Barry Frost

Barry Frost -

Week 224 - Piano - 2025-12-08T16:48:15Z

• Last year I forgot to get L an advent calendar. The last-minute Paw Patrol effort from the corner shop wasn't well received. Don't deprive her of decent chocolate, was the lesson I learned. This year I bought a premium Dairy Milk one for her nice and early - and she bought me exactly the same!
• Christmas has properly started: L went to an evening class to make a wreath for the door, I've put up outdoor lights along the front of the house, and the new (bigger) tree is up, albeit with inadequate tinsel coverage for my liking.
• A poor sporting week: H's team lost 1-3 (Saturday 9am away kick-off 😧), Arsenal lost 1-2 away to Villa and the less said about England's capitulation in the Ashes the better.
• More positive was C's debut musical performance at a little concert put on by his piano teacher. He's only been learning for a couple of months, mostly with a cast on his right arm, but bravely played a perfect We Three Kings in front of an intimidating audience of parents and children.
• My pride for my son's musical success was tempered by the pollution of my Apple Music Replay 2025 with his favourite songs from Bluey and Mario, played through smart speakers linked to my Apple Music account.

Week 223 - AI - 2025-12-01T14:37:32Z

• It's Black Friday/week. I had previously noted down potential presents for L and the boys which I hoped would be discounted. I was semi-successful so I've officially made a start on my Christmas shopping.
• L bought a nice artificial Christmas tree. It went up and came back down again. Too small, so we're awaiting its bigger brother.
• In AI dystopia news, this week I watched a company training video which had a glitchy AI presenter warning about AI deepfakes impersonating executives 🤦 It even incorrectly pronounced our company's name.
• I also taught H a valuable lesson about trusting AI responses. He had Googled for a football statistic - how many goals has Isak scored for Liverpool this season. The Gemini answer above the search results said zero, but I clearly remembered Isak's League Cup goal. He didn't believe me until I showed him the result on the BBC Sport website.
• Ignoring what I've just written about bad AI, I thought it would be fun to build my own MCP server and feed it data about me. Coding with the new Claude Opus 4.5 model I wrote a spec and set it to work ingesting my public Swarm checkins, parsing my weeknotes and building a local server. With Claude Desktop on my laptop I could then ask basic questions about gigs I'd been to with Andy or football matches I'd seen. A fun bit of hacking.
• The weekend has been cold, windy and rainy. I took the boys to Lego club at the library and then camped out at home watching football and TV series. All Her Fault finished superbly, but could have been a tight four-parter instead of boring us in the middle of eight episodes.

Week 222 - Negroni - 2025-11-24T12:03:36Z

• Double Nelson for week 222.
• It was my birthday. While our boys were at school, L took to me to the opening morning of the Wes Anderson: The Archives exhibition at the Design Museum. I'm a Wes fan. They had all the costumes, behind-the-scenes photos and the exquisitely-detailed props. I nerded out on the typography on the book covers and posters.
• We had lunch at Vermuteria in Coal Drops Yard which makes a very tasty Negroni d'Or. I plan to try to recreate it at home when I can source bottles of the expensive rare booze: Contratto Bianco and Kina L'Aèro d'Or.
• We then rented The Phoenician Scheme when to round off the day; it was the only Wes film I hadn't seen. Perfect.
• Sunday lunch was at the Robin Hood & Little John pub on the other side of the village. I ate roast beef and had a large glass of red wine.
• With a warm glow in my tummy I was all set for the North London Derby on TV. I felt very confident. Arsenal's 4-1 demolition job confirmed it. We are on fire.
• In celebration, I made us tuna melts using a recipe I'd bookmarked. It had all the ingredients: harissa paste, jalapeños, lemon zest, gherkins, sun-dried tomatoes, mustard, spring onions, mayo, mature cheddar, Doritos and, obvs, tuna. I enjoyed it, L not so much.

No title - 2025-11-21T18:12:13Z

Photos from our visit to Wes Anderson: The Archives at the Design Museum in London today.

Week 221 - Power - 2025-11-17T16:04:24Z

• It may be the changing of seasons and gloomier days, but I've found myself a little down this week. Getting outside for lunchtime walks and playing with the boys usually helps clear away the cobwebs. I'll keep an eye on my general mood so that I don't let things slip.
• I bought a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) mainly to protect my NAS (network attached storage). It's a basic APC 650VA device with eight sockets. We have occasional power cuts in the village and when the power returns my NAS stays powered off. I forget to turn it back on and my backups subsequently fail. The UPS is effectively saving me from having to press a button - peak laziness.
• H's under-10s football team lost their third match in a row to local Hertford rivals. They fought back from 3-0 down to draw level, only to then concede a last-minute winner. It's a cruel game.
• My parents and my aunt and uncle stopped by on Sunday. L was out for the day so I hosted. I made a lemon drizzle cake - that's two excellent cakes in successive weekends. The boys were very well-behaved, bringing out their board games to entertain their relatives.
• It rained heavily this week. No flooding, luckily. Temperatures are forecast to drop next week with maybe even some snow. Brrr.

Week 220 - Bang - 2025-11-10T14:27:07Z

• I joined Andy at the Leicester Square Theatre for Russell Howard's warm-up show. Scrappy, in-progress shows where the comedian jumps around and ad-libs are somehow funnier than polished sets.
• At work the HR team asked me to help present in their company-wide training sessions on annual performance reviews for our leaders. I have clearly gained a reputation with HR as someone pushing for leadership training, so I guess I brought it on myself! It seemed to go well.
• I walked C to our village's Guy Fawkes Night fireworks at the sports field. It was packed. We queued for an overpriced burger-van burger for him and then ooh'd and aah'd at all the whizz-bangs. He loved it. At some point we both stepped in dog poo in the dark so I had to scrub and disinfect our shoes back home. Not for me.
• The house exterior painting is mercifully finished. Our windows can be shut and cars parked back on our drive. Next we need to coax back the scaffolders to dismantle their platforms and poles.
• The Celebrity Traitors concluded spectacularly, we finished the nerve-shredding Blue Lights and have now started Pluribus which has already gripped us.

Week 219 - Paint - 2025-11-03T11:54:13Z

• It's November already. It's school half-term. The leaves are changing colour. Hallowe'en is over. Christmas awaits.
• While I stayed behind at home, L and the boys visited her parents again for a few school holiday days. This meant I ate microwave curry and watched films she probably wouldn't like (A House of Dynamite, [new] Superman and The Banshees of Inisherin).
• In home renovation news, we're having our window frames, doors, soffits and fascias repainted. Scaffolders arrived on Wednesday to build platforms over the side extension ready for the exterior painters who started on Thursday. Despite the inconvenience - moving cars off the drive before 8am every morning, sitting in a freezing house with windows and doors open, making all the teas - it's been fine. The workmen have been reliable and efficient. One coat to go.
• Our boys' Hallowe'en trick-or-treating hauls seem bigger than last year. The village has new houses with families which might explain it. Neither boy is too obsessed with sweets, thankfully, and will gradually eat their way through. It's also tempting to hide some and use for sharing next year!
• C's piano/keyboard playing is really coming on. His fingering is much better and he's happily using both hands.
• My parents visited on Sunday to give H their birthday presents. He asked for board games and received three to enjoy - it's a welcome alternative to football-football-football. We also played a little with his micro:bit.
• I made my excellent banana bread which I'm confident is the best of all cakes.

Week 218 - Otters - 2025-10-26T17:36:27Z

• H reached double figures this week, celebrating his tenth birthday 🎂.
• His family treat was an otter-feeding experience at Shepreth Wildlife Park with his little brother. We were (repeatedly) lectured by the handler that otters are not pets (yes, we get it) as the boys threw the adorable little animals sprats and prawns. After lunch with us at Wagamama he had a bowling party, a hotdog and cake with his friends. Being ten is pretty good.
• We had another set of parents' meetings at school. They've both started the new school year very well.
• After the hospital consultant was happy with my elbow last week, it was time for my last physio session. My arm still isn't 100% straight, but the physio gave me some new strengthening exercises which will continue to help.
• This weekend L was suffering with a nasty headache, so after I drove H to his football match (a scrappy 2-1 win against Stevenage at home), I took him and his brother for haircuts in Welwyn. I was responsible for making hair decisions and correctly pushed for shorter cuts. At £23 each I want my money's worth.
• We finished watching The Sopranos. It richly deserves its reputation as one of the finest series on TV. What a compelling set of characters, and the ending was perfect. Now it's over we can safely research the actors and storylines without fear of spoilers!
• A weekend of excellent Premier League results for Arsenal, plus a massive 4-0 win against Atletico in the Champions League on Tuesday. It's a very good time to be a Gooner. Let's see how far we can go.

Week 217 - Lawn - 2025-10-19T19:51:45Z

• This Tuesday marked 25 years since I posted my very first blog post. It was the first of 84 entries on my travelblog which I updated as I spent a year travelling and living in New Zealand. In the days before Facebook, WhatsApp or smartphones, it was the best way to connect to my family and a few friends who read it. But I also wrote it for myself, a bit like these weeknotes.
• I used Blogger to publish. The service FTP'd HTML files to a directory on a server at my local university (I think http://rdiu.anglia.ac.uk/barry) where I had worked part-time. Simple, but it worked. The original host is long since dead, but it's nice to see my raw content has been preserved by new (2003) owners Google when I log in.
• We had our lawn relaid. It's now much wider and replaces the bumpy, patchy grass around where the play boat and flower beds were. The bad news for the boys is that we can't play football on it until April.
• I had my final x-ray and consultation at the hospital for my broken elbow. It's not completely healed after 4.5 months but they were happy enough to not need another visit. Phew. What a lot of faff for one little fall playing football.
• I drove H to the far side of the county for his football match against Ware. His team lost 1-2 but that was a big improvement over the 1-7 reverse fixture. It was notable for being recorded using special cameras on a pole at the side of the pitch. We got to rewatch the action, including when H comically collided with another boy off the ball.
• He had a busy Saturday: the football and two birthday parties. Sunday was a cosy, quiet day indoors while it rained. We all ate a big chicken pie and vegetables for lunch and snoozed on the sofa before Liverpool were beaten by Man United at home. Arsenal are firmly on top of the league. A splendid way to end the week.

No title - 2025-10-14T19:06:31Z

Gigs in October: The Beta Band at the Roundhouse and Gene at Hammersmith Apollo.

Week 216 - Flying - 2025-10-12T20:22:18Z

• I spent the last week in sunny San Diego for work. I met up with the rest of our Professional Services leadership team for meetings and an All-Hands presented by our parent company's CEO.
• The journey was just as I remembered it from my last three visits: 15 hours from home to hotel and very dull. I tried and failed to sleep using my new Trtl, so instead watched films on the little screen and exhausted my podcast backlog.
• Each morning I was in the office in La Jolla before 8am, partly because our office is next door to the hotel, but mainly because of the eight-hour time difference. After long days working I dropped off my backpack in my hotel room and headed back out for dinner and drinks together. As a result this weekend back home I've slept and done very little.
• Food in La Jolla was pretty good. Sushi at Blue Ocean, large quantities of Mexican at Red O and many moreish dim sums after a worthwhile wait at Din Tai Fung. The Rubi club sandwich from nearby Rubicon Deli was as good as always.

Week 215 - Bongo - 2025-10-10T17:21:35Z

• I had two London gigs this week in one weekend. Crazy.
• First up was The Beta Band at the Roundhouse with Andy. They played pretty much all of their classic The Three EPs which worked surprisingly well played live, Dry the Rain being my highlight. Plenty of bongo-playing. And great acoustics in the round, er, Roundhouse.
• It was Steve Mason and friends' first tour together since December 2004. Neatly, the next night was Gene's first London gig since December 2004 with their own Steve Mason on guitar.
• L and I joined similarly-aged friends at a packed Distillers pub for pre-gig drinks before moving on to the Apollo for the much-anticipated return of Gene. When Gene split we were all in our mid-twenties, childless, fresh-faced and with full heads of hair. Much time has passed. The old songs were still tight and were lustily sung back to the band. They finished on "Who Said This Was the End" and hinted at a tour next year. I'll be there.
• I did the sensible thing when buying the tickets last year and also booked a hotel to save on the back-and-forth. Clever me chose the perfectly reasonable and fairly new Premier Inn in Hammersmith. We were able to smugly skip from venue to bed in minutes - via the pub, of course.
• Earlier in the week we visited another potential secondary school for H. It seemed fine. It's hard to assess schools for him while remembering my own school days. The lessons, the homework, the exams, the anxiety... Even though I had a relatively good experience, I wouldn't want to go back and start again. He's got it all to come 😬

Week 214 - Last-minute - 2025-09-28T20:10:18Z

• I've booked flights for another work trip to our San Diego HQ next month. There's not much glamour in transatlantic work travel, but it'll be helpful spending a week together with my American colleagues for some workshops.
• A nice man with a big van visited for us to clear our garden of: a deconstructed wooden pirate ship, fence and gate panels, two broken garden chairs, an old chiminea and a very big bag of garden waste. We now have so much more space. Next we're getting the lawn relaid.
• I took H to his Saturday morning football against Welwyn Hurricanes. It was especially important for him because he was facing one of his good school friends who is also an ex-teammate. At half-time the score was a well-deserved 0-0, but then Welwyn took the lead early in the second half. It was a feisty match but his team kept battling and equalised in the very last minute. A sweet draw.
• Talking of last-minute goals, watching on the sofa, I lustily celebrated Arsenal's 96th-minute away winner against bogey team Newcastle after going behind. Arsenal deserved it after the injustice of the VAR-disallowed penalty, the noisy fans and our recent tight losses.
• I've been watching Europe spank the US in the Ryder Cup golf this weekend. As I wrote two years ago, I'm not much of a golf fan, but the team format is addictive viewing. I'm writing this halfway through the singles matches, and although Europe are still well ahead overall, the US are fighting back. Hopefully there's not a late twist in the tale of this one.

Week 213 - Grown-up - 2025-09-22T15:12:52Z

• We visited a local secondary school with H this week. He has two years to go at his primary school but we wanted to get an early idea of the options. We visited twice: first for its open evening and then a separate guided tour by two sixth-formers.
• H was initially nervous but loved it: the scale of the buildings, all the different lessons he could do and especially seeing all the sporting options. A good start. Next month we have the nearest, default option.
• I worked out it's been 28 years since I’ve stepped foot in any secondary school. I'm unsurprisingly the same age or older than the staff. While my son was a little anxious around the older children and teachers, I was comfortable wandering around and asking questions. I guess I really am a grown-up.
• Mice arewere back scrabbling around in my garden office wall. The traps went back down underneath the building and quickly "silenced" them. I need to go check for the gruesome results.
• H is now being issued with homework at school. This week was a year 5 maths question that I struggled with when he asked me for help. I did A-level maths and then maths courses at university... I may need to return my certificates.
• One of my team at work, who I spent a half-hour with in a face-to-face 1:1, has tested positive for Covid. This weekend I've suddenly felt congested, had a sore throat and headaches. Uh oh. I think I need to find a lateral flow test that's not expired.

Week 212 - Together - 2025-09-14T19:26:23Z

• I organised a two-day in-person workshop for my team this week. Although I'm contractually linked to our Cambridge office, we work remotely at different ends of the country, so some travelled down and stayed overnight in the nearby Novotel.
• It was the first time meeting Dan and Steven in the flesh, so I cranked out some tried-and-tested ice-breakers for everyone. Initial reluctance turned into competitiveness, and it helpfully got uncaffeinated people on their feet. The rest of our time was spent in a retrospective, a team purpose discussion and a mutually-beneficial group session with the API team.
• Our team dinner was at Dishoom's Permit Room in the centre of the city for excellent posh Indian food.
• I've been enjoying weekly episodes of Alien Earth. I assumed I'd seen all the films but had missed 2024's Alien Romulus. It was far better than I expected, despite the terrible Ian Holm CGI.
• C now has a cast covering his broken wrist. I'm a bit jealous because I didn't get anything to show for my broken elbow. With his permission I decorated the cast with "Daddy" and "AFC", of course.

Week 211 - School - 2025-09-07T08:23:00Z

• We travelled back from last week's holiday on Ibiza.
• It wasn't exactly a warm welcome home at Stansted airport: we had an hour queueing for our passports to be checked and then a 45-minute wait for a surge-priced Uber.
• Next day it was straight back to school for the boys. In previous years there have been a few nerves and night-before anxiety, but they were both excited to go back and see their friends.
• Maybe a little too excited: C broke his wrist on Friday after falling while climbing in the playground. An x-ray confirmed the break. He now has a splint and sling to wear. It's not bothering him too much: he can still hold a Switch Joy-Con in his hand.
• The boys are now in years five and three, moving ever closer to secondary school age. We've started the search and have a couple of open days booked in this term. Boundaries and rules seem to have changed and there may be additional schools available. It's confusing and uncertain.
• With access to my laptop again I've been hacking. I've set up my own PDS (Personal Data Host). I firmly believe in the IndieWeb principle of owning my own data and this lets me self-host my Bluesky posts and other content. Whether I want to pay for and maintain a VPS for this is a different question! Using the PDS's API I can also build a website that serves my content without needing Bluesky's AppView. A fun new project, and perhaps the basis of my next personal website.
• Football is back for H's new under-10s team. He had his first pre-season friendly on Saturday. They were pretty rusty and lost 4-3 to a local Hertford team.

Week 210 - Ibiza - 2025-09-07T08:20:36Z

• I've been on holiday with my family. We spent the week in the sun on Ibiza, near Cala Pada beach.
• We stayed in a resort on the quieter side of the island, away from the clubs and mayhem, although we were a little concerned on our flight over that we shared the plane with hen dos and groups of lads on the lash. Our hotel was thankfully just for families.
• Our days settled into a reassuring routine of eating at the buffet, lying by the pool and of kids' club activities for the boys. I'm not much of a sun-worshipper, and it took me a few days to detach myself from normal life, but I came to enjoy the pressure-free days of reading and daydreaming while lying in the sun.
• Facilities were very good. The boys enjoyed archery, football, crafts, table-tennis and lots of swimming. H and I visited the sports bar to watch Arsenal lose 1-0 away to Liverpool, along with some cocky southern scousers. - you can't pick your hotel neighbours.
• It was all fine. The resort was very safe, very easy and convenient for families with children, but a week with watery beer and organised entertainment was long enough for me.
• We did make it out for a couple of day trips. We visited the old town: L insisted we climb a hill at midday in 30C heat to see Baluarte de Sant Jordi, the town's bastion and fortified walls. And we took the little ferry to Santa Eulària des Riu to buy knick-knacks at the market.

Week 209 - Firsts - 2025-08-25T14:55:31Z

• The rest of the family came back from their stay at L's parents' and normality resumed. I'd missed their happy chaos.
• At work we had our annual company day off on Friday. I spent a quiet day at home after a few busy work days this week with late finishes. L spent the day getting pampered while the rest of us caught up on blog posts and gaming.
• I was at the Emirates again for Arsenal's first home game of the season against Leeds United. This time it was just H and me. It was a day of firsts: Premier League home debuts for Gyökeres, Madueke, Mosquera and Zubimendi, not to mention 15-year-old wunderkind Max Dowman (who I later found out comes from my hometown, Chelmsford), it was H's first PL match and his first competitive win.
• The Emirates was very noisy, and the huge reaction to the visibly delighted new signing Eberechi Eze who was presented just before kick-off with fireworks and flames further ramped up the noise levels. H heard a few words he knew he shouldn't hear: he now knows what we think of Tottenham. A thumping 5-0 win left everyone very happy on their way home.
• Less boisterous was Sunday's cricket fun day at nearby Knebworth Cricket Club. Our boys needed some encouragement at first, but then joined in with older boys playing on a practice pitch. L enjoyed the chocolate cake and tea; I chose a pint and peanuts.

Week 208 - Banana - 2025-08-18T10:44:41Z

• My wife and children are staying at her parents', enjoying the neighbour's swimming pool, bat-watching and the local carnival. C bought a second-hand guitar which Grandpa is teaching him to play. Meanwhile I'm back home working hard, and on the plus side getting some evening quiet time with the Switch and TV all to myself.
• I loved the first two episodes of Alien Earth. Its dystopian, cyberpunk Earth fits well with the Alien universe. There's a familiar, slowly building tension with the naïvety of the unknowing humans.
• Mickey 17 was a bit disappointing, however. I enjoyed the novel it was based on (and its sequel) and while the film loosely follows the plot, it missed the mark with its changes.
• The council's web developers changed their terrible bin collection page again, breaking my little script that scrapes the data and produces a subscribable calendar. Before AI, this task would irritate me. Now I just ask the friendly AI agent to fix it and a few minutes later it's done.
• Also in AI news, I had a play with ChatGPT Voice for the first time. It's impressive. In contrast to assistants like Siri or Alexa, I was able to have a fluid conversation. Its tone and speaking style feels so human-like. I've added a shortcut to my iPhone lock screen.
• On Sunday I had three over-ripe bananas and an hour to kill, so made some banana bread. I followed this recipe but using dark brown sugar instead of white. Success. Not too dense, not too crumbly. It went down very well with a cup of tea before the football.
• Talking of which, the Premier League is back. Arsenal hung on to a 1-0 lead to beat Manchester United away. In the old days winning away against United generally meant Arsenal won the League. 37 matches to go...
• Ludicrous Display is back for another season of Fantasy Premier League. After winning all my mini-leagues last season, I'm quite relaxed about it, but my eldest is determined to beat me. Standards must be maintained.

Week 207 - Yurt - 2025-08-10T21:31:28Z

• I had a busy few days of work at home while the rest of my family joined L's parents glamping in Northamptonshire. They stayed in fancy yurts with beds and a hut with a kitchen. I was jealous of their campfires and days out, but I did get to enjoy some peace and quiet and my choice of evening TV.
• I rewatched Rogue One in a new light after finishing the excellent Andor series which is its prequel. The storylines and the characters had more context and colour knowing their backstories.
• All four of us went down to the Emirates to see Arsenal's preseason friendly against Athletic Club. We can say we were there to see Gyökeres score his first goal as Arsenal won 3-0. The sun was shining, everyone was in a good mood, I had a couple of pints and the boys enjoyed their hot dog and burger. Not bad. Even L conceded she's starting to enjoy watching football.
• The Frost boys were proudly wearing our home shirts (including my new Gyökeres shirt, my first club shirt in 21 years); Mummy was stylish in her matching red trousers and white t-shirt.
• Before the match we stopped off at the Armoury, Arsenal's club shop, but it was dangerously(?) full and after queueing to get in we could barely move inside to browse, let alone buy anything. It was always going to be busy given the number of families with cash to burn, but it was a shame the boys didn't get to spend their pocket money.
• On the Sunday we drove over to my parents' as did my sister and her family. We enjoyed my dad's quiche, played table tennis in the garden, played Scrabble and Switch indoors and sat in my sister's new Kia Niro EV. I set up CarPlay and her dashcam, even though she said I wouldn't be able to work it out. Incorrect.