Good morning from me, a smug bastard who kicked off Christmas Day by doing a spin class. If this doesn’t get me on a hundred block lists, nothing will.

Shout out to the client - a very large company - who asked me to invoice two days ago, and has already approved for payment. The spirit of Christmas, right there.

Overslept and missed putting the bins out on the last bin day before Christmas. 😭😭😭

Well who could have predicted this? (Everyone)

Yesterday I had to leave M&S empty-handed because they didn’t have anything much in a size 8. My very first time experiencing a Thin Person Problem. And today I got IDd buying prosecco in the supermarket. Christmas has indeed come early round here. 🎄

Ok so there’s deffo something wrong with his right hand

It is December 17th and I’m aboutto start my Christmas shopping. Can any correspondent report a slower start? Anyone holding out for the 23rd?

Ten years ago this week, days before Christmas, I quit my job with nothing to go to. This is the first of three short reflections on leaving when staying becomes untenable. 📖 Part 1 - The Break: sharonodea.com/2025/12/16/t...

I appreciate this will get any future ESTA refused, but that ship has now sailed I think, so… My expectations of that man were already at rock bottom and yet somehow he still manages to be that bit more of a cunt. Genuinely shocking, and after all these years that‘s really saying something.

Fun (not for me) fact: when I was a kid I had an operation done backwards by a trainee ophthalmologist at Moorfields. My mum vaguely recalls the surgeon being "an Arab fella". So there's a non-zero chance I might technically have been Assad's first victim. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...

Lots to agree with here. I ditched Twitter - and the sizeable audience I had there - because I realised that not only did it no longer bring me joy, but that tweets either disappeared into the void, or led to a volley of abuse. And that's simply not what I want to spend my time on.

How do I nominate the guy slamming the off button for een lintje? 🎖️ Truly the hero the Amsterdam Metro needs.

Latest weeknote. I finished writing the book. Arguably this is well the real work begins. I cleared space, literally and metaphorically. And I watched a lot of TV, because I didn't have the mental bandwidth to do much else. sharonodea.com/2025/12/14/w...

Between the below and the video doing the rounds of Ince’s Alan Partridge-esque speech on stage after recording wrapped, I’m inclined to think there’s more to this story than Ince’s narrative. Or considerably less, like him maybe just being a dick to work with.

ICYMI, here's my latest weeknote. Video is an attention hostage situation, chatbots still can’t book leave, and work might not deserve your soul anymore. 👇 sharonodea.com/2025/12/07/w...

Video is an attention hostage situation, chatbots still can’t book leave, and work might not deserve your soul anymore. New weeknote 👇 sharonodea.com/2025/12/07/w...

You know what lads? I’m starting to wonder if FIFA might not be the most reputable organisation.

A tiny Japan moment made it into the FT’s Working It: a robot tour guide showing me around, operated remotely by a disabled worker elsewhere in the country. A reminder that the real future of work is human (and also kawaai)

Taking the Eurostar from Amsterdam to London is nice in theory (“it takes the same time end to end, and you can work the whole way!”) Except the wifi is functionally useless once you get beyond the Dutch border. So weak you can’t even send email. *And* it costs twice as much as flying.

“Arrive by 05:45,” the ticket said When the terminal is closed and there’s nowhere to buy coffee. THESE WERE PRECIOUS MINUTES I COULD HAVE SPENT IN BED

New weeknote is up. Re-entry from six weeks in Japan: jetlag, chapter rewrites, dormant innovations, why AI in IC might be less “shiny add-on” and more “incoming structural stress test”, and the small matter of 400 photos of fruit-shaped bus stops. sharonodea.com/2025/11/30/w...

The early Church existed inside the Roman Empire, one of the most complex states in human history. It had taxation, bureaucracy, public works, courts, military administration, even a postal service. Plenty of state.

This is objectively hilarious, but also (as someone who was responsible for publishing market-sensitive announcements on a PLC’s website) can completely understand how and why this happened

And the same phenomenon driving the growth in youth emigration. They’re not all moving to Dubai. If even people on good salaries have no prospect of owing a home, you can’t be surprised if they leave for places where they can have a better lifestyle.

Encouraging people in large homes to downsize and reduce oversized mortgage burdens is… quite sensible?

'Musk may have revealed that the platform he’s long called “the number 1 source of news on Earth” is really just a worthless, poisoned hall of mirrors.'

My final weeknote from Japan is up. Tokyo: full sensory assault Shimokitazawa: emotional support neighbourhood Kagaya: indescribable Donki: a near-death retail experience Amsterdam: cold Me: tired, happy, and somehow changed sharonodea.com/2025/11/23/w...

Brexit keeps on giving. Someone sent me a book to my home in NL. It never arrived. A demand for €9.14 in customs charges did, which I didn’t see due to being in Japan. So the book’s gone back to the UK. I still don’t know what it is, or who from. If you sent me something for review, blame Boris.

New Japannote: a month of endings, beginnings, sumo, karaoke, torii, and mild existential overwhelm. sharonodea.com/2025/11/17/w...

It’s a long way from the most important thing here but it’s interesting how badly-written all these emails are. Maybe when you’re a billionaire it doesn’t matter that you can’t use punctuation correctly.

Weeknote from Japan: ghost islands, glowing forests, taiko drums, and a 75-year-old barman with strong views on glassware. Theme of the week: okagesame, or “thanks to the unseen work”. Turns out the future of work isn’t an app. It’s appreciation. sharonodea.com/2025/11/10/w...

If there’s one thing more tedious than people who comment “didn’t happen”, it’s people who drive by in the comments with “AI wrote this”.

This from @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social struck a chord. The middle-aged are being radicalised online, with opinions leaking out from Facebook to supermarket queues and bus stops to become acceptable public discourse. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Amsterdam fam: I have a spare ticket to Kae Tempest at the Tivoli in Utrecht this evening. I’m nine thousand miles away so can’t make it. Shout if you’d like to go - free to first taker.

🇯🇵 Japan is a country built on education... but not on learning. Last week at Nagasaki Canvas - a monthly civic forum where locals, students and nomads gather to talk about the city’s future - the theme was learning.

I asked Copilot to fix a small flaw in my photo and instead turned me into someone who runs the neighbourhood watch Facebook group. It’s giving: – alphabetises her spice rack – leaves polite but firm notes about wheelie bins – owns at least three glue guns – hosts “sip and paint” nights

This week’s Weeknote: wandering Nagasaki’s old foreign quarter, visiting fruit-shaped bus stops, talking about curiosity and learning, and wondering what happens when a culture, city or company stops letting new ideas in. Openness, isolation and whimsy. sharonodea.com/2025/11/02/w...

The Telegraph’s quest to find the least sympathetic poverty case studies continues

A day late: October in One Second Every Day. Amsterdam, Paris, but mostly having the time of my life in Japan.

Even bus stops are better in Japan 🇯🇵

If you haven’t gone to Don Quixote at midnight to buy random crap, are you even in Japan? 🇯🇵

Phew. Thank goodness for that. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

Go sports!

Visiting a local museum in Kyushu, Japan… I did not expect to see this panel about the UK’s COVID-19 Enquiry 🤷‍♀️

Japan keeps catching me off guard. One moment I’m making wax lettuce, the next I’m crying in a peace museum. Found a thread in Nagasaki that runs from my grandparents’ anti-nuclear campaigning to the modem that started my digital career and eventually led me here. sharonodea.com/2025/10/26/w...

Went to a talk by Derk Loorbach recently and couldn’t stop thinking about how his theories of societal transition apply inside organisations. So I wrote about it: why communicators are perfectly placed to help companies move from managing change to shaping it. strategic.global/Change-to-Tr...

Lloyds Bank announce Copilot saves their staff 46 minutes a day. A number so specific, it must be true Any CFO will tell you productivity savings aren't cashable savings. Is headcount down? Problem resolution improved? Come on lads, you can do better than this www.theregister.com/2025/10/20/l...

Instagram v reality: up the top of a very windy hill taking a photo of a beautiful sunset

Considering starting a rumour that Prince Andrew had AWS taken down to knock the news about him off the front pages.

Ohayō gozaimasu! おはようございます