Bonfire Night 2026

Had a very, very slow day at work. It probably felt especially long because I knew that my copy of the Ocarina of Time remake was waiting in my letterbox. Once I was home I had a perfect hour to play through this spruced up version of my all time favourite game. I took my time but still got through Kokiri Forest, The Great Deku Tree and just arrived in the sprawl of Hyrupe Field. Periodically I got goosebumps as I remembered what the original game meant to me and how interesting it is to see this one exist in two spaces, as the OG game and as this sparkling new version. I'm loving it so far though and can't wait to play more.

I had to put my toys away for Bonfire night though. Dan, Louis and Rachel popped round so we could stand and bask in the glow of the Victoria Park blaze. We smuggled a beer into for everyone then went back for pizza and mead. What a lovely little way to ring in the beginning of the long chill of Winter.

Wrapping Up my Thoughts on Wrap

Feel very much like n the eye of this job's hurricane. Lots of other people are running around while I'm just quietly working through emails now while starting to think about our wrap workload. But it's not all paperwork, the wrap party is all important and I'm turning into the chief organiser of that one. I drove up to a potential venue today to chat requirements and to get some more pictures. While we have shortlist if places, I very much have a favourite child. Just got to make a few more wording adjustments to my pitch document and we'll be there I think. 

Missing Notes

Out on location to do a day's work on my laptop in a car park instead of an office. I also had one of those days where nothing quite went as smoothly as it should have done. None of it was actually important, but I missed a lot of beats and that's ultimately quite frustrating for everyone. Keen to do better tomorrow though and get back on form. But to do that, I gotta get my beauty sleep, that's something in high demand right now.

Turn Up the Tempo

A shorter day of shooting is a blessing and a curse. We all get to go home earlier but we lose an hour out of our day at work, so everything needs to be done 10% faster to compensate. The chaps down on set had a rough go at it, all the whole I was in the studios catching up on admin and diligence. I'm down there tomorrow actually for my first trip to location in almost a year. As much as I love working on the truck, the drive is always the naff bit, especially when I look at what time I set my alarm to...

Back Over The Garden Wall

The Halloween weekend continued with us hosting a little watch party of Over The Garden Wall with a bunch of my colleagues. Rebecca and I put our a massive spread of sweeties and pizzas for everyone to pick at while we ploughed through all ten episodes, chuckling all the way through. Everyone kept remarking how cosy the house felt, especially with our lit pumpkins illuminating the corners of the living room. Think we're all ready to face the last hurdle of the year now, bring on November!

Happy Halloween 2026

Mark and Lucy had all of us round for an all day Halloween bash 'for grown up'. Mark knocked up a steak and chips lunch so good that I thought I'd died and gone to heaven, but it set us all up for our pumpkin carving workshop. Jenny brought over a set of pumpkin carving design books from the 90's which instantly cast my mind back to the one Mum used while I was growing up. We each picked a design and just went at it, I opted to do a owl design which looked fiddly, and at one point I really feared I bit off more than I could chew, but it came out really well. In fact, we all nailed it! 

We put them out on the road for the world to enjoy and to signal to trick or treaters that we we're up for visits. The house got loads of attention, thanks massively to our pumpkins, the compliments kept rolling in. Once the knocking settled down I offered to do some tarot readings by candlelight which was well received. The night winded down in front of the telly with Mark showing us Widow's Bay and I already want to watch more. 

Such a cosy Halloween with friends, basically the perfect little Saturday. 

20 Years Since the Wii

At almost exactly 4am this morning I was jolted awake by a thought. Not a noise, nor a bad dream. A simple thought came into my mind as my eyes opened:

The Nintendo Wii came out 20 years ago.

I know that's a bizarre metric to live my life by, but I actually found it hard to quantity that fact. I can remember looking forward to that console, reading press articles about 'The Revolution', as it was once known as. I remember the games Louis and I played on launch and the subsequent titles we enjoyed in the coming years. I remembered the bonus applications like the Mii, Photo and Map Channels. I remembered waggling the controller, learning how to use motion controls on Christmas Day. 

All these thoughts came rushing in, keeping me from going back to sleep. The tape player if my memory kept getting fixated on that timeframe of two decades. I had to do the maths over and over to make sure I was right too. 

Eventually, the sensation passed. I got up, went to work and then met up with Dan and Rebecca in the evening to listen to an orchestra play some video game music from the Witcher. Guess how they opened it? By informing us that the game was enjoying its 10th anniversary.

I started to spiral again.

Pop culture is valuable to us because it acts as a tidemark for our time in Earth. We can point to a fixed era on the spectrum of the human experience and say that's where we were. Some feelings are so intense they drag other memories with them, a chance to revisit a silent nostalgia that makes you whimsical for the good old days.