. It is just too hot. All of my time seems to be spent working, watching World Cup football, or lying on my bed without any covering, hoping that I will be able to sleep. On Thursday I met one of my neighbours on the train and he offered to give me a lift home....
Finished reading Tsunami Kids by Paul Forkan and Rob Forkan. An incredible story of their unconventional upbringing, the tragic events of Boxing Day 2004, and their subsequent business success. For me, the book is let down a little by the writing style and a lack of editing, which stopped it from being a totally...
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