Week 14

Another week that raced by, another data project and another set of weekend plans. Time flies when you’re having fun…

House Viewing

We went to see a big old house this week and it was very underwhelming. It could have been beautiful but hadn’t been maintained and the owners are building a new house in the back garden. That means that the house needs a bunch of work, and that the view is obscured and the drive is now shared. It feels like they’ve basically vandalised the house, which I’m sure they wouldn’t agree with. It’s been a well-loved family house that has become too much to bother with now that the kids have flown the nest. Would be their perspective.

Viewing it made me want to look after our house more - spend more time and effort maintaining and throwing junk away and generally improving the house. Our house is great, and I’d hate for somebody else to view our house and think the things we thought of their house.

SEND Provision in England

This week’s data project was special needs provision in England, and the effect it’s having on council finances and schools. It’s been a Claude Code production and so I’m practicing operating on the limits of my understanding - the analysis goes way quicker than my understanding and that’s scary and new. The things I’ve found are really interesting and I think they’re novel and actionable…but I only think that.

I’m tidying up the analysis and then I’m hoping to share it with journalists and see what they think. Maybe it’s all nonsense and I’ll make a fool of myself. But maybe I won’t, and actually public data science in the era of LLMs is about to explode into public consiousness. Hopefully that one.

Weekend with the Lads

I spent the weekend at a friends house, eating, drinking and being extremely merry. I’ve had the same group of friends since sixth form (17-18 years old) and we get together once or twice a year, sometimes with families and sometimes not. This was a non-family weekend and so we played drinking games and went for a curry and a hike and pizza and caught up and generally had a great time.

These weekends are like therapy to me - I don’t get to do much socialising throughout the year and rely on bunching these things together with 48 hours of intense socialisations with my best friends. It takes a bunch of effort from all of us (I’m still hungover 2 days later) but for me, at least, it’s worth it.

Conclusion

This week has felt busy, and next week will too. Our long-awaited holiday to Tenerife is drawing in an there’s a flurry of planning required. Transfers. Luggage. Clothes. Looking forward to it…we don’t have long left now!