Without beating around the bush, the major event of this week was a colonoscopy. This year I decided to follow up with a couple of minor medical issues that I’ve experienced in the recent past, figuring that there would be no harm in getting them checked out by the experts. This specific procedure was recommended by one of the consultants as a precautionary measure, given my reported symptoms, my age, and what I believed to be my family history (but later found out wasn’t quite correct.) I’d never had a colonoscopy before, but I happily agreed. I’m generally not squeamish about medical things, particularly when the alternative to a procedure or examination would be to ignore a potentially bigger problem.

Researching the process on the Internet was confusing. In the USA, they typically administer a general anaesthetic before the procedure. In the UK, they usually give you drugs such as fentanyl, but not enough to completely knock you out. Both of these approaches seemed to point to it being painful. But there was also a narrative about how it doesn’t really hurt at all; it can just get slightly uncomfortable as they pump air into your intestine so in order to have a good look.

A couple of days before the procedure, I had a call from a friendly person at the hospital who talked me through what to expect and the choices I had. I hadn’t realised that if you have an anaesthetic, you aren’t insured to drive for 24 hours. This was the clincher for me. My colonoscopy was booked for Monday, and my wife had her own post-op check-up at another hospital the next morning which I needed to drive her to. I planned to opt out of the drugs.

From Saturday morning I had to go on a diet which was made up of things that I’ve always understood as less healthy. White bread, white rice, cheese — absolutely nothing with fibre or seeds in it, such as brown bread, fruit or vegetables. We had lunch at a cafe with my wife’s parents; ordering a plain white bread cheese toasted sandwich made me feel like a toddler. On Sunday morning I had my final meal around 10am, a few crumpets topped with butter and slices of cheese. I wasn’t allowed to eat anything again until after the procedure on Monday afternoon.

The worst part of the whole event was the prep on Sunday evening. At 6pm I had to prepare and drink a pint of Plenvu laxative. They advised drinking it through a straw, and I can see why — it was meant to be mango flavour, which sounded like lots of fun, but it tasted like a puree of highlighter pens. I couldn’t imagine taking big gulps of it. I then had to follow it up with a pint of water, which after the laxative felt like nectar from heaven. It didn’t take too long before my insides were grumbling as the mixture did its thing. The worst news was that three hours after the first dose, I had to do it all again. This time the drink was ‘fruit punch’ flavour, and incredibly it was even worse than the first. I finally got to bed just before midnight, feeling thoroughly cleansed from consuming this human Drano. I’m not sure of the science of how the Plenvu mixture works, but I woke up around 4am with a major thirst. From this point I was only allowed to drink ‘clear’ liquids, which included tea and coffee without milk, finally stopping intake of everything a couple of hours before the procedure.

London Bridge Hospital was unlike any other that I’ve been to. After a short wait in reception, I was escorted to a private room that had everything you could need: a private bathroom with shower, a big TV, a safe for valuables and a room service menu. It was more like a hotel. It reinforced how privileged I am to get private healthcare through my employer, being able to get seen so quickly and to be treated so well.

As the procedure time approached, I changed out of my clothes and into the ‘dignity pants’, along with a medical gown and robe. The consultant paid me a flying visit, talking me through my sedation options; I chose to go with just gas-and-air, avoiding anything that would make me drowsy, and he seemed to think that was just fine. After signing a consent form, that in retrospect I had little time or inclination to read, we were ready to go.

A porter collected me and we wandered down the corridors until we came to the procedure room, where I was asked to hop up onto the examination bed. There are lots of people involved — a gastroenterologist to work the endoscope, another to take notes on what happened, and a third to monitor the patient and generally check that they are ok. This third person put a heart rate monitor onto the end of my finger, showed me how to take deep breaths from the gas-and-air mouthpiece, and told me to lie on my side with my knees up to my chest. Before I had time to gather my thoughts, it started.

The gastroenterologist seemed highly skilled, and worked at speed. It really wasn’t painful at all, just uncomfortable or slightly awkward at certain points. Either side of the bed there was a large, high-definition screen showing a view from the camera and it was fascinating. It reminded me of being a kid, sitting watching a science programme on TV with my dad, except this time the body we were looking inside was my own. The endoscope they used was an incredible tool; as well as a high-definition camera and light, it also had the ability to spray water so that the medical team could get a clean look at different parts of the bowel, as well as an implement with crocodile-clip-type jaws that could be used to take small biopsies. Every time they went to take a sample, the gastroenterologist said “open….”, to signify that the crocodile jaws were extended, and then a firm “closed” when they snapped shut and took their sample. His colleague made a note each time this happened, presumably so that the samples and their source locations could be correlated afterwards. Each one was completely painless. They can also use the endoscope to remove ‘polyps’ that grow in the colon which have the risk of becoming cancerous in the future, but there were none to be found.

A couple of times during the process they asked me to move onto my other side to help with manoeuvring the endoscope. This was a bit awkward, with the scope inside me, a heart rate monitor on my finger, and my other hand clutching the gas-and-air, but they quickly got me into the right place and carried on.

I felt a little surprise and much relief when one of the team told me that they had reached the end of the colon. I knew then that it wouldn’t be any worse than it had been up to that point, and I was feeling very pleased with myself for not needing any other medication. The gastroenterologist continued to look at things as the camera was navigated back to the surface, but didn’t spot any issues. I felt weirdly proud when he complimented me on how well my bowel preparation had gone, as it meant that they could get a clear view of everything they needed to.

And, as quickly as it started, it was all done.

After saying my goodbyes to the team, they wheeled me into a recovery ward where another nurse monitored me for ten minutes or so before they pushed me back to my room. A few minutes later, room service turned up with the egg sandwich on granary bread that I’d ordered earlier, as well as a cup of tea. Later that day, after more than making up for not having eaten for twenty-four hours, I had some mildly painful stomach cramps, but they went away very quickly.

My overwhelming feeling after the procedure was how amazing it was to have been able to have such a fascinating glimpse at parts of me that I had never seen before, and to have been in such good care for the whole process. If I have to have another in the future, it won’t worry me at all.

Aside from my medical adventure which took up most of Monday, this was a week in which I:

• Continued to make preparations for a colleague’s visit next week. We met with two of our group’s existing vendors to see whether they could help us to get some Microsoft Copilot expertise into our office. Our internal team quickly put together a schedule, communication plan and a vendor contract; all of a sudden we had a ‘Copilot Week’ available for our staff.
• Joined the project meeting for the opening our new entity in a new country.
• Attended our Infrastructure Architecture Governance Authority meeting where we reviewed a tool we are using to capture detailed data on our IT infrastructure.
• Met with colleagues from our Diversity, Equality and Inclusion Forum to discuss the disability aspect of our portfolio, what we want to achieve, and how we might approach it.
• Had the weekly meeting for our sister company’s refurbishment of their office and our shared working spaces. We’re getting close to the next busy period on the project, so the work is now to align the detailed plans and keep making good decisions in order to keep the overall end date on track.
• Completed the review of the first draft of a revised services agreement between another company and ourselves, after working with a colleague to reconcile the costs that need to go into the document.
• Met with colleagues to discuss our approach for prioritising and staffing work on one of our key initiatives from next year.
• At the request of a colleague in Eswatini, had an introductory meeting with one of the UK’s leading IT infrastructure and service providers.
• Met with our team for our monthly Lean Coffee session. It fascinates me to observe which topics spark broad participation; it’s not always the ones I expect.
• Completed no less than six surveys, including psychometric tests and details of my career history and aspirations, as part of a ‘development journey’ process organised by my employer. This was followed up with an interview with an industrial psychologist. During the interview, she administered a ‘Complexity Navigation Test’, which used a series of online card games to explore how I approached problem-solving challenges in ambiguous situations.
• Had lunch with my account manager from our technology research and consulting vendor.
• Took my wife to the hospital for a check-up on her eye, a couple of weeks after her operation. It’s all looking good and she was given the all-clear to start driving again.
• Deleted my Flickr account. It was fun back in the day, but over the past few years it had become a regular nag to upgrade before they ‘really, really, really’ were going to delete anything that didn’t fit into the free allowance (but never did), as well as the occasional notification that someone had favourited a picture in a slightly unnerving way. I’m sure that I’ve broken a few links, but I’m glad to let go of the mental overhead of thinking about it.
• Sold our 16-year-old broken Mini to webuyanycar for just shy of £300, 18 months or so after we bought it for £3,500 and then spent over £1,000 on an MOT and minor fixes over that time. We’d taken it to a local specialist garage for investigation and works, but after we got it back we had even more problems. Further examination by the garage found that it was actually uneconomical to repair. The good news is that after some badgering, the garage offered to refund the fee we paid for the initial diagnostics and we got a £500 refund on our car insurance after removing the car (and our young driver) from the policy. We can live without the second car for a bit as our eldest son is at university and our youngest isn’t yet 17. When the time comes, I think we’ll look at the cost of leasing a cheap, new car; I’m guessing that the cost will be slightly higher, but it will be more predictable from a maintenance perspective.
• Went into London on a Saturday afternoon with my friend Mat to see Anna Calvi at EartH. It’s always fun to wander into Dalston as there are so many interesting one-off places to eat. We found ourselves looking at the menu for Mersin Tantuni, right next to the venue. The owner wandered out and asked whether we were there because we’d read Yotam Ottolenghi’s mention of the restaurant in today’s Guardian. We hadn’t, but it was good enough reason to wander in anyway. As we sat down, the owner very proudly passed us a copy of The Guardian’s magazine, opened at the page with the article. The food was great, leaving us both stuffed. The venue itself was quite something to look at; a beautiful Art Deco theatre with a massive stage but uncomfortable tiered seating, made bearable through hiring cushions from the back of the room. Dear Pariah opened the show with her solo alternative folk, in stark contrast to Anna Calvi’s gigantic band that included multiple percussionists, a string section and a series of guest singers peppered throughout the evening. The music was excellent and we had a great time.

Inadvertently following in Ottolenghi’s footsteps.

Dear Pariah, EartH, London, 1 November 2025.

Anna Calvi, EartH, London, 1 November 2025.

Dear Pariah, EartH, London, 1 November 2025.

Media

Podcasts

• I’ve fallen weeks behind on podcasts, both because of not having been able to exercise as much as I’d like (which is usually quality podcast listening time), and my regular shows seeming to think that more and more output is a good thing. At some point I end up declaring bankruptcy for a particular feed and opt out of it. Podcasters, be warned!
• In October, Microsoft ceased mainstream support for Windows 10, despite it being the version of Windows used by 42% of the install base. Due to the requirements of Windows 11, many of the computers running Windows 10 are likely to be scrapped. 404 Media have a deep dive into what they say is an “e-waste disaster in the making”.
• On the Aboard Podcast, Rich Ziade makes an excellent point about AI-generated ‘slop’ videos such as those in OpenAI’s Sora and Meta’s Vibes apps:

Here’s my take on it. If you have unlimited inventory, nothing is interesting. […] You gotta kinda constantly reach for the stimuli hit, right? And I think my problem isn’t the output. Because look, it’s kind of crazy that these videos are being produced so quickly and they’re big and colorful and interesting, but if you give me an endless supply of them, then you’ve commoditized everything and nothing can be interesting, because my brain can only ingest so much at a given point in time.

• This is an interesting counterpoint to the narrative that I’ve heard from Ben Thompson at Stratechery, who sees the AI tools enabling more people to be creative. There will be a lot of rubbish, but there is likely to also be a group of people able to create great, compelling art where they might not have been able to before. I guess both things could be true at the same time.
• The WB-40 podcast conversation with Tris Oaten on writing tools is excellent. He mentions Typst, an open-source replacement for LaTeX, which I haven’t come into contact with since I left university but I assume is still widely used. Oaten also quotes Bill Condon:

No piece of writing is ever finished, it’s just due.

Articles

• An incredible story of Dave Richards, a cyclist who suffered a horrendous cycling accident at the hands of a driver who was both drunk and on his phone in the middle of the day. The NHS has provided him with a 3D face prosthetic to give him back some of his quality of life.
• I love, and agree, with the title of this 404 Media article: “Grokipedia Is the Antithesis of Everything That Makes Wikipedia Good, Useful, and Human”. After Grokipedia’s launch, I went out of my way to up my monthly donation to the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikipedia is something to cherish, not something to be crushed under the boot of the world’s richest man because he doesn’t like what it says about him. John Gruber also puts it well:

At launch, Grokipedia is to Wikipedia as a chewed piece of gum is to a fresh piece of gum still in its wrapper. And imagine that the gum was chewed by someone with a dipping tobacco habit.

• Baldur Bjarnason boils down how he sees software as a medium:

The best way to deal with software – making it, using it, dealing with it as a creative medium, coping with it as a maker of other creative media – is to understand it as it really is:

A creative medium driven by fashion that operates with limited regard for practicality or productivity.

• Ben Werdmuller has written an excellent post about how there’s no such thing as neutral technology.
• I had a conversation with a colleague at work about what I have learned is called the Gell-Mann amnesia effect. This is the phenomenon where you read an article in a newspaper or magazine on a subject that you know a lot about, and spot all of the errors and flaws in what has been written. You might think it’s a bad article. Turning to another in the same publication on a topic that isn’t your speciality, you take what’s been written at face value. This translates directly into a world of LLM-generated content; you need to know enough about your subject to be able to detect when the thing that has been generated is incorrect, otherwise there is an assumption that the machine output is right.

Video

• Absolutely loved Riot Women. The writing and the characters are excellent, so much better than it looks like it is going to be from the picture. There’s a moment in the programme where we were laughing along with the characters at a silly moment, only for it to morph delicately into something tender and tragic. Superb.
• Was disappointed with the latest season of Slow Horses. The characters are still fun, but it felt like it was over before it got started. Nothing much seemed to happen.
• Loved Sophie Wilson talking about her memories of the early days of Acorn Computers, the Acorn Atom, the Proton/BBC Micro and the invention of the ARM microprocessor. The video is part of a series celebrating ARM’s 40th birthday.
• Watched the first episode of Girlbands Forever. So far, it’s another typically brilliant slice of cultural history that the BBC are so good at.

Web

• I’ve been using Microsoft Copilot Researcher quite extensively over the past few weeks. I’m looking forward to trying it out in a mode where it has access to a computer.
• Curb Your Enthusiasm had an amusing storyline about Larry David creating a ‘spite store’. This week I learned that spite houses are a thing.
• The Trump Action Tracker is doing a very structured, forensic job of keeping the receipts on the second Trump administration.
• Owls in Towels is a wonderful Mastodon account.
• Richard Littler posted a wonderful collection of Kids’ TV/horror movie mash-up posters.
• How about a $20k magic home robot that is actually remotely controlled by a human operator for all but the most basic tasks? AJ Sadauskas sees it as a backdoor way for people to employ low-wage servants.
• The International Criminal Court are looking to move off software platforms based out of the USA, such as those provided by Microsoft, due to the threat of sanctions from that same country.

Books

• Have been chomping my way through Meditations for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman after it was recommended by a friend. It has lots of snippets of wisdom. I need to heed his words about how to treat my reading pile, and also apply it to my podcast inbox too.

Next week: A full week in the office and a meet-up with some Hopeful Technologists.