July 2026 Month Notes
Welcome to another monthly blend of the sublime and the ridiculous.
Huge July.
The heatwave(s) may now be ending? It was so hot all the way through July… “Woe to pregnant women and nursing mothers in those days!”
On one of the Very Hot Days, I went to the Big Sainsbury’s for an evening time quiet hour shopping trip. It was so nice to go into the air-conditioning. But it was also so nice to come out again and feel the warmth coming off the tarmac, evoking holidays in Tenerife or Texas.
I finished working at Markerstudy Group! I’m free and funemployed until September! Still feels like I’m going back there - can’t quite disconnect from my people, projects, and responsibilities. But I’m sure it will come. Before I start at DayShape I’m going to totally rotate the layout of my lounge-office. Gonna get some improved feng shui up in there, command positions and all this.
Baby Griff III arrived! We got to schedule his arrival in the end, thanks to some specific medical constraints and wise consultant doctors. Thanks NHS 💙
Shout out to Helen whose determination to get out of hospital as fast as possible even after a gruelling 2.5 hour operation has resulted in a very swift recovery so far! I have a strong and brave wife.
I’ll need to find a mascot for the new baby so he can join the family band of characters on the front page. So far I think he looks most like a Chow Chow or Slow Loris, but I think that’s common to all babies.
The first week or so of baby poop… it really doesn’t smell bad at all. If anything it’s a slightly nostalgic, milky baby smell. It just reminds me of the 2020s. If there are any Dads out there still being wimpy about changing time, get with it, you’re missing out on precious memory odours.
TV
We were waiting a while for a new series of Welcome to Wrexham and then it turned out our content settings on Disney+ were blocking it from appearing, and by the time I fixed it, there were not one but two new series to watch. What a treat.
Sewing Bee is also back. One of the essential British Something-Offs, it provides great weekly event TV to go with a midweek Chinese takeaway. Hot take: the pottery throw down is the best of the ‘offs’.
For the summer holidays, we’ve treated our selves/kids to a month of Paramount+ so that we can watch any episode of Dora, Diego, Paw Patrol, Rubble and Crew, etc. in existence. They are peacefully watching Dora’s Fantastic Gymnastics Adventure as I write this.
Fantastic Gymnastics, gonna find that rainbow ribbon
Fox’s Socks
If you have don’t have kids, you may not know about the Tales from Acorn Wood books. This is a series of board books by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler, which feature a fairly consistent cast of woodsy animals. One title is Fox’s Socks. Here is my Fox’s Socks conspiracy theory:
Warning: this section contains spoilers for the 2000 childrens’ book Fox’s Socks
The mouse did it.
The fox and the mouse live together. They’re getting ready for a fancy do like a wedding or something. You can tell that Fox is always complaining that Mouse takes too long to get ready. So this time, she’s hidden his socks. She takes her sweet time handbuilding a fascinator from freshly cut roses, putting on perfume, and leisurely eating a croissant. Tell me - how did one sock end up in the grandfather clock? How did the other end up in the loft? Does he have only one pair of socks? WHO DOES THE LAUNDRY?
So I think it’s a pretty open and shut case.
Floccinauci
Our kids sing a song they made up called “Joe Joe Cucumber” which is a mash up of the recorder classic “Joe, Joe” and Kyary Pamyu Pamyu’s “PONPONPON”.
I really hope Count Binface wins the Clacton by-election. An exciting prospect for British politics generally.
I read this thing about how a Diet Coke is the Millennial cigarette and… yeah. Once or maybe twice (gasp) per week, towards the end of a tense and strenuous day, I will just crack open an Aldi ZX Cola at dinnertime and declare that I deserve it. But I wouldn’t dream of drinking all that Acesulfame K every day of the week! We’re a funny bunch, the young millenials.
I received an exciting new genre of scam email this month which consists of a Japanese digital agency reaching out for trusted brokers/partners to help sell their outsourced services into the UK. Tempting!!
Keep it real 🛴🦆