Dark Mode has been available on macOS for a while now but Apple are bringing it to mobile devices when iOS 13 is released in September. In preparation for this, I’ve added support for Dark Mode on this blog, and it’s soooooo pretty! This is a huge step for the site, not just because Dark Mode is a nice feature, easier on the eyes, and a great option to have for reading content on the web.

Tennis tournaments quite often gather their sports stars together to do small promotional stunts to promote the event. You know the kind of thing, holding koala bears in Australia, or visiting the Great Wall in China. The Rogers Cup in Canada has a different take on this - getting a selection of WTA players to try and guess which of four cups is proper maple syrup. This seems like a totally unfair challenge, partly because actual Canadians are taking part who must have an advantage, and also because they’ve got honey as one of the options and honey and maple syrup are pretty similar.

When choosing an album to listen to each week, I often end up pondering what are the rules of the game and does the potential offering fit? As Monica will tell you, rules are good, rules control the fun! Most of the rules of my album adventure have been in play since the beginning – one album choice each per week, old versus new, no greatest hits, etc, etc. Back then it seemed easy, but now it is getting increasingly complicated.

What a weekend of sport that was! I’ll admit my focus was pretty much exclusively on Wimbledon, but it was hard to miss the fact we were doing well in the cricket, and there were a handful of motorsport events to also catch the eye. But the tennis held me in thrall for the full weekend. I’m not a huge fan of the men’s game anymore, it’s too whippy and too long, but I couldn’t help getting invested in the Federer/Djokovic rematch.

I’ve talked about Zac Efron’s YouTube channel before because I do applaud people opening up and sharing their workout insights - and it’s fun to see Zac win and lose against his celebrity friends. In his most recent video, he pairs up with Alexandra Daddario and they have a mega workout with medicine balls and generally kill their cores. One bit that stood out to me was Zac admitting the following about his Baywatch body:

The best kind of podcasts are those that have a simple premise that can run and run. Encyclopedia Womannica is exactly one of those. Hoping to give some attention to those women from history that have either been overlooked completely or have not had the attention they should have had. Over the course of a year, the hosts aim to feature the profile of a historical icon, as the podcast blurb explains:

I’ve recently started catching up on podcasts again, and this time I’ve discovered Rene Ritchie’s Vector. It’s officially a YouTube show, covering the latest news and insights into the world of Apple and technology, but there’s also an audio-only podcast which is my preferred method. As I’m a little behind, I was listening to the shows released around WWDC, and this episode about the new tvOS caught my attention. Specifically this bit towards the very beginning:

When I was a kid, I’d go to my grandparent’s house and as a special treat, you could make a drink with their SodaStream. It was kept out in a utility room or conservatory because it was a noisy machine, putting carbonation into the beverage of your choice. The only things I particularly remember about the experience is that it was a) a lot of fun and something to look forward to and b) resulted in some pretty rubbish colas and lemonades that didn’t live up to the hype.

If you’re ever reviewing your finances, it’s easy to look at the bigger picture: current accounts, savings, mortgages. But as the saying goes, it’s useful to look after those pennies as well because they can start to add up to more meaningful numbers. The Pennies app helps you do just that, with a super simple and clean interface that sets up a budget and tries to ensure you stick to it.

Feeling a little the worse for wear from our weekend at two music concerts, we decided the ideal remedy was to head to the Edgbaston Priory Club for a spot of tennis. It’s the second year in a row we’ve attended the event, and was just as good this time round. There’s a nice relaxed feeling at Edgbaston, in fact when you walk in it feels more like a summer fete, with lots of kids with racquets running around and the smells of barbecue wafting in the air.