Andrew Doran

@andrewdoran

He/him. Husband, dad of two teenage boys, Technology person working in Financial Services, over-enthusiastic, geek. 🎶 Co-founder of Album Club (), meeting every month since 2011. ✍️ Blogging since 2004. 🌐

582 Siguiendo259 Seguidores242 Publicaciones

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Andrew Doran@andrewdoran· 17d

Finished reading Having Spent Life Seeking by Kae Tempest. My copy of the book came free with my ticket to see Tempest in conversation at The Roundhouse back in April. During the interview, he spoke movingly about “the incredible technology” of a nove... https://andrewdoran.uk/blog/2026/07/28/13913/

Andrew Doran@andrewdoran· 17d

I love it when a high street shop gets renovated, and the ghost of what was there long ago makes a brief reappearance. Jean’s Hair Fashions, which apparently was once a feature of Lower Kings Road in Berkhamsted. It seems that one thing that Berkham... https://andrewdoran.uk/blog/2026/07/28/13908/

Jean’s Hair Fashions, which apparently was once a feature of Lower Kings Road in Berkhamsted. Apparently, one thing that Berkhamsted has been consistent with throughout the ages is that there is no shortage of places to get your hair done.

Andrew Doran@andrewdoran· 23d

Weeknotes #386 — In the round: https://andrewdoran.uk/blog/2026/07/22/weeknotes-386-in-the-round/ A really big week. We spent the first three days on a management team offsite. It was bittersweet, as it was the last one we will have with someone in our team who is retiring later this year. We ha...

Waiting for the start of Glengarry Glen Ross at The Old Vic theatre, 13 July 2026

A man cleaning a fourth-floor office window with an incredibly long brush. I am sure that this takes some significant skill not to lose his balance and clobber a passer-by in the street.

Andrew Doran@andrewdoran· Jul 7

Weeknotes #384 — 23-year break: https://andrewdoran.uk/blog/2026/07/07/weeknotes-384-23-year-break/ A fully-packed week with plenty going on. Multiple days of back-to-back meetings coupled with things happening in the evenings. And when things weren’t happening, the football was on. The football...

Lining up at the start of the JPMorganChase Corporate Challenge

David Seaman being interviewed at the start line, not long before letting us loose via the sound of his air horn.

Andrew Doran@andrewdoran· Jul 2

Weeknotes #383 — I’m hot just like an oven: https://andrewdoran.uk/blog/2026/07/02/weeknotes-383-im-hot-just-like-an-oven/ Boiling. In the UK we are not equipped to live through day after day of mid-30s°C heat, with the temperature only dropping into the mid-20s overnight with barely a breeze in...

A swan and their cygnets on the bank of the River Bulbourne by The Old Mill, Berkhamsted.

Andrew Doran@andrewdoran· Jun 4

Weeknotes #379 — Parched: https://andrewdoran.uk/blog/2026/06/04/weeknotes-379-parched/ We’ve properly entered Phil Collins season, with extremely hot temperatures dominating the week. My morning walk from Euston to the City of London is now on hiatus until either (a) it cools down again, or (b)...

This old Metropolitan Line train at Chesham is nearly ready to go, with its cargo of parched weeds.

Andrew Doran@andrewdoran· May 27

Weeknotes #378 — Dust devil: https://andrewdoran.uk/blog/2026/05/27/weeknotes-378-dust-devil/ I was out the door early on Tuesday to head to Heathrow to pick up our eldest son, who has come back from university for the summer. It’s great to have him back; the house is a very different place with...

Ollie the cat expressing how we were all feeling this weekend.

Presenters on stage at Interesting 2026.

Steve Watson, founder of Stack Magazines, on stage at this week’s Interesting conference. He is showing us a quote from the first ‘digest’-style magazine ever published. Information overload was as much a thing for some people in the 18th century as it is in the 21st.

Three Dorans go on a gorgeously sunny bike ride.

Andrew Doran@andrewdoran· May 21

Weeknotes #377 — Accessible: https://andrewdoran.uk/blog/2026/05/21/weeknotes-377-accessible/ This week felt tough. I ended up in the office four days in a row. The end of each day arrived too quickly as I still had plenty of things left to tackle. It was great to get to Friday when I could get ...

Matisse and Lisa on stage at the Accessible Social.

Andrew Doran@andrewdoran· May 13

Weeknotes #376 — One Stop: https://andrewdoran.uk/blog/2026/05/13/weeknotes-376-one-stop/ A four-day week due to the plainly named Early May bank holiday in the UK. Recovery from the big bike ride felt good; unlike the year before, I had no major after-effects apart from slightly stiff legs and ...

Voting time for the local council elections in Holborn, London. I walk past this lovely London street on my commute to work.

Andrew Doran@andrewdoran· May 6

🚴‍♂️ London Wales London 2026: https://andrewdoran.uk/blog/2026/05/06/london-wales-london-2026/ All week I watched the weather in anticipation of the London Wales London Audax ride at the weekend. I’m fortunate to have a real-life weatherman living in my street, so on Wednesday I messaged him to...

Me, at 5:48am in Chalfont St Peter Community Centre, having just finished the 2026 London Wales London bike ride.

The Epic Ride Weather app’s emoji view gave a fairly accurate prediction of what was to come.

Berkhamsted Cycling Club take on London Wales London 2026. Of the six of us from the club that started, only two would make it to the finish.

Andrew Doran@andrewdoran· Apr 30

Andrew Doran@andrewdoran· Apr 28

Weeknotes #374 — The invisible pivot: https://andrewdoran.uk/blog/2026/04/28/weeknotes-374-the-invisible-pivot/ One of my lifelong school friends recently lost his dad, so on Monday I took the day off to attend the funeral. It was a lovely service, with many heartfelt and moving eulogies from fa...

Looking out from a viewing point near Ivinghoe Beacon. Photos like this never do justice to how breathtaking the landscape is in person.

St John Ambulance training centre in Hemel Hempstead. Tucked away on a residential street, you might never know that it’s there.

Andrew Doran@andrewdoran· Apr 22

Weeknotes #373 — Kae Tempest: https://andrewdoran.uk/blog/2026/04/22/weeknotes-373-kae-tempest/ A good, solid week at work. It felt like I got lots done. I had a very busy end to the week, including a lot of socialising and an excellent long bike ride in the spring sunshine. This was a week in w...

Happy cyclists at the end of a long day. By the time we got back to our respective houses, Dave ended up completing 200km and I was just shy of it.

Kae Tempest in conversation with Shon Faye on stage at the Roundhouse, London, 16 April 2026

Andrew Doran@andrewdoran· Apr 14

Weeknotes #372 — Born in the financial crisis: https://andrewdoran.uk/blog/2026/04/14/weeknotes-372-born-in-the-financial-crisis/ Despite last week being filled with illness and unexpected jobs that consumed me for days, it felt great to be back at my desk on Tuesday, so my time off must have be...

Waiting for a train at Chesham tube station. It’s always a bit surreal to jump onto a Metropolitan Line train so far out of the capital.

Waiting to buy another disk didn’t seem like the right option.

There were some wild swings in this number as the speed varied, but 96h turned out to be about right.

Andrew Doran@andrewdoran· Apr 7

Weeknotes #371 — Nasty NAS: https://andrewdoran.uk/blog/2026/04/07/weeknotes-371-nasty-nas/ A week off work, dominated by having a streaming cold for a few days and a catastrophic failure of my home network drive, resulting in multiple days of effort to get it up and running again. All last week...

Andrew Doran@andrewdoran· Apr 1

Weeknotes #370 — I Don’t Know Why: https://andrewdoran.uk/blog/2026/04/01/weeknotes-370-i-dont-know-why/ A really tough week, mentally and physically. I spent the first two days at the Gartner CIO Leadership Forum, an event that I really like as it is relatively small, resulting in you bumping i...

Slide from Hannah Fry’s presentation at the Gartner CIO Leadership Forum

Heading to the Intercontinental Hotel at the O2 for the conference, facing the skyline of the Docklands.

Hannah Fry giving her keynote on day two of the Gartner CIO Leadership Forum.

Andrew Doran@andrewdoran· Mar 24

Weeknotes #369 — The Clapping Song: https://andrewdoran.uk/blog/2026/03/24/weeknotes-369-the-clapping-song/ My first five-day work week for a while, and it was a tough one. Despite twenty years of following GTD and working on simplifying my workflow, in busy periods I end up falling back to a si...

This was really useful information to have once I started to see the fraudulent transactions appear on my account.

With my youngest (and tallest) son after Sundayâs ride.

Andrew Doran@andrewdoran· Mar 18

Weeknotes #368 — What we all want: https://andrewdoran.uk/blog/2026/03/18/weeknotes-368-what-we-all-want/ The start of the week was spent travelling back from Kingsville, Texas. Saying that it is 5,000 miles away from Berkhamsted isnât doing justice to quite how long it takes to travel between...

Andrew Doran@andrewdoran· Mar 10

Weeknotes #367 — Kingsville, Texas: https://andrewdoran.uk/blog/2026/03/10/weeknotes-367-kingsville-texas/ A hectic week of travel. On Monday I came back from Austria where Iâd spent a long weekend in the skiing town of KitzbÃ¼hel with colleagues. On Tuesday I worked from home, with my day pac...

The Crowne Plaza at San Antonio Airport is conveniently located right next to Duryâs Guns.

Leonâs name in lights at the top of the timesheets.

Andrew Doran@andrewdoran· Mar 9

Finished reading Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman. A good collection of positive reflections on human nature, debunking many negative apocryphal stories about how people tend to behave in specific situations.

Andrew Doran@andrewdoran· Mar 4

Weeknotes #366 — Kitzbühel: https://andrewdoran.uk/blog/2026/03/04/weeknotes-366-kitzbuhel/

Andrew Doran@andrewdoran· Feb 26

Weeknotes #365 — The Prophet’s Song: https://andrewdoran.uk/blog/2026/02/26/weeknotes-365-the-prophets-song/

Stopped to photograph this phone box on my walk to work, as the construction work means that you canât open the door. Then I noticed that itâs due to be removed.

Andrew Doran@andrewdoran· Feb 22

Bringing a 27-year-old programming project back to life with Claude Code: https://andrewdoran.uk/blog/2026/02/22/bringing-a-27-year-old-programming-project-back-to-life-with-claude-code/

The single prompt that I used in Claude Code to update the WB-40 Album Club site.

My âExtra usageâ screen in Claude. Finishing off the initial conversion of my application to a modern web stack probably cost about Â£4, with the additional money spent tweaking things.

Andrew Doran@andrewdoran· Feb 18

Weeknotes #364 — Big pile of umbrellas: https://andrewdoran.uk/blog/2026/02/18/weeknotes-364-big-pile-of-umbrellas/

Spotted a cheeky jackdaw sitting on the sign, looking at the passersby. It flew off as I pulled out my phone to take its picture. Note the blue sky in the background â a rare moment of spring amongst days of near-endless rain.

So good Iâve now bought it four times. (Although this time eBay came to the rescue as the price on Amazon is crazy right now.)

Andrew Doran@andrewdoran· Feb 15

Having a proud dad moment. On Friday, our eldest son broke his college’s mile record, and later that day ran the 10th best time in school history in the 800m.

Andrew Doran@andrewdoran· Feb 10

Weeknotes #363 — Aquaplaning: https://andrewdoran.uk/blog/2026/02/10/weeknotes-363-aquaplaning/

With my lovely doggo friend. (Photo: Stephanie Harden)

Andrew Doran@andrewdoran· Feb 8

I love that The Guardian has this as their main story on their homepage. There are so many newsletters that I would pay to subscribe to, if they weren’t hosted on Substack. The intent of the USA’s Section 230 was to allow them to refuse to host content like this. It’s a choice.

Andrew Doran@andrewdoran· Feb 8

Pocket Casts’ AI-generated transcript of the Quiet Riot podcast thinks that Ryan just needs to shush.

Andrew Doran@andrewdoran· Feb 5

Weeknotes #362 — Continental quilts: https://andrewdoran.uk/blog/2026/02/05/weeknotes-362-continental-quilts/

At a local car park. Itâs good to differentiate your pricing. Someone printed this and thought âYeah, thatâs great.â

Andrew Doran@andrewdoran· Feb 2

Just been to a preview of the new Jeff Buckley documentary, It’s Never Over (2025), followed by a Q&A with director Amy Berg. It’s a beautiful film and it was a wonderful evening. Berg asked who remembered being around when Buckley passed and called us old-timers. How has it been 30 years?