Infrequent note #2 of 2026

These “weeknotes” are meant to be weekly. The clue is in the name. Alas, life is messy. As much as I love blogging, I don’t always want to spend the time at the end of the week in front of yet more screens and keyboards. Maybe these should become “monthnotes”, or even “infrequent notes”, instead.

Anyway, more than a month has passed since the last one. Here’s some stuff…

Nerd stuff

I have been sceptical of the ability of Large Language Models (LLMs) and agentic AI (“agents”) to do what frontier AI companies claim they can do. The LLMs are confident lying machines, not to be trusted with the written word. The agents more often than not, in my experience, have laughably failed to do even the most basic tasks.

Don’t get me wrong; given enough time, money and resources I never bet against the technology to evolve to the intended endpoint. But up to now, it’s been pretty obvious we weren’t there yet.

Despite this, I have been trying, endlessly, to find places that I can insert these models into my day-to-day life and workflow. At work, I’ve been failing dismally. At home though? At home I’ve been hooked; specifically on Claude Code.

I have been able to write code since I was 12. A supply teacher for my “Information Communication Technology” class decided to throw away the lesson plans that were probably left for him, and instead taught us to write HTML. Since then, I’ve self-taught myself how to write HTML, CSS, javascript, and a teeny bit of Python. This very blog is handcrafted by yours truly. I’ve built websites, web apps, bespoke hardware as gifts for friends and family, all off the back of that one fateful ICT lesson.

But now there is Claude Code. It’s wild how much power this tool can put at your fingertips to build the things you can imagine in your head but can’t quite do yourself.

I’ve been using it to deflate some code bloat on my personal sites, and I’ve used it to make entirely new things too (I’ll write more about this separately).

What would have taken me weeks, if not months, to achieve on my own I can now churn out in a couple of hours with careful prompting. It’s staggering.

Now if only these things could do my life admin for me, rather than just accelerate my hobbies and side projects; then we’d be onto something!

The teeth

Having moved home a lot in the past 15 years, I have habitually not had the energy to sort out going to the dentist. Now that I’m not moving so often I’ve run out of excuses, which has meant I’ve been to the dentist for the first time in more than a decade.

Twice, in fact. Once for a check up, and once for the dental hygienist.

I will spare you the details but the dentist thinks my teeth are perfectly healthy; which was a surprise even to me! I was in and out in 15 minutes.

The hygienist was, however, a traumatic experience. I am struggling to think of other activities that I would do willingly, that are this invasive, and that I have to pay for the “pleasure”. But she insists I go back in a month – insert screaming emoji here!

Work

Bold enough but too sharp?

I think getting feedback is critical to doing a good job. If you don’t get feedback, you don’t learn how to be better. I try to treat feedback as a gift. Even if it’s difficult, I try to reflect on it, absorb it and consider deeply whether I want to do something in response.

Well, I’ve been getting a lot of gifts the past couple of months. In many directions.

I’ve been told by colleagues I deeply trust to be honest that I’m being the right kind of decisive and the right kind of bold. I’ve also been told, by different people, that I’m being too forceful, too bold and too sharp-elbowed.

Mixed signals, you might say, but I’m reflecting on it and trying to recalibrate.

Priorities

Part of that reflection has included consideration of what I’m prioritising; what I’m choosing to focus on, and which relationships I’m building or neglecting.

I’m accountable, now, for setting the tone, the culture and the strategy for a pretty big team. I’m also in a position where I have to look sideways much, much more consciously than I ever have needed to before.

I’ve realised I’m making the following priority calls (in rank order):

1. Hygiene factors come first. HR stuff like pay and rations, and approving people’s annual leave. My theory is that getting this wrong destroys trust with your teams the most quickly and the most severely.
2. My team’s plan. I am, admittedly, borrowing from the Joker here but I think the theory works; nobody panics when there is a plan. So I’m prioritising ensuring everyone knows what we’re aiming to achieve, and understands their role within it.
3. Behaviours. Or what some might call culture. I am emphasising giving the team the air cover and the tools to do the work in a way that I think models best practice.¹²
4. Everything else. Pretty much every other issue or thing I need to do is being deprioritised or I’m placing less weight on the value of it being done.

I think those have been the right calls to take over the past few months. Maybe they aren’t the right priorities for the next set of challenges. Something to reflect on further.

Away day

Part of ensuring there is a plan and that everyone is working in the right way has involved an away day.

It was a while ago by the time I’m writing this, but nonetheless, it was a bit of a 2026 reset.

All indications point to it having gone pretty well! So much so that now we’ve agreed to have one every 3 months to ensure we are always agreeing a rolling, 3 month plan, and talking about things important to the team.

New rules

One of the hallmarks of a brilliant team is that, despite whatever else might be going on, they keep their heads down and keep delivering. And that’s why my team has been doing.

In the past couple of weeks, we’ve published:

• new guidance on the use of digital verification services to meet the requirements of the Money Laundering Regulations
• the pre-release publication of the – newly renamed – UK digital verification services trust framework (1.0)

We’ve written some blog posts on the new guidance and the new trust framework, explaining more.

We’re also getting back to our previous pattern of open policy making activities, having held the first of a new monthly rhythm of stakeholder calls this week. It seems to have gone down well; now to keep it up!

Fin

That’s probably enough for now. Until next time… whenever that might be.