Work started a few days into 2026 and was immediately 100 miles-an-hour. I’ve been trying some new approaches to make things less tiring, which are mostly working, and I’m less frazzled than I was. It’s been a busy month outside of work too – workshops at In a Land gallery, a trip to Blackpool, and Rosy’s club night. The weather has varied between icy and quite warm. I’m doing a lot, but I’m mostly happy.
At the start of January my weight lurched out of control, reaching its highest level. This is the culmination of a long, creeping rise since starting with my current client. I still don’t have the capacity/schedule for a regular exercise session, so I’ve put myself on a diet. It hasn’t been too extreme, just cutting out the more indulgent treats. I’m walking a little more too. I’ve brought myself down from the peak, and am moving slowly in the right direction.
Having complained about deadlines throughout 2025, I’ve got several coming up. I’m writing a new performance piece for a poetry night I’m putting on in February, featuring Lou Ice doing her latest work. I attended both Wednesday Writers sessions, as well as some amazing workshops at In A Land. Bryony showed me how to bind my own books and I’m excited about doing some very short-run volumes in the near future. My aim for 2026 is flow, and I need to be getting more work out, but that will come. I did send out my first email on the new Buttondown mailing list.
I watched a lot of interesting films this month. Marty Supreme was fun, if a little flimsy. Kill Bill felt tiresome and over-long as a single movie. Sentimental Value was beautifully made, but kind of dull – it reminded me of Houllebecq’s comments about realistic fiction being less interesting than fantasy. Sentimental Value was a great haunted house movie that lacked a ghost. Hamnet felt emotionally manipulative and failed to impress me as much as it did the rest of the audience. The Bone Temple had fewer zombies than expected, but was incredibly entertaining (wow, that musical number!).
Train Dreams was a stunning view of a man’s life. Rosy and I streamed Emma Thompson entertaining thriller Dead of Winter. It was the 40th anniversary of Blue Velvet, a film I’d not seen for many years. Rewatching it was uncomfortable and troubling – the film’s vicious misogyny was impossible to ignore. Another uncomfortable film was Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla – while I didn’t love it, it was an excellent work of biography.
I picked up a 99p copy of Mick Herron’s Clown Town at the start of the month, and stopped in the first chapter – I don’t have time to read the same Slough House book I’ve read before. Spread Me was a good body-horror. The Bog People anthology was a great concept, but the execution didn’t work for me. I read a couple more Jarett Kobek books and loved Soft and Cuddly, a discussion of an old video game – I wasn’t sure if it was real or invented. John Langhan’s Lost in the Dark was an interesting story collection. Naomi Alderman’s Don’t Burn Anyone at the Stake Today was thought-provoking and deserves a post of its own.
My only regular TV show at the moment is Spartacus: House of Ashur. This is flamboyant, unrepentant trash, but does that job well. Rosy and I also watched Taylor Swift’s End of an Eras documentary which varied between annoying PR exercise and fascinating competence porn. All other things aside, it was interesting to see the sheer scale and impact of the Eras tour.
I’ve been meaning to delete the Substack newsletter for a few weeks now, but have not quite gathered the courage to do it. But, overall, I’m enjoying not being on social media. My views feel less extreme than they did, and I’m calmer about some controversial topics. Reading Naomi Alderman’s new book has me thinking about the urgency of calming down social media in society as a whole. Letting corporations inflame peoples anger to sell ads is not working well.
The 2025 Mycelium Parish news has been through a round of revisions, so just needs the layout, which will hopefully happen in February. This has been a slog, mostly due to the compilation being so chaotic. This is something I’m trying to solve with the 2026 edition. This is already at 900 words and going much more smoothly.
I’ve been taking trying to apply the principle of mise-en-place in both work and outside. I’m trying to keep things tidier as I go, hopefully preventing them descending into chaos. This is mostly working, although there’s the usual problem that becoming more organised feels like an invitation to take more on.
I read tarot cards at Rosy’s David Bowie event. I’m not a great tarot reader, and reading in clubs presents challenges, but I had fun (and hopefully the querents did too). I’ve now read at two of Rosy’s events and I’m grateful to her for moving me beyond simply reading about tarot. It’s something I want to practise a lot more.
- I had such a long break from work that I worried I might have forgotten some of my passwords.
- I’ve been trying to touch type over the past few weeks. It’s proving hard to pick up the discipline, but I am improving.
- I enjoyed reading this fanfic about Anthony Bourdain, No Reservations: Narnia.
