What the Ring Will Make of Me
Sunday, June 28, 2026 at 8:49PM 
Please click the photo above to play the daily videoA proper Sunday, which is to say I stayed longer in bed than strictly defensible and felt no remorse about it. There was football to wake up to — England in action across the ocean while we slept — but the morning's real story belonged to Iran, knocked out in the cruellest arithmetic the tournament has to offer. They earned points in every group game and still went home, undone by goal difference and a result elsewhere they couldn't control. There's a particular heartbreak reserved for the side that does almost everything right and is eliminated by a calculator. I read it over coffee with the sympathetic wince of a neutral who knows the feeling secondhand.
The day itself started sunny, generous with its light, and I went in for a ward round that behaved exactly as a Sunday round should — unhurried, uncomplicated, done without fuss. From there, the proper business of the day: Lot 10, and ramen. There's a reliability to a good bowl of ramen that I find quietly reassuring, the broth doing its slow, restorative work, the whole thing asking only that you slow down and pay attention to it.
Anita, meanwhile, was deep in the logistics of her school reunion — that peculiar volunteer labour of wrangling old classmates into agreement on a date, a venue, a menu. She has the patience for it, which is just as well, because I do not. While she negotiated with the past, I went off to collect a small piece of the future: the Oura ring, finally picked up, Stealth finish, size eleven. It sits there now on my finger, discreet and faintly smug, promising to know more about my sleep than I do. Let's see what it makes of me. I suspect it will confirm, in elegant graphs, things I already half-suspect and would rather not have quantified.
The afternoon turned quiet, and then the rain arrived to make it quieter still — that soft, enclosing downpour that gives you full permission to do nothing at all. So I finally did the thing I'd been threatening to do for a fortnight and started Star City. After all those evenings of falling asleep before the title card, I actually watched it — the alternate-history space business I'd been saving, cosmonauts and counterfactuals and all. It was worth the wait, and worth being awake for, which is more than I'd managed lately.
Dinner was in, and light — a salad, sensible and unfussy, the Oura ring no doubt nodding its quiet approval somewhere on my hand. After a morning of ramen, the body appreciated the restraint.
And the day isn't quite done, because the Grand Prix waits for later tonight — Austria, the Red Bull Ring, Russell somehow on pole after Verstappen put it in the wall. Anita will be glued to it; I'll keep her company and pretend my interest is purely casual. A good Sunday, gently spent. The race still to come, and a new ring already taking notes.
F1 Was Back
It wasn't often that I got the chance to sit in front of the TV to watch a Formula One race. It was a mixture of the races being monotonous, plus work issues and also time of day.
It was Australia this time, so there was no time zone issues. It started at 2 pm which was perfect. And this being the first race of the season, things were often. And the subject of questionable reliability dominated the day, to add spice to the proceeding.
It was an exciting race. Issues at the start with cars stuck on the grid. An unprecedented two warm-up laps. First corner incident. Retirements from the reigning champion. It was a gripping first few laps. But once the pattern set in, things started to get routine again.
But I must say that I was impressed with Ricciado. He had a good race, and the previous experience with Toro Rosso really showed. Great temperament. Although he finished second. Nice Rossberg had the best package and he clearly utilised it.
Next race would be in Sepang. Not enough to entice me to go, but I felt that some of the F1 mojo coming back. Which could only be a good thing.