20 years ago, I was working on the legendary Flirtomatic project with Tom Hume and Devi at Future Platforms. We were fighting against a tight deadline, which left us working on easter Sunday.
Mid-morning, our colleagues Antony and Michael turned up at the office. They said we had to take a break and get coffee. They were quite insistent, so we headed out. And, when we came back, they told us that they’d hidden easter eggs in the office and we had to look for them.
I might have been working, but I think that was my favourite easter.
Another easter memory: Rosy decided to do an easter egg hunt for Olive in St Anne’s Well garden. She hid a few eggs around the trees, which Olive looked for. One of them was found by a squirrel before Olive could get to it. The prize was taken up to a tree branch and unwrapped, little twists of foil falling as Olive held back tears.
Over the past few years, I’ve begun to prefer learning about current affairs from books rather than newspapers. I think this idea originally came from reading Nassim Nicholas Taleb; but it’s more useful than ever. The news media currently optimises for short-term attention-grabbing rather than explaining the narratives underlying our world. Books are now better for understanding.
Rather than following the day-to-day gossip about Elon Musk, I read Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter by Kate Conger and Ryan Mac. It’s very much an anti-Musk book, telling the story of Musk’s ill-fated Twitter purchase.
Musk is a fascinating person – both as the richest man in the world, and for the Tony Stark super-genius persona he cultivated. There’s a certain amount of cognitive dissonance in seeing this supposed genius doing baffling and incompetent things. We are told that the super-rich have earned their rewards through reaching the top of meritocratic capitalism – but how does that explain Musk’s peculiar mix of genius and stupidity?
There’s one view of Musk as someone with lofty, amazing goals: “Elon just wants to do what benefits humanity.” And pushing the uptake of electric cars can only be a good thing; as can bringing internet to remote communities. But set against this are the moments of blundering fuckwittery. Musk’s involvement in the Thai cave drama was ridiculous, offering assistance that would not work – “Never mind that Musk’s submarine had not arrived in Thailand until the rescue was well underway, and eight of the twelve boys had already been freed.” There were his vocal claims in March 2020 that “the coronavirus panic is dumb,” and that the USA would have “close to zero new cases” by May. The book is filled with examples of idiocy.
The restrooms became a particular problem, as Musk’s piling of people onto fewer floors caused the toilets to constantly be in use. In New York, the stench of the bathrooms overwhelmed some parts of the office, while some employees complained about cockroaches flitting in and out of drains.
“That is why I bought Twitter,” he once wrote. “I didn’t do it because it would be easy. I didn’t do it to make more money. I did it to try to help humanity, whom I love. And I do so with humility, recognizing failure in pursuing this goal, despite our best efforts, is a very real possibility.”
How did this idealist end up as someone who thought it would be funny to make a Nazi-style salute from a public platform? Who rowed with prominent Jewish groups? Character Limit suggests that the pandemic was what changed Musk.
This was an interesting book, and one that paints a shocking picture of Musk. Various scenes in Character Limit feature Musk’s biographer Walter Isaacson, and I now want to read his book to see what positive case can be made. I’d love to know how the world’s richest man can be somebody so petty and vain that he cheats at video games.
PS – One of the highlights of the book is when Musk is turned away from Berlin nightclub the Berghain, after being forced to queue with other visitors. Some things money cannot buy.
Warren Ellis recently posted The Internet Favours Light Mode. He summarises a debate about ‘light mode vs heavy mode’, pointing to the original post by Anu about how the Internet prefers ‘light mode’:
It thrives on spikes, scrolls, and screenshots. It resists weight and avoids friction. It does not care for patience, deliberation, or anything but production… It doesn’t care what you create, only that you keep creating. Make more. Make faster. Make lighter… Make something that can be consumed in a breath and discarded just as quickly. Heavy things take time. And here, time is a tax.
Increasingly, the Internet dictates the rhythms for creators. Algorithms reward regular posting above well-crafted irregular work. In the post, Anu talks about the desire to produce things in heavy mode. They also suggest that Substack is a sort of mid-point, avoiding the full ephemerality of light mode, but still missing some heft. This is something I’ve been feeling a lot lately.
Ellis points out that it is possible to work in light mode, and gather something more substantial from that:
fragmentary writing can in fact assemble into something weightier. I’ve written about several objects like that in the recent past – Kathleen Jamie’s CAIRN comes immediately to mind. It’s about intent.
For almost 20 years I’ve been fascinated by the way ephemerality can build into greater things – how fragments can make something wonderful. The Pillow Book can be seen as an ancient blog. The work of the beats played with this – Howl is a series of sentences that build on each other.
I enjoy writing for the substack, but I am find myself straining against it. I want to build things with more heft, that escape the Internet. It’s one of the reasons for the zines – to say that I thought a set of words was worth printing. And I still want to create something heavy. Something that captures what the world has felt like to me.
With March, I started getting back my missing mojo. Which is not to say that the month was easy, but things are getting better. It was also good to have a flow of visitors to the valley: Tom, Graham, Katharine, Muffy, and Laurence. I did some good hikes too, which got the blood flowing. Work was tough but always interesting.
My diet and exercise were mostly slack, not helped by my trainer being away. I put on an extra 2.0 pounds, which means a total of 4.3 since the end of November. I walked 435,256 steps, an average of 14,073, and the most since the 16,000 or so average in March 2024, when I was in a step competition. The longest day’s walking was going back home from Howarth with Tom and Graham. I’m still not running yet, but my gym recently added an elliptical machine. I went in for the first time outside of my sessions and ‘ran’ 5k. It’s good to see I can manage this, and it might help me build up to actual running.
Most of the films that I saw this month were in the cinema, apart from the dire Electric State. I’d loved the trailer for this so much that I read the book before seeing the film, ignoring my rule about picking one medium for adaptations – it’s a good thing I did. The Bridget Jones film was not for me (I don’t think I’ve actually seen the previous ones), and I am Martin Parr was interesting – very odd to watch a film that included footage of the cinema I was in. The Last Showgirl brought out very different opinions from me and Rosy, but I loved it. For the second year running, I watched all 10 Best Picture Oscar nominees (link to blog post). Anora‘s win was well-deserved, but there were some other very strong contenders. Like everyone else, I watched Adolescence, but found myself underwhelmed. The acting was superb, but the one-shot gimmick seemed to constrain most of the episodes. It’s also shit that it takes a drama to set the national agenda.
My reading was disordered at points in March, demonstrated by the fact that I woke up one night because I’d knocked over my bedside pile of books. The only one that stood out in March was The Amplified Come as You Are, Michael Azzerad’s extensive commentary on his 1993 Nirvana biography, which I’ve written about on a separate post. The online story The Ideal Candidate Will be Punched in the Stomach was a great read – and even better for the writer making it grimly plausible.
I’m enjoying No Return mode on The Last of Us: Part 2. This is a roguelike, with a daily challenge. It seems weird to be so in love with one particular game and not taking to any others. I tried a little of Atomfall, but stopped when it made me feel pukey. I need to give it another chance.
Writing has been slow, but I’m continuing to work hard at it. I’m enjoying the weekly stories on substack but I also want to do something substantial. However, I don’t want to spend a lot of time on something I can’t find an audience for (I very much struggle with promotion). I’m thinking a lot about my approach to writing but it also feels like I am getting somewhere with this. I sent out a prototype of a fun thing (picture below), which Justin pointed out was a feelie.
A little writing experiment that I sent to a couple of people
Work was busy, with a run of all-day meetings at the end of the month. My client role continues to feel ambiguous, but one of the challenges of consultancy is introducing structure where it’s missing. I’ve started setting my goals at the start of the week, aiming to set out what I want to have achieved. It seems to be working, but there’s still a way to go.
I was chatting with Dave recently and he suggested that I sometimes talk too much about my frustrations in the monthnotes. My life right now is close to perfect – I share a house with my best friend in a place I love, and my job is both challenging and engaging. I talk a lot about the frustrations (sleep being a big one) but it’s the grit that makes the pearl. So, when you read me complaining here, bear in mind that there’s very little I would change.
My biggest struggle right now is with energy – days in the office are proving particularly exhausting. I ringfence much of my spare time and energy for writing and my daily steps, which leaves little left for a social life. My attendance at my regular in-person writing groups has been sporadic. I’m not sure how to re-prioritise things, but I am benefitting from less time on social media and cutting down task switching. I’ve also turned off all the metrics on my kindle so I can focus on reading better. It feels like things are improving but I still need to get back to something approaching pre-pandemic levels of sociability
Important Hebden Bridge bird news! The geese here always seem to lay their eggs in odd places. One silly goose chose to nest on some bare stones by the river. Rosy and I were delighted to see a kind person delivering bedding to the birds, which has now been used for a proper nest.
I’ve booked my midsummer holidays. They’re a long way off, but I’m excited to have something to look forward to.
“How it works in my head is the book already exists in the future, and you’re just trying to reveal it. You’re just trying to find out what it is. And when you’re at the editing stage, you look at something and it’s like, ‘Oh, that’s not what it is in the in the future, that’s not quite what it should be’. And then you tweak it. And the moment it’s right and chimes with the book that will be on shelves in a couple of years, you know, you just know that that’s good. And it’s a very satisfying moment.”
I love that idea; writing, not as improving the text but rather bringing into being a potential object.
I’m fascinated by the ghost signs left from covid times
According to the Covid Calendar, it is March 1843rd 2020. Five years ago, the UK was shutting down. My office had just closed and I was adjusting to the prospect of spending weeks trapped in my flat. I started keeping a lockdown blog, making my first entry on March 17th 2020.
In many ways, Covid has been good for me. It led to me leaving Brighton after 25 years, and I love living in the countryside. Remote working has meant no longer spending five days a week in open-plan offices, a huge improvement to my quality of life.
I’m still angry about some aspects of covid: the arbitrary and pointless rules that were inflicted on people, and then removed just as randomly; about a government which allowed some people to party while fining others; about the way covid is now being ignored after all the fuss made in 2020/21.
A few times I’ve found myself telling people that covid is still playing out. There’s an interesting struggle around return-to-office. In the present weak economy, some companies are using it as a mean to thin out their staff. Personally, I choose to visit an office once a week. But I can’t see the point in being there more often when I’m on calls with outsourced colleagues. If we need to be in the office to collaborate, why do we have distributed teams? The debate seems a long way from settled.
The other big ongoing aspect is the after-effect of social isolation. There are people I know who’ve never resumed their social lives after covid. I know that I’ve stopped going out as much as I did. I enjoy the slower pace of life, but I wonder if I should be putting in more effort?
The biggest question is whether covid is over or not. It’s gone from being the most important topic in the world to ignored. Long covid has become a topic for cranks. Nobody wears masks any more. I’m not sure if this is because the danger has gone, this exotic new virus becoming benign, or because – like climate change – people ignore the subject because it’s too big.
Given where we’ve ended up now, it’s hard to look back five years to a world where covid was taken so seriously. The urgency of that time seems ridiculous now. All the corruptions, the lies (“three weeks to flatten the curve”), the horror. And now it’s just a weird thing that happened, absorbed into nostalgia.
Like John Higgs’ return to his KLF book, Michael Azzerad’s new version of 1993’s Come As You Are features a writer responding to his original text.
As a teenager, Nirvana were one of the first bands I became obsessed with. Part of the attraction was the ongoing soap opera. Cobain’s public struggles seemed to reflect my teenaged difficulties. His interviews at the time were defiant and determined – weirdly optimistic – and it was only in retrospect that I thought that the conclusion was inevitable.
With this gap of 30 years, Cobain’s faults seem more obvious. Azzerad was close to the band and, for me, the book suffers from not dealing with the misogynistic abuse Cobain inflicted on Victoria Clarke and Britt Collins, or his appalling treatment of Mary Lou Lord. Cobain was a great spokesman for feminism and the punk ideals of Olympia, but failed to live them. Despite these omissions, the book is still frank and honest about things Azzerad felt unable to say at the time. While Cobain was a great artist, he was deeply flawed and his addiction had taken over his life and his talent.
At the time, through the eyes of tame journalists, the love affair between Kurt and Courtney seemed incredible. As details have emerged, it’s become obvious things were more complicated. For a long time, I wanted to write about Nirvana. As a teenager, the love affair between Cobain and Love seemed quirky and powerful. Over the years, sad details have crept in. I wanted to write about how the story changed with time, yet to also hack away the reality to the romance at the heart of it.
Reading Azzerad’s new book, Cobain was feels like a talented artist. But his petulance and pettiness came through strongly. I will probably still read every major book that emerges about Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain, but I can no longer imagine writing about them.
I spent February in the doldrums, struggling with my energy and enthusiasm – and a sudden cold snap didn’t help. The overall impression of the month was an ongoing slog, despite some fun activities and a wonderful holiday.
Rosy’s final performance of Musclebound took place in Nottingham. It was a pain to get there, but lovely to catch up with friends and family. There was also an excellent tour of Todmorden put on by Hwaet magazine, and I attended a couple of events put on by Bryony Good (a writing workshop and a photo walk). I later realised that I had performed alongside Bryony as part of the Two Knocks For Yes event in 2015.
Imitating Caspar David Friedrich’s Wanderer above the Sea of Fog on the Hwaet walk
The highlight of the month was a trip to Anglesey with Swedish friends Lou-Ice and Sara Starkstrom. Sara wrote an excellent book on urbex and was a great guide. Anglesey was lovely and we had only one day of bad weather – which was a poor time for Lou and I to try climbing some cliffs. The trip had many highlights, but the scenery at the slate mines was particularly photogenic.
Lou, the day before her birthday
My efforts at exercise and diet continued to be lacklustre. I walked 383,268 steps, an average of 13,688 a day, with the peak being walks around Hebden Bridge on Lou’s birthday. Being in the doldrums led to some unhealthy reliance on junk food, and I added a further half pound to my Christmas weight. But I’m feeling a little more focussed now, so hopefully I’ll get a grip on things in March.
Like everything else, my writing has felt stuck in a rut. I sent out four new stories and was particularly pleased with England is a Disease, a piece about Narnia. But generating new ideas has been a struggle. I’m refocussing on stories that bring me joy to write – because life is too short not to love my hobby.
It was a good month for movies. I repeated last year’s attempt to see all of the Oscar nominees before the ceremony. There’s a full rundown elsewhere, but it was an interesting set of movies. Anora deserved its 5 Oscars, but The Brutalist and I’m Still Here were both impressive. I finally saw Saving Private Ryan which was a weird mix of tones. The best movie of the month was Robbie Williams biopic Better Man which improved on all those slavish, obvious music movies by having the lead character played by a CGI monkey.
I’ve been trying to concentrate better at reading, dropping a few books I was not getting into. I read Emmanuel Carrère’s V13 on a sleepless night and it was a horrifying but worthwhile read. The new Julia Armfield novel, Private Rites, was haunting. All Fours was an excellent and thought-provoking book by Miranda July. I also read We Used to Live Here, which was an interesting post-creepypasta horror novel. Joseph Matheny’s Ong’s Hat Compleat, a combined text and audio book was excellent, and I loved how he mixed the two mediums.
In a month, my current job will be the longest I’ve worked for a single employer. Despite feeling flat generally, I love working there, which feels amazing. A lot of that joy is due to having only one mandatory office day a week. It’s also ten years since I left Crunch Accounting. Still can’t believe some of the things that went on there.
For most of the last year, I’d been growing my hair out a little. Ultimately I couldn’t decide what to do with it, so decided to return to a Grade 1. It took some work to persuade the barber that I knew what I was doing and wasn’t having a breakdown. I feel much better for the cleaner look.
Woody, Don’t Take Your Guns to Town
I’ve continued improving my digital hygiene, reducing the amount of information that I take in. There’s a lack of weight to digital things (podcast queues, browser tabs, mailing list subscriptions, ebooks) that makes it hard for me to estimate how much I’ve committed myself to. I’ve been filtering out non-personal email, closing social accounts and letting things go. I still have letterboxd, mastodon and my RSS feeds, which just about feel like useful ways to spend time.
I gave a couple of talks last year where I referred to Hakim Bey’s Immediatism, and the importance of meeting offline. I’ve started thinking that the online world drains energy from in-person social interactions, so part of the process of moving off social is about seeing how that changes my engagement with the world.
I learned that the local land artist is Winston Plowes
I’ve mostly avoided the news, but a lot of it leaks into my social feeds. For all Trump’s flaws, I was heartened to hear him suggest massive nuclear disarmament. But, the rest of the time, I’m frustrated about how the world is currently dominated by bullies and bullshitters.
In more hyperlocal politics, Rosy and I have been filling the bird-feeders. It’s been good to see the birds gathering, although one bird – which we’ve dubbed Fat Robin – tries to keep the smaller birds away.
I interviewed Dan for a podcast, talking about Peakrill Press and his most recent kickstarter. Podcasts might be cheesy, but it’s good that there is part of online life that is still open for all.
The podcast episode Breakfast on Tiffany was one of the funniest things I’d ever listened to. I couldn’t listen to it outside, as it made me laugh out loud. My stomach muscles ached when I finished.
I’ve been playing video games in the evenings – mostly the new rogue-like for The Last of Us Part 2. The other games I’ve tried recently just haven’t caught my attention – but it’s great to have an endless set of new levels for The Last of Us 2.
As with last year, I set out to watch the ten Best Picture Oscar nominees before the ceremony. I’d seen just two of them when the list came out and collecting the other eight has been fun. Most of these were films I wouldn’o’t have watched otherwise and I’ve liked trying something different.
I’m not much good at predictions but I do think The Brutalist stands a very strong chance. However, I think I’m Still Here was the best of the ten – I would also be delighted to see The Substance become the first body horror best picture winner.
Below is a list of all ten movies, in order of how satisfied I’ll be if they win the Oscar, starting from the one I liked least. Links go to my letterboxd reviews.
Emilia Perez felt like a car crash, with overly simplistic politics and boring songs. I have no idea how this was put forward.
Dune: Part 2 was epic science fiction story, but I found it unengaging. Too self-consciously epic, with nothing much behind the spectacle.
I felt cheated by Wicked when over two-hours of run-time ended with ‘to be continued’. Up to then, I’d been enjoying it – far more than I’d expected.
Like Dune: Part 2, Conclave was a fantasy movie set in a strange world. Beautifully made with a great performance from Ralph Fiennes.
A Complete Unknown was entertaining, despite the mumbled dialogue, but felt like a fairly standard biopic.
There’s a lot I disliked about The Substance, but it produced an intense reaction in the cinema audience I saw it with. I’d be delighted if something this extreme wins.
Anora was a great movie which went to some unexpected places, with a great ending.
I didn’t enjoy Nickel Boys, and I’m a little disappointed at myself for that. It tells an important story, and was beautifully made, but didn’t work for me.
At over three-and-a-half hours, The Brutalist felt self consciously epic, and has stuck in my head since I saw it. Guy Pearce’s supporting role was excellent.
But I’m Still Here was my favourite of the ten. The story, about a political murder, is heartbreaking, but what stood out most was the portrayal of a family enduring through difficult times. Fernanda Torres was incredible. Very glad I got to see this in the cinema.
I’ve become increasingly convinced that social media – in its corporate, algorithmic form – is harmful. Not just politically, as we’re seeing from gamergate going global; but in the way it removes energy from the offline world.
Last year I gave a couple of talks where I referred to Hakim Bey’s book Immediatism. Bey talks about the need for unmediated artistic interactions, but stresses the importance of these being in person:
To be “too busy” for the Immediatist project is to miss the very essence of Immediatism. To struggle to come together every Monday night (or whatever), in the teeth of the gale of busyness, or family, or invitations to stupid parties—that struggle is already Immediatism itself. Succeed in actually physically meeting face-to-face with a group which is not your spouse-&-kids, or the “guys from my job,” or your 12-step Program—& you have already achieved virtually everything Immediatism yearns for. An actual project will arise almost spontaneously out of this successful slap-in-the-face of the social norm of alienated boredom.
There is something alienating and banal about corporate social media. It feels like Guy De Bord’s vision of the spectacle taken to the extreme: “The spectacle is not a collection of images, but a social relation among people, mediated by images.”
More than anything I wonder about how this corporate social media is draining the energy that should be used for in-person encounters. I’m not thinking of tedious nostalgia, like saying people don’t talk to strangers because of their phones. I’m thinking of things like conversations about shared interests happening online and never reaching the real world.
In the last episode of Panic World podcast, Magdalene Taylor described seeing a group of women in a bar browsing Tinder while, nearby, a group of men were doing the same thing. That’s an example of what I’m thinking about – real-life conversations that are short-circuited by the internet.
This month, I deleted my Instagram and deactivated my Bluesky account. It was hard – how will I keep up with the world? How will I promote my own work? The opportunity cost of leaving feels massive. But, at the same time, I definitely won’t find what I am looking for online. I want a way out of that alienated boredom.
The Internet has been valuable for putting groups in touch with each other – it’s allowed geographically scattered marginalised communities to make contact and organise. But I think there is something unhealthy about the current form. I am disengaging to look for something better.
