Weeknotes
- Everybody's Everywhere, the documentary about Lil Peep, is available on YouTube. I wish he had lived longer: the kid had a way with words, and it would have been interesting to see him apply them to the concerns that come with a longer life.
- I'm poking something about Technocracy with a small sharpened stick, and I'm interested in Michelism and John B Michel. If you have a weird mind, you might want to take a look too.
- Michael Tsai, whose blog you should have in your RSS reader (like it's 1999), wrote a post noting discomfort about the smartphone as single point of failure in our connected lives. He's right: it is, frankly, scary.
- Primary documents in "Making the Macintosh" is a brilliant collation of documents about the early Mac. I could spend a month reading this stuff.
- An absolutely fantastic interview with M John Harrison, who remains my favourite writer. With bonus almost-retelling of the story of how Iain Banks made him write another space opera.
- An interesting report from 2020 on the ownership of shares on the stock market. What's fascinating is how this has changed from (in the UK) largely pension funds to foreign investors, and what that means for the governance of our largest companies. the shift from mostly individual investors to mostly pension funds had a big impact on the way companies saw themselves, and who they saw as the important people to serve, and this change to being owned by people who largely have no particular interest in the health of UK society is also an important one.
- Notes on being a single person Mastodon server is a good introduction to the pros and cons of running your own instance. It’s one of those things which falls into the category of “because you can, doesn’t mean you should”.
- Another thing in the same category: how Michael Moorcock wrote a novel in three days. No really, don’t do this, unless you are Michael Moorcock.
- This unpublished (till now) piece by Harry McCracken reminded me of how much work goes into journalism before you put any words on the screen. 90% of journalism happens away from your desk – or it used to. I used to say “journalism happens when you pick up the phone” and while the method of communication might have changed, the fundamental principle hasn’t.
- Tim Bray has a really good review of the current state of Mastodon. It's mostly positive, and I agree with Tim that some of the things that people want (post migration) really aren't all that important. And speaking of Mastodon, StreetPass is a REALLY useful extension for finding people there.
- Elon Musk's quest to destroy Twitter continues. For me, Twitter got to the point where ethically I could no longer be part of a service which was rolling out the welcome mat to the extreme right, misogynists, abusers, racists, homophobes, transphobes, grifters and general scum bags. It’s one thing to be part of a service where they are present, but another to have an owner who actively goes out of his way to orient the service towards those users’ needs.At that point, it’s a moral question, and no amount of “value” or “usefulness” I get from that service makes a difference. So if you see me on Twitter... it's not me.
- Steve Albini used to be one of the most talented musicians and producers around, but with that came a level of assholery that was Olympic standard. He's rowed a lot of that back, and now sounds infinitely more grounded and – dare I say it – happy.
- Over in Russia, Putin has signed off on measures designed to limit access to information he doesn't like, including making it illegal to tell people how to use a VPN. Don't think this is only happening in Russia – I'm sure that our current government would love to do the same, probably in the name of "protecting children". You only have to look at the Online Safety Bill to see that.
- Jane Friedman found a bunch of AI-written books published under her name on Amazon and of course Amazon doesn't do a thing about it. Why should Amazon care? They get paid either way. The company has long gone through the enshittification window.
- Local-first software is a bit of a backlash against the complete control which cloud services deliver to corporates and I am totally here for it.
- I know I link to Cory's work a lot but he keeps writing real humdingers and so I will keep linking to them. This week we got a post on the cloud and its pernicious influence. And he's right: cloud-first is a return to the old mainframe timeshare model of computing where you rent software on other people's computers.
- Trolls and grifters on Twitter are getting desperate, because the only people who get reach now on Twitter are other trolls and grifters. And as the sane, non-conspiracy world moves on from the world's worst social media platform, they're going to more extremes to get attention.
- Grace Lavery's review of books by Julie Bindell, Kathleen Stock and Helen Joyce should be required reading for anyone who is interested in the way that the right is using the issue of trans rights to subvert feminism.
- Cory not only skewers Tesla (and Musk) in this piece on Autoshittification, he also draws lines showing how we are being drawn into a form of feudalism.
- I am so fucking tired of the Labour Party’s duplicitous bullshit on trans rights. Not as tired as my trans friends must be, but still. I won’t be voting Labour next time because the party is happy to keep my local MP in place, despite spouting hatred at every opportunity she gets.
- I don’t entirely agree with the conclusions that Erin Kissane comes to in her article about why Mastodon didn’t stick for a few people, but it’s well worth a read. I think a lot of confusion is down to the expectation that a federated system works (and should work) like a centralised one – which is why some people find Bluesky more comforting. A Bluesky which lives up to its intentions would be federated and in many ways as confusing to new users as Mastodon – but at the moment, it’s not actually a federated system. It’s no different to t2, or any one of the plethora of other similar centralised services, other than it was founded by Jack Dorsey.
- Cory not only skewers Tesla (and Musk) in this piece on Autoshittification, he also draws lines showing how we are being drawn into a form of feudalism.
- I am so fucking tired of the Labour Party's duplicitous bullshit on trans rights. Not as tired as my trans friends must be, but still. I won't be voting Labour next time because the party is happy to keep my local MP in place, despite spouting hatred at every opportunity she gets.
- I don’t entirely agree with the conclusions that Erin Kissane comes to in her article about why Mastodon didn’t stick for a few people, but it’s well worth a read. I think a lot of confusion is down to the expectation that a federated system works (and should work) like a centralised one – which is why some people find Bluesky more comforting. A Bluesky which lives up to its intentions would be federated and in many ways as confusing to new users as Mastodon – but at the moment, it’s not actually a federated system. It’s no different to t2, or any one of the plethora of other similar centralised services, other than it was founded by Jack Dorsey.
- The Observer on Hollywood strikes and AI. I cannot agree with this more: corporations can’t be trusted with AI.
- Tim Bray’s note on why he left Twitter. The time for being on Twitter is long past, and Tim was an early(ish) proponent of leaving it.
- How Stanley Kubrick upset Arthur C Clarke. Written by Michael Moorcock, who knew Clarke well from his early SF writing career. Includes the interesting snippet that at one point Kubrick tried to dump Clarke from 2001: A Space Odyssey and get it written by either Moorcock or JG Ballard. Certainly, a Ballardian spin on HAL might have been interesting…
- I spent a week up in Arvon's Lumb Bank writing house doing a wonderful week of creativity, being tutored by Leone Ross and Julia Armfield. I'm going to write more about this in another post
- Lots of things have occurred that I can't talk about yet, but will be able to next week
- I've been really tired quite a bit
- "Here's why Threads is delayed in Europe" is the definitive article on why Meta's Threads social network has been launched in the UK but not on the mainland. No, Threads isn't "banned in the EU" (which I have seen a dozen times written as if it was fact).
- "How to write a book in three days" looks at Michael Moorcock's writing practice back when he was churning them out. One of the points should probably be "be Michael Moorcock".
- "How Samuel R. Delany Reimagined Sci-Fi, Sex, and the City" is that rarest of things, an interview with the great Delany. If you haven't read "The Motion of Light in Water" then you really should.
Weeknote, Sunday 17 September 2023
I spent Monday down in Brighton visiting my friend Vicky, who I haven’t actually seen face to face for a ludicrous amount of time. Astoundingly, we have known each other for 26 years, since I was a reporter on MacUser magazine, and she was an editorial assistant on Macworld, our biggest rival. We used to bump into each other at press things, then in Camden, back before it became a hellscape of tourist nonsense.
She moved down to Brighton after I did back in 1998 – she eventually introduced me to Alice, a homeless girl who became my flatmate at exactly the right time to pull me out of some major doldrums. As is occasionally my way, we had lost touch after I moved into London – but now with the time and space to not feel like my entire life is about work, I’m gradually getting back in touch with people. And it was great fun, although my feet hurt afterwards (you walk a lot in Brighton!)
Tuesday was, of course, the Apple event. There wasn’t anything there which made me want to rush out and buy a new watch or phone – I’m happy with what I’ve got, and I suspect that the next time I buy a phone it will be something more repairable like the Fairphone 5 rather than another iPhone. I’m somewhat done with glued together devices which end up being shredded when all that’s wrong with them is a broken port.
One Wednesday I had a session with my coach, which sounds a lot more la-de-dah than it actually is. Since leaving Bauer, I have had a few sessions with her to look at the kind of work that I want to do in the future, starting with working on what my values are. I’m past the point where I’m going to hold my nose and commit myself to a permanent relationship with a company that doesn’t share my values. We also took a long look at what I’m actually good at and how that relates to what I enjoy.
All this is stuff that you just don’t get much time to think about when you’re in a full-time job, so it’s been good to have the time to do it. Fundamentally, I’m good at leading teams through difficult times, whether that’s a change of strategy, structure, management or just a changing market. I’m good at getting people pointed in the right direction, and understanding the emotional needs they have – if you understand what people’s emotional needs are, it’s a lot easy to get them performing as part of a team.
We often discuss processes and structures and all the “scientific” bit of leadership, but we often forget that people are driven as much by their emotions as their rationality. The best performing teams are in a safe, secure place: without a feeling of safety, people cramp up and underperform. And that’s an emotional thing.
Thursday was my mum’s birthday. Mum passed away a few years ago, but she would have been 92, which sounds all kinds of weird. I know I’ll never stop missing her, no matter how old I get.
Yesterday I was back in London at a workshop about horror writing with Hardeep Pandai and David Steans, which was fascinating. One thing which came out is the relationship between horror and comedy. I think the archetype of this is Iain Banks’ magnificent first novel, The Wasp Factory. It’s a colossally horrific book (The Irish Times memorably described it as “a work of unparalleled depravity”) but also filled with black humour, and in some ways the humour acts to draw the reader in. There’s part of everyone that loves Frank Cauldhame because he’s just funny and the things he does are as much baroque comedy as horror.
I’ve always thought that The Wasp Factory is a massively underrated book. While people still talk about Brett Easton Ellis’ American Psycho, Banks’ book is overshadowed by his later science fiction work and some of his more literary novels. In some ways, I don’t think Iain wrote a more perfect book, and if I ever write something that’s even a tenth as affecting, I’ll be a very lucky human.
Things I have been reading
I’m slowly trudging my way through Neal Asher’s War Bodies, having given up on it after about 20 pages. If I were sensible, I would just drop it, but I hate not finishing books – it’s a bad habit to get into – and I’m determined to get to the end. It’s not that it’s bad, or at least not as bad as I thought after 20 pages. But it’s pretty clear that Neal has run out of road with the “Polity universe” it’s set it. Of course, when you have a universe that readers love, it’s all too tempting to go back into it for both creative (there’s always something else to explore) and commercial (publishers will want you to do it) reasons. But sometimes things run their course, and I think the Polity is done.
I would really love Neal to go back and write something more around the universe of Cowl, though. I think that’s his best book, with one of the best ideas around time travel I have ever read.
Things I have been writing
I wrote a piece of micro-fiction about a man who turns himself into a crab, which is about as bizarre as it sounds. I also started some notes about a story which involves Greek mythology, werewolves, and some interesting mystery elements. What’s fascinating is that I don’t know yet how its genre might play out: the background I’ve started writing could easily flex to being a weird crime novel or a straightforward horror. More work required before I actually start writing (which is always what I’m tempted to do!)
I also wrote something about how the recently released properties feature in Obsidian could end up a game changer for how it can be used. I’ve got a much longer post about the plugins I use for Obsidian to make it a good environment for writing, which just needs an intro writing before it’s ready to be published. Maybe this week.
Weeknote, Sunday 10th September 2023
I'm writing this slightly later than normal after we got back from a trip down to the Bristol to see our lovely friends. There's a bunch of pictures on both Instagram and Hipstamatic (which is totally great and has encouraged me to start taking more pictures).
Other than that, this has been a fairly quiet week, with only a Society of Authors local meetup of note. It was good fun to catch up with some other local writers.
This week is going to be a bit busier. I'm in Brighton tomorrow, then it's another SOA meeting on Tuesday over in Whitstable, then next Saturday in London for something at the Barbican. And I probably should look for some work at some point…
The three things which most caught my attention
Things I have been writing
I resurrected Technovia, and wrote something about the "climbdown" of the UK government over access to end to end encrypted messages was nothing of the sort. Then of course there was Elon Musk sabotaging a Ukrainian attack because he is a naive, gullible idiot. And of course there was the news that Brexit is basically going to give you a worse version of Windows in the UK. Well done, Brexiteers!
I also started working on my next short, more on that next week.
Things I have been reading
I've finished four books in the last week. The first was China Mieville's A Spectre, Haunting, which I have been reading for a while and finally got around to completing. China sometimes sounds like someone who did a PPE degree crossed with a Socialist Worker seller, but it's still a good book and I would definitely recommend it if you're interested in Marx.
Next came Russell Davies' Do interesting. A short book full of sound advice on how to get your mind moving, with little activities. Another recommend.
I finished Tansy Hoskins' The Anti-Capitalist book of fashion, which is yet another recommend. Even if you're not that interested in fashion, it's a good deconstruction of how a lot of modern Capitalism works, from the exploitation of workers in the developing world through the creation of alienation of various kinds in the developed world through media.
And finally -- four books! -- it didn't take me long to read Cory Doctorow's The Internet Con. If you are in any way interested in tech you need to read this book.
Weeknote, Sunday 3rd September 2023
Time is strangely stretching. When I started writing this post I had to check my calendar to see what I have done this week, and found that events I thought have happened the previous one had, in fact, been within the last seven days.
That's partly down to Kim being away, and partly due to not working. When you don't have the rhythm of work, you lose one of the main things which anchor you in time. There is a pace, a way of being, which is set for you and that you don't have to consider. All of which is a challenge to me: while I am not working, I need to reestablish that pattern.
And yet this week has been pretty full. Monday, of course, was a bank holiday -- and what do you do on a bank holiday other than go to the seaside? Myself and my friend Edward headed down to Margate for a bit of a mooch around. It was surprisingly quiet, much more like a regular Sunday than a Bank Holiday Monday, which is probably not great for the local traders. I have heard that the great post-pandemic British seaside boom was over, but this was the first time I saw it with my own eyes.
On Tuesday I went into London to catch up with an old colleague, deep in the heart of News UK. It's an impressive building -- and it was good to have a chat to someone who was both a big influence and a good mate.
After that I went to the V&A to see the Diva exhibition, which I would absolutely recommend. And it's the first exhibition I have been to where I think there's a benefit to having the proffered headphones: divas definitely need a soundtrack, all the way from Victorians to today.
The V&A is one of my favourite places in London. I became a member there quite a few years ago, and would occasionally sneak off work for an afternoon's "inspiration" there, sitting looking at lovely things, clearing my head and writing stuff in my notebook. It's one of the things I miss about London: there is space like that in Canterbury, and few enough in Kent as a whole.
The rest of the week was taken up with bumbling around, washing, and generally wasting of time. I spent a chunk of time working on setting up Obsidian to make it a better environment for writing, experimenting with plugins which let you do things like post directly to Micro.blog, make your use of Markdown and punctuation more consistent, and so on. It's now pretty plugin-heavy but it's really coming together.
The three things which most caught my attention
Things I have been writing
I'm writing a big blog post on how I have customised Obsidian for writing. It's currently about 1,500 words and I should finish it off in the next day or so. This post was written in Obsidian, as are most of my weeknotes, because one of the best things about it is the ability to create and use templates very easily. That means it's brilliant for articles like this.
Things I have been reading
I've been REALLY enjoying – if that's quite the word – Tansy Hoskins' The Anti-Capitalist Book of Fashion, which I highly recommend to anyone remotely interested not just in clothes, but also anti-capitalism.
Weeknote, Sunday 27th August 2023
Being on my own is weird. Many of the things that I tend to do when Kim is at home turn out to be less attractive when I’m on my own for a longer period. For example, TV: I’ve watched almost nothing this week, which is unusual for someone who grew up nursemaided by the television.
(This is true. My mother used to say that before I could sit up on my own, she would prop me up with cushions so I could watch television, as it kept me quiet.)
I had a trip into London on Tuesday to see my old colleague Maria, who now works about five minutes walk from where I used to work – we had been that close to each other for months and not realised. It was great to catch up and – as it typical for when we meet up - what was meant to be a quick coffee ended up as nearly two hours of hilarity.
Despite my enthusiasm for Readwise Reader I have been tempted this week to dump it in favour of something more simple. However, I have a feeling that’s because I have a huge backlog of unprocessed reading in it and when I have that backlog in any system my instinct is to dump it and use another tool, starting from scratch. It’s a bad habit, so I’m making myself spend time going through and triaging what I still want to read.
And a reminder today that caffeine addiction is a fearsome thing. Since I stopped working my coffee intake has done up. Although I don’t drink any after 5pm it’s rare that I have less than six cups through the day, which is a lot. Enough, in fact, to make the symptoms of caffeine withdrawal bad. If you have never had a caffeine withdrawal it’s a reminder that it’s a physically addictive drug: for me, it manifests as a headache which nothing will shift, plus nausea. There’s nothing you can do except ride it out by lying down in a darkened room. Not nice
So of course I went out and got coffee. It still took a couple of hours to shift. By god I love coffee.
The three things which caught my attention
Things I have been writing
I wrote an ending to a story and then junked it. So much for that.
Things I have been reading
The Agony and the Ego, edited by Clare Boylan, is out of print but I was lucky enough to find a copy in the University of Kent Library. It includes a wonderful essay by Hilary Mantel on her writing method, which appears pretty close to mine: it involves the steady accretion of phrases, characters and situations until something takes shape, rather than a pre-planned, heavily plotted form. Annoyingly this appears to be the only time this essay has been published – and Boylan’s book is now out of print. Copies go for about £20 secondhand.
Weeknote, Sunday 20th August 2023
This has been a week of joining. First, I joined the Society of Authors. Although I’m not a published fiction writer, the body of work I have from a 28 year career as a magazine journalist counts – which means that I’m in some illustrious company.
Second, I now have a borrowers membership for the University of Kent Library, which means not only can I go along and enjoy the WiFi (you can do that for free if you want) but also borrow books – and the kind of academic books I sometimes want to read can be ferociously expensive.
This week has veered between too hot and too much rain, which is probably a harbinger of the way that British summers will be in the future. Despite my Indian DNA, I'm a northerner at heart: anything above about 23 degrees and I start to basically want to curl up and fall asleep for the hot bit. The siesta is a natural response to weather that gets too hot in the afternoon, and I expect the British to eventually embrace it.
The three things which most caught my attention
Things I have been writing
I wrote a little piece of micro-fiction which I published on Mastodon. I'm interested in doing more of this. Micro-fiction appeals to my sense of minimalism.
I also worked on a couple of exercises which might turn into stories, one about a man who is killed by a wasp and another about a man in an immense galaxy filled with humanity who goes off in search of his double.
Things I have been reading
I picked up War Bodies by Neal Asher again. Everyone needs a bit of science fiction horror in their lives, right?
Latenote, "Sunday 12th August 2023" (but really Monday)
This week a classic "I don't have to work" project: sorting out my music library.
My music collection has been all over the place for a while. I have been using iTunes Match since it came out about ten years ago. It's a good service, allowing you to match any DRM-free audio file with the iTunes catalogue and download it to any other iTunes-equipped device, still DRM-free. I've also bought a lot of (DRM-free) music from iTunes over the years.
All of this adds up to about 35 days of music, but it's all been in Apple's cloud storage -- until now. I downloaded the lot, and it's on both a drive attached to the Mac mini (which acts as a server) and on my ThinkPad. That's about 127Gb of music, or 13,552 tracks. Crikey.
I also downloaded the music I have in Amazon's cloud. In 2013 Amazon came up with a terrific idea: if you bought a CD, you got DRM-free MP3s with it for nothing. The service was called AutoRip and amazingly it's still around – although it's not available on every album. If you have the physical space, buying music on CD is usually better than just purchasing the digital file (I think musicians tend to get paid more, and you get a physical backup).
The three things which most caught my attention
Things I have been writing
On Cnet Deleting its Archive: There's been a controversy over Cnet doing what it calls "content pruning" for SEO purposes. I've done a lot of SEO work on publisher sites, and I think the controversy is overblown. In fact the guidance they give about when and why to do it is exemplary, as are the safeguards they take to ensure it stays available on the Internet Archive.
Things I have been reading
I had a quick canter through M John Harrison's The Centauri Device which is a book I must have read a dozen times, but which I always love. It warped my head a bit when I was 10 and first read it (it was the only SF paperback in the English newsagents when I went on holiday to Spain) and, once you read it, explains a lot about me.
Weeknote, Sunday 6th August 2023
I bought a watch. A normal, not-in-any-way-smart watch, for less than £30. That feels like better value than a smart watch which I use mainly to tell me what the time is and for an occasional timer. Its all part of a vague plot I have to downsize my presence on big platforms, something that I'm sure I will write more about in the not too distance future.
On Wednesday we had an afternoon trip to the cinema -- another benefit of not working -- and saw Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which was much better than I was expecting. It may even be my second-favourite Indiana Jones movie (I have them ranked, don't you?) after, of course, Last Crusade. De-ageing effects have now got so good that after a couple of minutes I forgot all about it, and of course Phoebe Waller-Bridge was great.
I have timed this whole "not working" malarkey quite well: we have the Women's World Cup this month, and the rugby world cup next. If I find myself an job and start a the end of September, I will have timed everything perfectly. Which is a long-winded way of saying that this week has involved a lot of watching the world cup.
On the "I've left my job so I need a treat" list was a new pair of headphones. While the Apple AirPods Pro Max Whatever are great, they don't exactly work well with anything that's not Apple, so got a pair of Fairphone Fairbuds XL, which not only work with anything via Bluetooth, they will also work as wired phones (with no battery left) using USB-C. So far I'm very happy with them.
We are dog sitting, which means we have a pair of Bedlington terriers lazy around the house with it. They haven't yet worked out that they're not getting snacks any time I go in the kitchen, which means a lot of being followed around. They do, though, know that they need to run up and beg at the patio windows to be let out, and that barking at me will probably mean a walk, sooner or later.
I have also been sneezing like a bastard this week, which feels odd as it's very definitely not been the kind of weather which encourages hay-fever -- with this level of damp, there should be nothing in the air which is likely to irritate my nose. I wonder if I'm just not spending enough time out of doors at the moment.
And Foundation series two is out on Apple TV+. I wasn't that impressed with the first series which had some interesting ideas but was a little bit too ponderous. This series, though, is much better with a slew of new characters who are actually interesting, along with better use of all the main ones. I watched the first four episodes in a row, which is rare for me.
Also watched: Spontaneous, which was a really charming movie on Film4 the other night. Charming in only the way that a film about teenagers randomly exploding at a high school can be. Definitely recommended.
The three things which most caught my attention
Things I have been writing
I finished a short story about a doctor who has lived for 2000 years and grown to not like people very much (and no, it's not a sodding Doctor Who story). Not totally happy with the ending though, so I might need to revisit it.
Things I have been reading
I haven't been doing enough reading. I'm plodding along with China Mieville's A Specter, Haunting but I'm finding it hard going as China is in full-on academic mode and it really needs to be just a little bit more playful. I might do that rarest thing and abandon it.
It's not like I haven't got plenty of other stuff to read. This week to the ever-growing book pile I added Claire Keegan's Antarctica and Margaret Atwood's Wilderness Tips, two collections of short stories which I'm going to get into next.
Latenote, Monday 31st July 2023
This week, I mostly gave myself a week off which meant I hit level 60 on my character in the new Diablo 4 season. That’s understandable, but I need to make sure that I don’t spend too much time just lazing around even if there is a World Cup to watch.
If you don’t know about it, the wonderful publisher And Other Stories have a brilliant subscription scheme. For £70 a year, you get six books – but you also get your name in the back of the book, and get them a couple of months in advance of publication. That means you have to wait a while for your subscription to kick in, and my first book arrive this week. It’s “Traces of Enayat”, by Iman Mersal, and I’m looking forward to it.
The three things which most caught my attention
Things I have been writing
I rediscovered a story which I started writing at some point about a doctor who isn’t quite what he appears, and pushed it a bit further. It took me a while to actually realise that I had written it – there are some interesting stylistic tricks in it which I had forgotten playing around with. Along with the story that I developed at Arvon I’m going to finish that in the coming week.
Things I have been reading
China Mieville’s “A Spectre, Haunting” crossed my radar and, as it’s a short one, I started reading it. It’s excellent of course, although China is very much in his academic mode rather than entertaining.
Latenote, Monday 31st July 2023
This week, I mostly gave myself a week off which meant I hit level 60 on my character in the new Diablo 4 season. That’s understandable, but I need to make sure that I don’t spend too much time just lazing around even if there is a World Cup to watch.
If you don’t know about it, the wonderful publisher And Other Stories have a brilliant subscription scheme. For £70 a year, you get six books – but you also get your name in the back of the book, and get them a couple of months in advance of publication. That means you have to wait a while for your subscription to kick in, and my first book arrive this week. It’s “Traces of Enayat”, by Iman Mersal, and I’m looking forward to it.
The three things which most caught my attention
Things I have been writing
I rediscovered a story which I started writing at some point about a doctor who isn’t quite what he appears, and pushed it a bit further. It took me a while to actually realise that I had written it – there are some interesting stylistic tricks in it which I had forgotten playing around with. Along with the story that I developed at Arvon I’m going to finish that in the coming week.
Things I have been reading
China Mieville’s “A Spectre, Haunting” crossed my radar and, as it’s a short one, I started reading it. It’s excellent of course, although China is very much in his academic mode rather than entertaining.
Weeknote, Sunday 23rd July
At long last, I have some news. After six years, I’m leaving Bauer and moving got to pastures new – or at least to allow myself some time to do some more creative work.
I haven’t really talked much about work here as I prefer to compartmentalise it, and because the actual amount that I can talk about is usually quite limited. But I have been director of content and audience development there, and although I’ve loved the work and the people, the amount of opportunity that I have had to be creative has been limited. I have mostly been managing people, and although I’m good at that and find it rewarding, it has left an itch which I have needed to scratch.
I have written before about how I’ve been scratching that itch with creative writing, but combining that with a day job which really does take a lot of energy has been difficult. So when a chance came to move on and do something new as my responsibilities at work were changing, it felt like the right time to take it.
The plan is to take a couple of months and push my writing harder. I don’t know how far I can get with this – and I definitely don’t know if there’s any kind of “career” there – but having the space and time to try seems like an opportunity which doesn’t come along often. I don’t think I’m quite in the same position as Lee Child, who famously got made redundant and gave himself six months to write a bestseller, but I would like to explore if this is something I want to do more of. And if you have the chance, it would be crazy to let that chance slip past you.
My last day at work was Friday, so now I am officially unemployed. Or perhaps I’m actually a writer. Who knows yet? Perhaps Monday is the first day as something different.
Leaving a job is a strange experience, and one I have only had three times. Leaving MacUser was mostly about feeling burned out and wanting an easier life. I was living in Brighton and the commute up to London – which I was doing every day – was taxing. I knew I could make a decent living freelancing, and I did. Leaving Redwood was easy, as after eight years in the world of contract publishing, the chance to move back to Dennis felt like a good one. And leaving Dennis was also an obvious move, as I was going to a bigger company and a bigger role, working with some of the best brands in the world across publishing and radio.
This feels a bit more like that first time because I genuinely don’t know exactly what the future holds yet. But I know that, really, it has to be now. I’m 56, which means another fifteen years or so before I can retire. If I stayed much longer at Bauer, it would be the last place I ever worked. And I don’t feel like I want to work anywhere for what would have ended up as 23 years if I had stayed. While my dad was content to work for British Rail for 44 years (literally man and boy, as he started there when he was 14) that’s just not for me.
So here I am. Let’s see where things take me.
Things I have been writing
Not much – as you can imagine, my last week at work was filled with paperwork and no spare time. It wasn’t stressful, but there is a lot to do when you leave a job, not the least leaving things in a relatively orderly state. Even the 4,000 word handover document I wrote doesn’t quite seem to encapsulated everything… but it will have to do.
Things I have been reading
Not a huge amount of time for reading, but I have been cracking on with M John Harrison’s The Centauri Device, and I can completely understand how that warped my mind when I read it at the age of 10. We were on the one Spanish holiday we did as a family. It was the only science fiction paperback in the English newsagent, and I devoured it. Related: I now remember where Iain M Banks pinched his idea for slightly odd ship names.
The three things which most caught my attention
Weeknote, Sunday 16th July 2023
It's been a couple of weeks since I last wrote and a few things have happened:
I have also been looking closely at my technology needs and am thinking about the best ways to streamline it (and to move it closer to my values). This is partly an outgrowth of looking at my values as a whole. something I'm doing with a coach -- and I'll come back to that next week…
The three things which most caught my attention
Things I have been writing
I wrote a short post on how Apple and Disney are more than happy to hand Twitter cash which it then hands on to neo-Nazis, homophobes, transphobes and accused rapists. Basically companies that are still advertising with Twitter fall into three camps: active supports of reactionary causes; tiny companies who aren't really keeping up; and corporates who like to pretend they're for equality but won't actively do things to support it.
Things I have been reading
Reading has been a bit fragmented this week. I decided to re-read M John Harrison's "The Centauri Device" which I am churning through, but I'm also continuing with Tim Lott's "Yes! No! But Wait!" -- and when I move between books I tend to read less as a result.
Weeknote, 2nd July 2023
Having teased you all with some big news that I thought I was going to be able to talk about this week… I can’t… so you will have to wait. Maybe next week.
This week I am off up to Hebden Bridge to do another residential Arvon course. I did one last December down at Totleigh Barton (with the lovely Sharlene Teo and Michael Donkor). This time round the tutors are Julia Armfield and Leone Ross, and I’m really looking forward to working with them. I haven’t read any of Leone’s work (yet), but I have read both Salt Slow and Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia and absolutely loved them.
We went to see Wes Anderson’s latest, Asteroid City and I don’t quite know what to make of it. It’s probably not in my top three Wes Anderson movies, which is slightly odd as my top three Wes Anderson movies are mostly the ones that people don’t rate highly (Grand Budapest Hotel, The French Dispatch, and The Life Aquatic for the record – although I also love Isle of Dogs). Asteroid City comes closest to “Wes Anderson movie that I wouldn’t bother watching again”, although I suspect that it would benefit from a second viewing. The layers of play within movie made me think of what a Christopher Nolan script directed by Wes Anderson would be like. Not totally sold.
Things I have been reading
Mostly I have been working my way through Tim Lott’s Yes! No! But wait! which is a pretty neat book on exactly the part of writing that I most struggle with: plotting, and how it relates to character. I am mostly what Matt Gemmell calls a pantser – I start writing and see where it goes – which means I get to a point in a piece of work and have no idea where to go with it next. It’s probably why I prefer writing short-form fiction to long-form: the plot is easy and very self-contained when you’re writing something short. Tim’s book is definitely helping cure me of that. A bit. Maybe. Perhaps that’s something I’ll be working on next week.
Things I have been writing
Does my latenote from last Monday count? Other than that, I haven’t written much – which is mostly down to the secret thing that I can’t talk about (and you are going to be really disappointed with when I tell you about it, because it’s really not as exciting as it sounds).
Latenote, Monday 26th June 2023
Oh gosh I've missed two weeknotes in a row. In fairness to me, there has been a lot going on -- much of which I can't talk about yet (but should be able to next week), and we have also been away for two weekends in a row, in London and Manchester.
Last weekend's trip to Manchester was a lot of fun and reminds me two things: I miss living in the north; and I love hanging out with gay men. We went up to see Brenda, who was Kim's mum's best friend and who we have stayed in touch with. Brenda was at the coronation of the late queen, and is a treasure house of memories as well as being a lovely, delightful person to be around.
After leaving Brenda's house on Saturday we decided to stop off in Manchester's gay village to have a look (I haven't been there for a couple of decades, and Kim never has) and a quick pint. We ended up of course chatting to a lovely bunch of young boys (they were all in their early 20s so very much boys to me), and a very very drunk and emotional girl, plus a couple of older men in television. Five pints and a jelly shot (bought by one of the boys) later we broke my "no Uber" rule because we were too drunk to work out how to get back to our hotel on the tram.
Related: I fucking love trams.
I also just love Manchester, a city on the scale of London but without the feeling which I get from the capital of things having been closed down, unavailable unless you have vast amounts of money or are a property developer. It feels good. I get the same feeling from Bristol too.
Meanwhile next week I'm off to Arvon up near Hebdon Bridge for a week's writing, which I'm looking forward to immensely. I've been an absolute slacker with my my writing lately, so this is an opportunity to pick up the practice again. And this time, I'm pretty sure I'll maintain it.
Things I have been writing
I wrote a post responding to a few articles on the pre-emptive work underway to block Meta's purported new ActivityPub-based platform which may or may not be called Threads. Threads, of course, was also the name of the Instagram messaging service which it shut down a couple of years ago, proving that big companies really have no imagination.
The post blew up a bit thanks to being linked to on Daring Fireball -- it's almost like old-school blogging where someone would write something and you would create a long, considered response never went away.
I'm also going to write something responding to Bloon's post on how the "Twitter migration" to Mastodon failed. I don't think it did, and I think that Bloon is looking at it from a very particular perspective which isn't representative of the kinds of users for whom moving away from Twitter was a matter of safety rather than entertainment.
Things I have been reading
Since I last wrote I have finished off two books: Fumio Sasaki's "Goodbye Things" and China Mieville's first novel "King Rat" (not to be confused with the James Clavell novel of the same name).
Sasaki's book is good but really if you're interested in minimalism as a practice I wouldn't start here -- there are better books out there. I enjoyed reading it, especially for the rationale he provides for his choices and as a piece of highly-Japanese writing.
Mieville's book is an interesting one, both because it shows his style coming into existence and as a slice of writing which is very much of its time. It's set against a background of the drum and bass/jungle community in the late 1990s and it very much reminds me of my dear, lost friend Cherie who was very much part of that scene. I never quite got it but my orbit back then occasionally took me into the world of jungle. I never really got it, but I liked the people I met.
Weeknote, Sunday 4th June 2023
I’ve been feeling somewhat melancholy this week. I suspect the cause of that is mostly physical: I have also been feeling quite run down, not to the point of exhaustion but definitely lacking in energy. The two things usually go hand in hand: Kim has occasionally described how my emotions emerge from me like a cloud, surrounding me, and it works both ways. When my body is struggling, my emotions cluster around me, and when I’m feeling strong emotions, I wear it across my body like a gaudy sash.
We spent part of the last long weekend before August dog sitting two Bedlington terriers who manage to combine whip-smarts with the utter irrationality of all dog kind when it comes to the three things most important to them: snacks, shitting and chasing rabbits. I miss having a dog although I would probably want one that wasn’t quite so excitable. An elderly dog who likes a little amble and wistful glance towards the rabbits in the field is probably about my speed.
On Wednesday we went up to that there London to see Jeremy Deller in conversation with Emma Warren talking about Art is Magic. I love his work – honestly if you don’t like We’re here because we’re here you have no heart – but I also love that he’s not a trained artist, didn’t go to art school, and is what the art establishment likes to call and “outsider artist”. That’s a phrase which, of course, reeks of the privilege they have and how they like to project it. We are insiders – you are an outsider. And we all know that outsiders aren’t to be trusted.
It’s possibly one of the reasons why it’s taken me fifty years to admit to myself that some of what I do might actually be art, rather than craft or a trade. We shall see. It still feels more than a little uncomfortable.
Kim has been off in France – first Paris, then Montpellier – doing fun art things since Thursday. That meant she didn’t have to suffer the FA Cup Final with me (our friend Edward came round for shit talking and snack eating) and I’m taking the opportunity to do a bunch of chores that have been on my list of things to do for far too long. Related: my back now hurts. One more thing to talk to the doctor about at some point.
Things I have been writing
I wrote something on my experience of covid. This isn’t the first thing I have written about the pandemic, but I think it’s the most complete account of how it’s made me feel, and think, and act differently.
Things I have been reading
I finished off M John Harrison’s “anti-memoir” Wish I was here in just a couple of days. It’s very Harrison: don’t expect a linear narrative about the events in his life, or a how-to manual on writing weird fiction. It’s as much a piece of art writing as the rest of his recent work, and has the opacity and determination not to explain things which he’s really been playing around with for a long time.
Of course I loved it, but I’ve always loved his work, ever since as a nine or 10 year old I picked up a copy of The Centauri Device while on holiday in Spain. I was obsessed with science fiction and this was the only book I would find amongst the tiny selection of English-language paperbacks in the Spanish newsagent which catered to Brits on their cheap package holiday. Harold Robbins, James Clavell, Dennis Wheatley and M John Harrison. I have sometimes wondered quite how they ended up stocking it, but whoever decided that a Spanish newsagent was the right place for a story of spacefaring anarchists deserves my thanks.
I’m not sure what to read next. This is always an interesting moment: a few days of paralysis while I work out what my brain wants to absorb. I’m tempted to jump into Goodbye, Things by Fumio Sasaki as a bit of a break from fiction. It’s been in the book pile for a couple of weeks, which is usually the optimum time for reading: any longer, and it tends to get buried by other options. Any shorter, and it interrupts what I’m already reading. And I hate to stop reading a book before the end: abandoning something always feels like a moral failure, even though intellectually I know it’s the right thing to do.
Weeknote, Sunday 4th June 2023
I’ve been feeling somewhat melancholy this week. I suspect the cause of that is mostly physical: I have also been feeling quite run down, not to the point of exhaustion but definitely lacking in energy. The two things usually go hand in hand: Kim has occasionally described how my emotions emerge from me like a cloud, surrounding me, and it works both ways. When my body is struggling, my emotions cluster around me, and when I’m feeling strong emotions, I wear it across my body like a gaudy sash.
We spent part of the last long weekend before August dog sitting two Bedlington terriers who manage to combine whip-smarts with the utter irrationality of all dog kind when it comes to the three things most important to them: snacks, shitting and chasing rabbits. I miss having a dog although I would probably want one that wasn’t quite so excitable. An elderly dog who likes a little amble and wistful glance towards the rabbits in the field is probably about my speed.
On Wednesday we went up to that there London to see Jeremy Deller in conversation with Emma Warren talking about Art is Magic. I love his work – honestly if you don’t like We’re here because we’re here you have no heart – but I also love that he’s not a trained artist, didn’t go to art school, and is what the art establishment likes to call and “outsider artist”. That’s a phrase which, of course, reeks of the privilege they have and how they like to project it. We are insiders – you are an outsider. And we all know that outsiders aren’t to be trusted.
It’s possibly one of the reasons why it’s taken me fifty years to admit to myself that some of what I do might actually be art, rather than craft or a trade. We shall see. It still feels more than a little uncomfortable.
Kim has been off in France – first Paris, then Montpellier – doing fun art things since Thursday. That meant she didn’t have to suffer the FA Cup Final with me (our friend Edward came round for shit talking and snack eating) and I’m taking the opportunity to do a bunch of chores that have been on my list of things to do for far too long. Related: my back now hurts. One more thing to talk to the doctor about at some point.
Things I have been writing
I wrote something on my experience of covid. This isn’t the first thing I have written about the pandemic, but I think it’s the most complete account of how it’s made me feel, and think, and act differently.
Things I have been reading
I finished off M John Harrison’s “anti-memoir” Wish I was here in just a couple of days. It’s very Harrison: don’t expect a linear narrative about the events in his life, or a how-to manual on writing weird fiction. It’s as much a piece of art writing as the rest of his recent work, and has the opacity and determination not to explain things which he’s really been playing around with for a long time.
Of course I loved it, but I’ve always loved his work, ever since as a nine or 10 year old I picked up a copy of The Centauri Device while on holiday in Spain. I was obsessed with science fiction and this was the only book I would find amongst the tiny selection of English-language paperbacks in the Spanish newsagent which catered to Brits on their cheap package holiday. Harold Robbins, James Clavell, Dennis Wheatley and M John Harrison. I have sometimes wondered quite how they ended up stocking it, but whoever decided that a Spanish newsagent was the right place for a story of spacefaring anarchists deserves my thanks.
I’m not sure what to read next. This is always an interesting moment: a few days of paralysis while I work out what my brain wants to absorb. I’m tempted to jump into Goodbye, Things by Fumio Sasaki as a bit of a break from fiction. It’s been in the book pile for a couple of weeks, which is usually the optimum time for reading: any longer, and it tends to get buried by other options. Any shorter, and it interrupts what I’m already reading. And I hate to stop reading a book before the end: abandoning something always feels like a moral failure, even though intellectually I know it’s the right thing to do.
Weeknote, Sunday 28th May 2023
Bank holiday! Another one! Yay!
On Friday we went over to Margate to see The Chimera Function, a performance lecture by artist and researched Lo Lo No which involved quite a bit of cutup spoken word stuff. I had never been to the Tom Thumb Theatre before and loved it – the work was pretty interesting, and if you’re interested in experimental spoken-word stuff I would recommend seeing it if you get the chance.
Saturday night I was doing my own spoken word piece at the Free Range open mic night. My work isn’t experimental: I just like telling stories. And as part of it I told my own story, or rather the story of how I didn’t write any stories for over 40 years and finally started when I decided that was really silly.
After that we went along to our friend Edward’s birthday drink, then headed home via a really rather large Five Guys burger (grilled cheese for me, of course). Memo to self: you really don’t need to have even the medium fries. Small is more than enough.
Today was my fortnightly writing group, but I ended up only being able to stay for an hour because I planned to meet up with Kim and head over to Herne Bay to collect her mobile phone (she had left it on the bus on Saturday night, and I needed to be with her to find the bus station where it had been left after being found).
I also took delivery of a new monitor. A couple of months ago I moved the Mac mini and my old monitor out of my study to give myself more desk space, so have been using my laptop on its own. It hasn’t quite worked: although it was nice to have such an open and uncluttered desk, leaning over a laptop doesn’t suit my body, and propping it up on a stand just means I end up peering into the 13in screen from a distance which isn’t great for my eyes.
The new monitor is a Dell S2722QC USB-C 27in 4K thing, which is similar to the ones we use in the office. It’s good – not only does having USB-C mean that I can connect and charge my laptop on it. But Dell’s stands allow me to move the monitor up and down which my old LG couldn’t. So no more having a monitor on top of a stand which isn’t quite the right height.
I didn’t realise how much the details of the environment that I work in made a difference to how I feel about working. Things like having a decent keyboard, a screen that’s the right size and height, and all the other things make a big difference not only on things like my posture and my back but also in how producing and creative I feel. It sounds stupid, but it’s true.
Things I have been writing
At today’s writing group I only had about half an hour so dived in and wrote a short piece of micro-fiction which I’m quite happy with – so I will be publishing that on the writing blog at some point soon.
Things I have been reading
I have been continuing on with Temereire, which is a fun and easy read. This week also saw the arrival of M John Harrison’s Wish I was here too, which is a sort-of biography from my absolute favourite author. I’m looking forward to diving into that.
Weeknote, Sunday 28th May 2023
Bank holiday! Another one! Yay!
On Friday we went over to Margate to see The Chimera Function, a performance lecture by artist and researched Lo Lo No which involved quite a bit of cutup spoken word stuff. I had never been to the Tom Thumb Theatre before and loved it – the work was pretty interesting, and if you’re interested in experimental spoken-word stuff I would recommend seeing it if you get the chance.
Saturday night I was doing my own spoken word piece at the Free Range open mic night. My work isn’t experimental: I just like telling stories. And as part of it I told my own story, or rather the story of how I didn’t write any stories for over 40 years and finally started when I decided that was really silly.
After that we went along to our friend Edward’s birthday drink, then headed home via a really rather large Five Guys burger (grilled cheese for me, of course). Memo to self: you really don’t need to have even the medium fries. Small is more than enough.
Today was my fortnightly writing group, but I ended up only being able to stay for an hour because I planned to meet up with Kim and head over to Herne Bay to collect her mobile phone (she had left it on the bus on Saturday night, and I needed to be with her to find the bus station where it had been left after being found).
I also took delivery of a new monitor. A couple of months ago I moved the Mac mini and my old monitor out of my study to give myself more desk space, so have been using my laptop on its own. It hasn’t quite worked: although it was nice to have such an open and uncluttered desk, leaning over a laptop doesn’t suit my body, and propping it up on a stand just means I end up peering into the 13in screen from a distance which isn’t great for my eyes.
The new monitor is a Dell S2722QC USB-C 27in 4K thing, which is similar to the ones we use in the office. It’s good – not only does having USB-C mean that I can connect and charge my laptop on it. But Dell’s stands allow me to move the monitor up and down which my old LG couldn’t. So no more having a monitor on top of a stand which isn’t quite the right height.
I didn’t realise how much the details of the environment that I work in made a difference to how I feel about working. Things like having a decent keyboard, a screen that’s the right size and height, and all the other things make a big difference not only on things like my posture and my back but also in how producing and creative I feel. It sounds stupid, but it’s true.
Things I have been writing
At today’s writing group I only had about half an hour so dived in and wrote a short piece of micro-fiction which I’m quite happy with – so I will be publishing that on the writing blog at some point soon.
Things I have been reading
I have been continuing on with Temereire, which is a fun and easy read. This week also saw the arrival of M John Harrison’s Wish I was here too, which is a sort-of biography from my absolute favourite author. I’m looking forward to diving into that.
Weeknote, Sunday 21st May 2023
There’s been a lot of London this week. I’m doing a stint of training sessions for various teams across the business – eight sessions this week, basically two a day – and I prefer to do them from the office so I was in for four days running. The good bit is that I get a later train in (the sessions start at 11, so I can get the 9.21) the bad bit is that it turns out commuting is quite tiring. Who knew???
It does have some plus points. It’s nice to see people face to face, and to have those kind of serendipitous chats to your colleagues which actually drive some of the more valuable creative work. It’s good to have a proper gap between work and home. The hour on the train serves that function really well. And it’s nice to have to avoid the inevitable temptation of ill-disciplined home work, where I slide out of bed at 8.45 and am furiously typing Teams messages fifteen minutes later.
I like working at home. But I like working at home on my stuff, rather than the business. That, I like to keep at arms length – and the blurring of home and work life which I fought hard to resist during the pandemic is finally catching up with me. I need more discipline about that, because I have lots of other things which I want to do.
I was reading Mo Morgan’s weeknote yesterday and he mentioned switching email providers. I’m not sure if Mo is actually my doppelgänger, but I have been doing exactly the same dance this week, working on trying out Fastmail. I’m impressed with it, and I am already certain that at the end of the trial period I’ll move all my email and calendars to it.
Another service that I’ve been looking at this week is Authory, which I have been using and recommending for a few years. I did an interview with them about how it meets my needs and was gushingly positive. If you don’t know it, and you’re a writer on the web, you should be using it: it basically scans sites that you write for for your work and create a personal archive of it. So, when someone on the site’s audience development team decides that your old content should be redirect fodder for strengthening another article’s rankings, you don’t lose your work.
(Yes, I have done that to people’s work. I’m sorry.)
Authory has some really nice features. You can use it to create a portfolio site which has all your content from across the web on it. Or you can have an email susbcription using it, so people get all your stuff if they sign up. Oh, and if you tell it a site where your content is, it will go through and find all the existing content to preserve, which is useful when, like me, you have done a bunch of freelance work over the years.
I am still getting slightly scratchy about how to set up my desk at home. A few weeks ago I exiled the Mac mini into the spare room, because although it was great it also tended to dominate the desk. I had a computer and pretty big monitor right in front of me, and it just didn’t feel right.
So I moved the Mac mini and now use my MacBook Air M2. It’s on a stand at the moment, which raise it to a nice height, and I use the Keychron K2 with it which has a lovely action on it. But somehow it still seems like… a lot? Just having the laptop on the desk might be a better option, even though ergonomically I know for a fact that’s terrible. Or maybe I should just go back to having a monitor and a minimal Mac mini setup. Decisions, decisions.
Yesterday we went down to Chichester and saw “Kaye Donachie: Song for the Last Act” at the Pallant House Gallery. It was really good and I would highly recommend it, and the whole gallery too. Pallant House specialises in modern art and does some really interesting curatorial stuff, contextualising the work in different ways. There’s also some great work by Gwen John, which you need to see.
Things I’ve been reading
For a bit of a change of pace I’ve been reading Temeraire, which is basically Napoleonic Wars with dragons. It’s really fun and of course I’m breezing through it.
Weeknote, Sunday 21st May 2023
There’s been a lot of London this week. I’m doing a stint of training sessions for various teams across the business – eight sessions this week, basically two a day – and I prefer to do them from the office so I was in for four days running. The good bit is that I get a later train in (the sessions start at 11, so I can get the 9.21) the bad bit is that it turns out commuting is quite tiring. Who knew???
It does have some plus points. It’s nice to see people face to face, and to have those kind of serendipitous chats to your colleagues which actually drive some of the more valuable creative work. It’s good to have a proper gap between work and home. The hour on the train serves that function really well. And it’s nice to have to avoid the inevitable temptation of ill-disciplined home work, where I slide out of bed at 8.45 and am furiously typing Teams messages fifteen minutes later.
I like working at home. But I like working at home on my stuff, rather than the business. That, I like to keep at arms length – and the blurring of home and work life which I fought hard to resist during the pandemic is finally catching up with me. I need more discipline about that, because I have lots of other things which I want to do.
I was reading Mo Morgan’s weeknote yesterday and he mentioned switching email providers. I’m not sure if Mo is actually my doppelgänger, but I have been doing exactly the same dance this week, working on trying out Fastmail. I’m impressed with it, and I am already certain that at the end of the trial period I’ll move all my email and calendars to it.
Another service that I’ve been looking at this week is Authory, which I have been using and recommending for a few years. I did an interview with them about how it meets my needs and was gushingly positive. If you don’t know it, and you’re a writer on the web, you should be using it: it basically scans sites that you write for for your work and create a personal archive of it. So, when someone on the site’s audience development team decides that your old content should be redirect fodder for strengthening another article’s rankings, you don’t lose your work.
(Yes, I have done that to people’s work. I’m sorry.)
Authory has some really nice features. You can use it to create a portfolio site which has all your content from across the web on it. Or you can have an email susbcription using it, so people get all your stuff if they sign up. Oh, and if you tell it a site where your content is, it will go through and find all the existing content to preserve, which is useful when, like me, you have done a bunch of freelance work over the years.
I am still getting slightly scratchy about how to set up my desk at home. A few weeks ago I exiled the Mac mini into the spare room, because although it was great it also tended to dominate the desk. I had a computer and pretty big monitor right in front of me, and it just didn’t feel right.
So I moved the Mac mini and now use my MacBook Air M2. It’s on a stand at the moment, which raise it to a nice height, and I use the Keychron K2 with it which has a lovely action on it. But somehow it still seems like… a lot? Just having the laptop on the desk might be a better option, even though ergonomically I know for a fact that’s terrible. Or maybe I should just go back to having a monitor and a minimal Mac mini setup. Decisions, decisions.
Yesterday we went down to Chichester and saw “Kaye Donachie: Song for the Last Act” at the Pallant House Gallery. It was really good and I would highly recommend it, and the whole gallery too. Pallant House specialises in modern art and does some really interesting curatorial stuff, contextualising the work in different ways. There’s also some great work by Gwen John, which you need to see.
Things I’ve been reading
For a bit of a change of pace I’ve been reading Temeraire, which is basically Napoleonic Wars with dragons. It’s really fun and of course I’m breezing through it.
Weeknote, Sunday 14th May 2023
This week was mostly about training at work. Not me doing training: me training other people, and developing supporting materials, and so on. It’s been a while since I did proper training, and it was a lot of work.
It was also interesting how different groups react differently: I did three sessions and two went really well, while the other felt like an absolute disaster. The people I was training in the hard session weren’t getting what they wanted from the tools I’m training out, and it really showed.
Wednesday evening I was lucky enough to spend some time in the company of a really lovely set of people at a dinner organised for Interesting by the redoubtable Russell Davies. It reminded me how much I like the company of people that I don’t know, as long as I let go and allow myself to enjoy it. Interesting 2023 is next week and there are still tickets available: I would strongly recommend you go.
On Friday, I woke up with a nasty sore throat, which meant that I could work, but couldn’t talk. It wasn’t much fun and – as I had the same issue last week when I was unwell – I wonder if it was something connected to that. When I poked around at the very swollen tonsil on the left-hand side, I got a really unpleasant squirt of something out, which probably means it was some kind of infection. It feels OK now, but it’s something to keep an eye on.
It’s not the only thing that’s wrong with me at the moment. I also have an odd trapped nerve in my back, which makes it hard to stand still for long periods of time. Walking is fine, but standing gives me a sore, uncomfortable feeling in my lower back on the left. I think it’s a trapped nerve because of the weird other symptom: when it’s really sore, the front of my left thigh goes a little numb. Getting old is fun!
It makes me realise quite how much the body is a set of interconnected parts which affect each other. Because I have that pain on the left of my back, when I stand for a long period I tend to put more weight on the right leg and that means I end up with a sore ankle. This is how bodies collapse: not in a single bad thing, but in a small series of problems which cause and amplify each other.
All fixable of course, and more important, preventable too. I’ll get there.
Things I’ve written this week
I wrote a piece of micro-fiction called The memory of everything you ever felt, about a quite unfamiliar kind of hell. It’s only a couple of hundred words, and I’ll post it once I have a chance to edit it.
I also started a longer short piece about a man who misses his plane and meets someone who is stuck in-between countries, and so has lived in the airport for some unspecified amount of time. If this sounds a bit like The Terminal… well, it’s not. All is not as it seems. It’s another small exploration of The Weird, and I want to finish it off this week.
Things I’ve read this week
I finished Julia Armfield’s Our wives under the sea, which was outstanding. I really love her writing style, and I wish I could write this kind of amazing clarity of voice.
Of course, that means I’m on to the next book — or rather, books. When I finish one thing, I rarely have a great idea of what I’m going to read next, and so I tend to dive into a few books and see what sticks. This week it’s been a few pages of Rooms of their own by Nino Strachey, some of All gates are open by Irmin Schmidt and a bit of Laine Looney’s look at the world of early microcomputers, The Apple II Age. None of them have quite stuck yet, so I may jump into something else instead. There’s a lot on the list.