The stock account recovered from -$32,000 to -$8,000 in two weeks. The insurance company now has until May 4th to decide whether they’ll even allow the arbitration process to continue. And somewhere in the middle of all that, I realised I’ve now been self-employed for nearly a year and a half.

This episode drifts through market volatility, grief, ageing, health anxiety, and the strange reality of building a life outside traditional work after losing a parent. Dad would have turned 79 this week. His advice was always simple: have a job. Now I’m sitting in 33-degree heat in Southeast Asia, writing options contracts, building websites, getting recognised in shopping centres, and wondering what he would make of all this.

There’s also foot pain, gallbladder worries, spending anxiety over £80 glasses, viewer meetups, and the growing feeling that this whole experiment is becoming something much bigger than I expected.