Month: March 2018

bookmark_borderWeekend Reading

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Extra long list today as I was too busy wandering the streets of Barcelona last week!

  • Stephen Hawking obituary
    The image of Stephen Hawking – who has died aged 76 – in his motorised wheelchair, with head contorted slightly to one side and hands crossed over to work the controls, caught the public imagination, as a true symbol of the triumph of mind over matter.
    A sad day.

  • ‘Remember to look up at the stars’: the best Stephen Hawking quotes
    The British physicist and author had a way with words. Here are a collection of some of his greatest quotations Stephen Hawking, who has died aged 76, combined a soaring intellect and a mischievous sense of humour that made him an icon of both academia and popular culture.
    More stories of his sense of humour are surfacing, utterly inspirational.

  • ‘I have a loving husband and thought I was secure. Then a cat came into my life’
    Pets can highlight your mental health issues. Ask my late dad how he was, he would tell you, “Fine”. If you wanted more information, it was best to ask him how the dog was. “Oh, the dog is depressed.” My dad was doing what Freud described as projection.
    I do not have a loving husband. Nor a cat. Am I doing ‘life’ wrong again?

  • Halsey delivers powerful, personal poem about sexual abuse at Women’s March
    Halsey penned a striking, personal poem about her own experiences with sexual assault and abuse for 2018’s Women’s March in New York City.
    More power to this, more eyeballs on this, more action because of this, please!

  • The Lottery Hackers
    Gerald Selbee broke the code of the American breakfast cereal industry because he was bored at work one day, because it was a fun mental challenge, because most things at his job were not fun and because he could.
    As always, the varied workings of humankind fascinate me.

  • This Mutant Crayfish Clones Itself, and It’s Taking Over Europe
    Frank Lyko, a biologist at the German Cancer Research Center, studies the six-inch-long marbled crayfish. Finding specimens is easy: Dr. Lyko can buy the crayfish at pet stores in Germany, or he can head with colleagues to a nearby lake.
    The real worry is they hook up with those freaky robots that open doors. All hail our new Crustaco-bot overlords!

  • Watch Jack Nicholson Get Maniacally Into Character for The Shining’s Iconic Axe Scene
    “C’mon you f#ck! C’mon death! Die! Axe murderer! Kill!!” That’s my best transcription of Jack Nicholson’s loopy warm up dialog seen in the above clip, taken from “Making The Shining.”
    I cannot get enough about the makings and workings of this movie.

  • How a Meditation App Changed the Way I Deal with Difficult Emotions
    To say anxiety has always been a part of my life would be an understatement. Quite often, it takes the driver’s seat. It affects everything from little tasks to big decisions, and shows up both in my personal relationships and work life.
    A gentle nudge towards trying some guided meditation. It really can work.

  • Are You a Highly Sensitive Person? Should You Change?
    It is certain that being insensitive is an undesirable trait, but does that mean that the opposite, ‘being sensitive’, is a desirable one?  Apparently, in our Western society we cannot make up our minds: We consider either being insensitive or being sensitive to be unfavorable.
    I think I fall under the ’empathetic’ banner, not sensitive about ‘me’ but can be very sensitive about others (even strangers).

  • Do We Need to Redefine Masculinity—or Get Rid of It?
    I would bet a large sum that my father has seen 90 percent of the films nominated for this year’s Academy Awards. And my guess, too, is that he cried during every single one of them. He’s not embarrassed to cry at movies, or television shows, or commercials. He’s a sap, pretty proudly.
    GET RID!

  • Go Ahead, Millennials, Destroy Us
    As with all historic tipping points, it seems inevitable in retrospect: Of course it was the young people, the actual victims of the slaughter, who have finally begun to turn the tide against guns in this country.
    More of this. Destroy us faster. Please.

  • Long-awaited statue of Scots rent strikes legend Mary Barbour to be unveiled on International Women’s Day
    The organiser of the Govan rent strikes will be honoured with a statue  to the woman behind the Glasgow rent strikes whose name is still synonymous with tenants rights will be unveiled in Govan on International Women’s Day this week (8 March), after a long-running fundraising camp
    A timely day to unveil this. What a powerhouse.

  • 11 Clever Buildings Whose Architects Refused To Cut Down Local Trees
    Because everyone loves trees!

  • Chuck Feeney: the billionaire who gave it all away
    Chuck Feeney today is a man of no property. He and his wife Helga live in a modest rented apartment in San Francisco. He has no car or luxuries of any kind. Actually, come to think of it, he has a very nice watch. It is plastic and cost about $15.
    Forwarding this to Bezos, Musk, etc (not you Gates, you’re doing ok)

  • The Ordinary Greatness of Roger Bannister
    The remarkable—and frustrating—thing about watching Roger Federer hit a forehand is that it is impossible to know, as a spectator, what hitting a Roger Federer forehand feels like. No one else in the world can hit a ball like that.
    Never thought about his achievement this way. Remarkable.

  • What Should I Teach My Sons?
    How to Raise a Boy is a weeklong series centered around this urgent question in the era of Parkland, President Trump, and #MeToo. Sometime around 1987, my father tried to teach me how to shoot a gun.
    More men need to ask this question.

  • Humans slapped and shouted at robot cars in two of six DMV crash reports this year
    The human response to possible takeover by robot overlords is off to a troubling start. Of six crash reports involving robot cars filed in California so far this year, two involved a human approaching the car and attacking it.
    We are all thinking about that Fawlty Towers scene, right?

  • #AskMoreOfHim invites us to expect more of men. Good
    Men in Hollywood have launched #AskMoreOfHim, a campaign to call on men in the movie industry to stand by women in the fight against harassment and violence, organised by The Representation Project, an action group dedicated to combating gender stereotypes.
    Yes to this. It’s not ‘the answer’ but another step on this long overdue journey.

  • Everyone Is Going Through Something
    On November 5th, right after halftime against the Hawks, I had a panic attack. It came out of nowhere. I’d never had one before. I didn’t even know if they were real. But it was real — as real as a broken hand or a sprained ankle.
    Good to see role models speaking up on mental health. Normalise it and it’ll be better for everyone.

  • Glasgow’s oldest street will be desecrated, its built heritage disfigured
    One by one the lights are going out on the most historic street in Glasgow. The High Street slopes down through the city in an arc from north to south, taking in the medieval grandeur of Glasgow Cathedral and some of the best preserved examples of Victorian red sandstone tenements in the UK.
    Utterly shameful. Plenty of example of preserving and re-using these buildings.

  • Aprium, anyone? The pick of hybrid fruit and vegetables
    Row 7, a collaboration between a chef, a plant breeder and a seedsman, aims to sell seeds for vegetables that might not otherwise reach a broad market, reported the New York Times last month.
    Bonus points for first live sighting. You win if you are the first to see any of those ‘smashed on sourdough toast’ (hello Shoreditch?)

  • I Think These Dogs Are Broken…
    And another reason why dogs rule, cats drool.

  • Sir William Henry Perkin: Who was the Victorian chemist who made it possible for Prince to wear purple?
    Pioneering British chemist Sir William Henry Perkin (1838-1907), the man who discovered the first artificial clothing dye entirely by accident, was born 180 years ago today.
    And where would we be without Purple Rain…. *sniff*

  • The ability to feel empathy—or not—is shaped by your genes
    Parents are used to getting the blame for their children’s emotional defects. When it comes to empathy, it turns out they are partly responsible.
    Given my Dad and I react the same way to the same kind of thing, I’ll file this under ‘no shit Sherlock’ (entry #5643)

  • Running From the Pain
    Here’s the most important thing I learned while writing a book on running and mental health: In clinical studies, regular aerobic exercise is as effective as antidepressants in reducing symptoms of mild to moderate depression.
    It’s been over a year since I went out for a run. I’m fitter/stronger now than I’ve ever been, maybe it’s time. It all helps.

  • For Decades, Our Coverage Was Racist. To Rise Above Our Past, We Must Acknowledge It
    It is November 2, 1930, and National Geographic has sent a reporter and a photographer to cover a magnificent occasion: the crowning of Haile Selassie, King of Kings of Ethiopia, Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah. There are trumpets, incense, priests, spear-wielding warriors.
    A gentle lesson to us all. Acknowledge your failings and rise above.

  • 135 Amazing Facts for People Who Like Amazing Facts
    Unsurprisingly not all of these are ‘amazing’ … but quite a few are!

  • Reddit and the Struggle to Detoxify the Internet
    Which Web sites get the most traffic? According to the ranking service Alexa, the top three sites in the United States, as of this writing, are Google, YouTube, and Facebook. (Porn, somewhat hearteningly, doesn’t crack the top ten).
    Reddit has long had many dark corners, so every little helps.

  • ‘I want to explain arranged marriage to white people’
    When Pakistani designer Nashra Balagamwala produced a board game about arranged marriage, most news reports about her wrongly assumed she was dead against it. Actually her position is far more nuanced. And one goal is to explain to people in the UK and elsewhere how it works.
    A lot I didn’t know. Acknowledge, rise above, etc.

  • The “Wakanda Forever” salute has become a symbol to celebrate black excellence
    Excellent.

  • Rumpus Exclusive: Passing as Privileged
    I was at a networking event a couple of months ago, talking to a few other young New York City journalists.
    I get this feeling a lot too.

  • Even After 22 Trillion Digits, We’re Still No Closer To The End Of Pi
    Depending on your philosophical views on time and calendars and so on, today is something like the 4.5 billionth Pi Day that Earth has witnessed. But that long history is nothing compared to the infinity of pi itself.
    But is it a proper ‘pi’! (sorry, pie joke there)

  • Nobody Knows Quite Why Elon Musk Has Been Hiring Staffers From The Onion
    Elon Musk, the man who brought you Telsa, SpaceX, $500 flamethrowers, and a whole lot of bad tweets, is apparently now trying to bring you comedy.
    I know it won’t be THAT straightforward but I can’t figure this out. Maybe the beginnings of a media fight back against the far right? He is a humanitarian after all.

  • Green Mountain at Fox Run: It Never Ends
    Maybe I subconsciously paced my scribbles but it’s still a pleasing outcome. Even if I hadn’t learned a thing, the trip would have been worthwhile just for the fun of writing things down all day long like a big nerd.
    The ever wonderful Shauna writes from the heart. All the feels for this one (and some good thoughts too)

  • Meet the tech evangelist who now fears for our mental health
    Belinda Parmar was a passionate advocate of the digital revolution – but has started keeping her family’s smartphones and laptops locked away to protect her loved ones. Is she right to be so worried? In Belinda Parmar’s bedroom there is a wardrobe, and inside that wardrobe there is a safe.
    Are these stories just a ‘trend’ or is there something more to them?

  • Yale neuroscientists debunked the idea that anyone is “normal”
    Don’t you wish everyone would just act more normal, like you? I know I do. But normal is a relative state that depends on time, place, and circumstance. There’s no one right way to be a human, and that applies to mental as well as physical states.
    YAY! We’re all fuckin weirdos!! (I knew it!)

  • The Books You Need to Read Before Seeing Their Adaptations in 2018
    With Springtime in the air, it’s a great time to leave behind the Winter blues, do some watch-list Spring cleaning, and look forward to what’s to come.
    But first, read The Power by Naomi Alderman. Trust me.

bookmark_borderGlitter mops and fashion

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This is largely the tale of how a love of Korean sauces helped me realise that it’s ok not to conform to fashion.

I was looking through some slow cooker recipes the other day trying to decide what to make for dinner. I ended up picking a recipe for Balsamic Chicken and added the ingredients to my shopping list ahead of my visit to the nearby behemoth that is our 24hr Tesco.

I don’t actually go to a store to do grocery shopping all that often these days, not because I don’t enjoy it – how else would I have discovered the Korean beef sauce that I could happily live on for months – but precisely because I enjoy it a little too much. All those new things to try, all those new temptations lining the shelves, calling my name (how else would I have… ohh I’ve said that already).

The nearby Tesco is one of those huge buildings with aisle after aisle of home wares, electronics, bed linen, crockery, clothes, everything you need to fill a home and that’s all before you get to the groceries. It offers almost everything you could ever need to purchase and is a convenient place to go when I have an urge to buy some nice candles, or a new roasting tin. But it’s that ease and availability that is precisely why I don’t visit it very often.

Well that and the fact that, like every other supermarket the country over, it’s full of idiots who stop randomly and turn their trolley one way while looking another. Also, whilst I’m ranting, for the love of god can supermarkets please agree where eggs go? Stop making me guess!

Annoyances aside, convenience is a big factor in why these types of store are so prevalent and I’m very guilty of allowing myself to be swayed as soon as I step foot inside. Of course in my defence I can offer a very good reason as to why that new mop was needed… actually scratch that, I can’t. It’s just a mop and I already had one that did the job, but it looked like a nicer mop and hey, it was only £9, they are practically giving it away!

When is a mop not a mop? When it’s an improvement? When it’s aesthetically pleasing? Can a mop be aesthetically pleasing and, if so, why would you even need a mop that is pleasing on the eye, it’s a flipping mop!?!

Of course it’s one thing to have a rational thought process about the purchase of a new mop when you are sat at home, but as soon as we walk through those doors, well, suffice to say we’ve all fallen prey to the power of suggestive buying, we all have a glittery mop purchase in our past, don’t deny it. It’s almost like these stores are designed to make us buy things we don’t actually need, like they are engineered specifically to get you to the point that buying a glittery mop seems like such an obvious decision that, well, why wouldn’t you?

And then a few weeks later you go to mop the kitchen floor, pick-up said mop and, while you watch sunlight dancing off the glittery handle in a joyous little lighting display that fills the room with sparkles, think to yourself “why the fuck did I buy this?”.
This type of impulse buying is something I’ve been guarding against during my efforts to de-clutter and minimise my life, so much so that I’ve largely been getting my groceries delivered and happily paying the delivery fee rather than risk my own lack of willpower/ability to be manipulated by special offers and shiny new things (Editors note: if only he could find a way to resist those fiends at Apple and their pretty offerings).

With that tactic in place I’m more confident that I am winning the war of the creeping invasion of needless things into my but I know the battle isn’t over, as some recent and somewhat frivolous purchases have proven.

And there’s the rub, whilst I’m all for living a simpler life, a life that doesn’t rely on things and belongings, I’m still drawn to pretty shiny things and, let’s be honest here, what’s prettier than a rope of led baubles in the colours of a rainbow! Did I need them, of course not! But after coveting them for some months I finally caved and I absolutely, 100% refuse to give myself a hard time for it.

OK, maybe it’s more like 80% of me that is trying to convince the rest of my brain that this purchase was ok, that it doesn’t mean I’m no longer a minimalist at heart.
I’m not really sure what kick-started my drive towards minimalism. When I first got my own place, a place that was mine to define, I looked at things I’d always liked in the past. The clean lines of Scandinavian design, pristine white rooms with sparse decoration were what I thought I liked but I now realise that my hankering for less clutter was a more a reaction to having to compromise in the past, what better way to say this is mine than to embrace my natural tidiness by taking it to the extreme.

Looking back that compromise was no bad thing but as it was all I’d ever known – I went from living with my parents straight to co-habiting – suddenly having free rein to do whatever I wanted left me a little bewildered.

At first I bought functional things like a sofa, a coffee table, a TV unit, and some bookcases, but soon I realised that I wanted to be more mindful about what I owned and started to look for furniture and decorations that I really liked and would enjoy having in my home; my Eames recliner, the little glass table that sits next to it, the brass peacock, the vintage lamp and reclaimed shade, the vintage drinks cabinet.

At the same time that I was buying those things I was also stripping away my belongings and now I’m approaching the point now where I’m pretty comfortable that I have everything I need and now, stepping back to look at the belongings that constitute my life, I find myself wondering what style I was aiming for as I went along. What is my design? What is my minimalism? And why is it important to me to have one?

I’ve always been a bit of a style magpie or perhaps a style-less one as I don’t really follow fashion all that closely. I’ve always admired those people who have their own sense of style, something distinct that makes them stand out, something that says they are unique and interesting (I definitely have a ‘type’ of person who I’m attracted to and this is definitely part of that).

It is safe to say that I am not one of those people and in both clothing and home decor I’ve always tended towards the safer end of the fashion spectrum; function over fashion.
At least I used to.

What I’m finding these days is that by limiting myself to fewer purchases I’m much more considered when I buy new things and less likely to buy something just because it meets a basic need. Sure IKEA does some great cheap functional furniture but that vintage chest of drawers is far more pleasing to the eye whilst offering the same function. Which would you rather have? That mind set also means I’m less likely to settle for something if it doesn’t catch my eye and sure, I’d like to think I have an overall design in mind, but more often I’m purchasing items based on much simpler factors. Does it do what I need and does it look pretty.

Breaking out of being in-style has other benefits as I’m not bothered about whether my new lampshade is the right shade of copper to go with the slate grey feature wall, and so I find myself drawn to vibrant colours and loud patterns more and more. Clothes falls into the same bracket, with the vast majority of the blue/grey/black options that most stores seem to stock leaving me wondering why kids get all the great clothes!

Safe to say I’m embracing my own style choices more and more, and giving fewer and fewer fucks if other people don’t like what I wear or how my home looks. I’m still not completely immune to criticism but hey, I love my multi-coloured trainers, I adore my lime green sofa and colourful rug, and yes the rainbow lights fit in perfectly well. It doesn’t matter that my home is a mish-mash of items, it’s MY home.

Here it is then, this is my minimalism, this is my style; it is considered, it is colourful, it is a little cluttered but full of things that make me smile. And it feels good to at last have some sort of style even if it is an ever evolving mishmash of ideas, a ramshackle collection of things that I like.

And as it happens, for those of you who’ve been reading along, I think this matches my personality pretty well. I am inconsistent, I am a little cluttered and I like to make people smile. I will never be the most stylish person in the room nor the most considered, but I’ll be me.

So next time you see that person with the multi-coloured trainers strutting his way through the aisles of your local supermarket, do me a favour, don’t judge them if all they have in their trolley is a sparkly mop bucket (the mop was feeling lonely, ok!).

bookmark_borderSunday Mornings

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Late last year I met a friend in the pub for a celebratory ‘end of week’ catchup. We got our bitching about colleagues and various crappy work issues dealt with whilst the post work crowds rolled in, but as they started to head home to loved ones, or headed off for a night out on the town, we moved on to other topics; specifically Sunday mornings and just how much they can suck.

As a child, Sunday mornings were largely about going to church. Dressed in my best Sunday clothes, hair slicked down to look presentable, I was shipped off to Sunday School before attending the morning service. Sometimes the Sunday School kids would sit together upstairs and try not to giggle and goad each other through the service. Other times I sat with my parents and their big hymn books, singing the hymns and letting the words of the sermon wash over me, the prayers lulling me towards sleep. Then it was home and time to head off to visit my Grandparents.

I fell away from those Sunday mornings after leaving school; I think the presence of the church was more of a structure that my parents thought would benefit me, than a particularly strong belief they held and, looking back, I have to agree that it had it’s positives. But, ultimately, God lost out to the demonic attraction of alcohol and women.

And thus my Sunday mornings changed to be more about recuperating than worshipping, even when that included an early 7am start at my weekend job. Mind you, typically Sunday morning was already 4 or 5 hours old as I stumbled home to the accompaniment of the dawn chorus.

Then it was time for me to leave home and move in with my then girlfriend (and future wife), and Sunday mornings shifted once more. How long we could lie-in given that we’d only gotten home at 4am, and only kicked the last revellers out of our flat at 5am? Such were the problems of living in the closest flat to the high street, minutes from the legendary Cheers nightclub, where people would decant to ours and there was always one or to hangers-on to be found the next morning, face down on the living room carpet.

We moved a year later and as we grew out of the 4am finishes our Sunday mornings started to change as those late nights became more infrequent. More and more the long lies I’d gotten accustomed to shifted to more grown-up activities, liking getting up and ‘getting stuff done’.

A move to England sealed the deal, with new places to explore and only the two of us to explore them. Sunday mornings were still relaxed but started earlier and always with the anticipation of getting out and about. Faster forward a few more years and a small black furry creature brought Sunday mornings to life around 6am each morning whether you liked it or not.

Which is all pretty standard, life moves on, you change and adapt, your needs and desires change too.

And change they did once more. Since my divorce, and through subsequent relationships, I’ve been lucky enough to try some other Sunday mornings, lazing in bed with cups of coffee, or steaming mugs of tea, snuggled up on cold winter mornings talk about everything and nothing, big spoon/little spoon, early rises for cold winter walks before falling back into bed again to warm up.

I’d forgotten about that conversation until last weekend as I lay in bed, trying to figure out how bad my hangover was (not too bad thankfully) and whether I could be bothered getting out of bed. I had nothing planned for the day and with the remnants of the recent snow still limiting my options for getting out and about, I just lay there for a while and spun that conversation over in my mind, contemplating just how much Sunday mornings can suck when you are single.

I’m not sure exactly what it is I miss. I’ve been single for a couple of years (bar some dates here and there) and I’m perfectly comfortable in my own company most of the time, but I do miss waking up next to someone on a Sunday morning. I miss the gentle arguing about who has to go and make coffee, I miss listening to someone else’s choice of Sunday morning music, I miss the quiet conversations about life.

Sunday mornings were always the mornings you could take a little more time with, you could always lie a little longer on a Sunday. But I guess sometimes Sunday mornings are just a little lonely when you are single, when the bed suddenly feels far too big, the coffee too far away, and your lazy day fills with an air of melancholy.

It was with a sigh that I got up, slipped in to my slippers and donned my dressing gown. Coffee first, for one.

bookmark_borderGig: Elbow and John Grant

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We got the train to Manchester in the morning. It rained the entire time we were there, soaking us to the bone as we explored the city centre. We ate in a chain restaurant, Italian I think, before heading to the gig.

That was a few years ago and though it wasn’t the first time I’d seen Elbow live, it was the gig that sits large and raw in my memory. Bawling my eyes out as the lyrics to Scattered Black & Whites ripped my heart wide open, snapshots of childhood memories, my Grandparents, my baby sister, tears streaming down my face.

Maybe it’s because he’s roughly my age with, it seems, a similar propensity for emotion and love and heartbreak, but the lyrics of Guy Garvey have always landed hard and deep. He has the uncanny knack of grabbing a passing emotion, something you feel every day, and capturing it in simple, beautiful prose; “Coming home I feel like I, Designed these buildings I walk by”, tell me that doesn’t strike you when you go back to your hometown.

And that’s the charm of the aptly named Elbow (joints are functional, not glamourous after all) a band that are happy dealing in the humdrum of everyday life, the joy of happiness, the sadness of separation, and even when they do offer the boombastic it is still based on our shared humanities, and still cuts to the quick when needed; from the opening line of Newborn – “I’ll be the corpse in your bathtub. Uselss” – to the closing chords, folding in on top of one another to the cacophonous climax.

More recently, John Grant has started to occupy a similar place, writing with brutal honesty about the fears and insecurities that many people face day in, day out. He occupies a slightly different musical sphere but has the same self-effacing, inclusive natural warmth that Guy Garvey so easily displays on stage. He is equally as fond of the shift from gentle ballad to pulsing electronic throbbing noise, and we got the gamut of his talents in his support slot. Having seen him a couple of years ago at Glastonbury, I can confirm he is definitely one to catch when he returns.

It’d been a couple of years since I’d seen Elbow perform live and it was, as always, a wonderful delight. From the opening blare of the assembled horns of Starlings, through the quiet dark hope of Puncture Repair, to THAT final song that never fails to remind us of our place in this grand thing called humanity.

Elbow have been and have remained consistently good over the 10 years I’ve been seeing them live (which isn’t as easy as it sounds), and whilst they might not be revolutionaries, nor to the musical tastes of some, there is a lot to be said about spending an evening pouring your heart out before having it filled again with compassion and hope, before being hoisted to the rafters as one.

One day like this a year’d see me right, we sang and ohhh how true that is.

bookmark_borderWeekend Reading

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  • How to get yourself out of a funk
    On Tuesday, I woke up feeling a bit tired, uninspired, and just generally not in the mood to tackle my to-do list for the day. I understand myself well enough by now to know how to react to this situation (most of the time) but was curious about how other people deal with such episodes.
    For those of you suffering a bit of Cabin Fever thanks to all the snow…

  • Soderbergh’s thriller shot on iPhone premieres in Berlin
    Director Steven Soderbergh said on Wednesday he so enjoyed making his psychological thriller “Unsane” on an iPhone, he would find it hard to go back to conventional filmmaking.
    Interesting thoughts on the impact of smartphones.

  • How the sushi boom is fuelling tapeworm infections
    As eating raw fish has become more popular, gruesome tapeworm tales have emerged. But how worried should sashimi lovers be – and how else might we become infected? The good news, said A&E doctor Kenny Bahn, was that the patient who had turned up at the emergency department was not dying.
    YUMMY!

  • Adopting a more active lifestyle today could have benefits for your personality decades from now
    According to statistics published by the British Heart Foundation, we spend 76 days per year, on average, sitting. Indeed, the World Health Organisation describes physical inactivity as a “global public health problem” that contributes to millions of deaths each year.
    Reminding myself of this when I drag myself to the gym

  • My Abuser’s Gender Made Me Doubt My Experience
    Here are some things I know: It happened in September of my junior year at college. It happened on a Friday. I left the party and went home with a well-liked acquaintance. The next morning I met a friend for coffee. She laughed, and said she was proud of me for being so “wild.
    Abuse is abuse. But how it is presented does differ. Horrible.

  • Scotland on target to deliver biggest boom in social housing since the 1970s
    NEW RESEARCH HAS revealed that Scotland is on course to achieve its pledge of delivering the biggest boom in new social housing since the 1970s.
    Go Scotland!

  • This Woman Is Taking On Racism And Sexism In Italy — And Getting Death Threats For It
    Laura Boldrini didn’t worry much about the death threats until she received a bullet in the mail.
    This is fucking awful. All power to her.

  • As Medals Pile Up, Norway Worries: Are We Winning Too Much?
    Surpassing its own lofty expectations, Norway has delivered the greatest performance in the history of the Winter Games, winning a total of 39 medals, 14 of them gold.
    How lovely are the Norwegians?

  • Is the Answer to Phone Addiction a Worse Phone?
    I’ve gone gray, and it’s great. In an effort to break my smartphone addiction, I’ve joined a small group of people turning their phone screens to grayscale — cutting out the colors and going with a range of shades from white to black.
    Another article on ‘less smartphone’. Tempted to try this, but not THAT tempted. Pick up a book already, people!

  • We need an internet of unmonetisable enthusiasms
    The best podcast in the history of the world ever (right now, according to me, your mileage might vary) is the declaratively titled A History of Jazz. It’s informal subtitle – One Record At A Time – hints at its genius. This podcast is not in a hurry.
    Loving this so far.

  • Anatoli Bugorski, the Man Who Put His Head Inside a …
    A particle accelerator is a machine that propels charged particles at nearly light speed. Invented in the 1930s, it’s used to study all thing particle physics, and has led to discoveries of groundbreaking new particles like the Higgs boson.
    YIKES!

  • You’ll Need to Cool Off After a Bowl of Respiro del …
    Picture this. It’s a boiling hot summer day, and you just need to cool off. So you pop into a little shop and order yourself a cone of bright-pink ice cream (strawberry is so refreshing) without bothering to read the label first.
    I love ice cream but… nope! nope nope nope nope nope.

  • Your Guide to the King-Sized World of ‘Castle Rock’
    2017 was a banner year for Stephen King fans. From “Mr. Mercedes” to “Gerald’s Game” to the record-breaking success of It, King adaptations saw a major bump in quality.
    Fab stuff and interesting news about a new TV show (please be good!)

  • Review: Plus+ by Bethany Rutter
    For a few years now, I’ve had trouble finding a style icon I can relate to.
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bookmark_borderLighting in the dark

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“It’s 106 miles to Chicago, we have a full tank of gas, half a packet of cigarettes, it’s dark and we’re wearing sunglasses… HIT IT!”

Last weekend saw me driving through to Edinburgh as the last remnants of daylight faded to black, I had already taken my sunglasses off, and I don’t smoke, but the sentiment was the same; (mini) road trip!

The previous evening found me and several hundred other people, wandering the streets of Strathbungo, a suburb in the southside of Glasgow, enjoying the labours of many a budding window artist as we partook of the annual Strathbungo Winter Wanderland. With local roads closed to traffic, we took to the streets to peer over railings and hedgerows to see what was on offer. Most of the streets are three story tenements so there was a LOT of window real estate on offer.

The idea of decorating your windows is simple enough, yet the possibilities are endless and it was fascinating to see how the residents had tackled their part of the project. Decorate one window, decorate all of your windows or in some cases, get together with your neighbours in the rest of the tenement and decorate them all in a giant montage. One buliding had a giant lobster spread across several windows, another a homage to Jimi Hendrix in one window and in the next, with a small speaker perched on the window ledge, was someone playing classic Hendrix tracks live.

Smoke machines, projectors abound, balloons were deployed to excellent effect in some, and yet for me it was the simpler designs that often won out. Definitely one to watch for next year.

It was with these images still fresh in my mind that I drove through to Edinburgh. I was heading for the Zoo and the Chinese Lantern display to see what all the fuss was about; it’s been scattered through my social media feeds for the past month and I was genuinely excited to see it up close.

On arrival one thing was very clear, I had not fully appreciated the scale of what was on offer. It was a bit odd being in the zoo at night and I completely lost my bearings, but we dutifully followed the sign posts and at every turn were greeted with a variety of animals, some animated, all light up bright against the night sky. All the way round to the central Chinese pavilion, where we were entertained by a display of acrobatics by a Chinese troop. Marvellous!

I didn’t plan my weekend to be quite so themed but such are the happy coincidences of life. I’m also not quite sure why such simple things are such an attraction but both venues brought the same level of delight to my heart, and a smile to my face, so I guess there’s something to be said for the humble light bulb and it’s modern cousin the LED.

And I wasn’t alone. As I wandered the streets of Strathbungo and zipped around the Zoo, it was the same basic human reaction that was on display. It’s the same you get at firework displays which illicit the same gentle smiles as the night sky explodes into life.

Is it a primitive preference of light over dark that draws us to such things? Do the lights offer a sense of primitive safety over the danger our long dead ancestors must have felt before they discovered fire? is it the simple contrast of colours against blackness that is pleasing delightful to the eye? Or, perhaps, in these days of doom and gloom, of Brexit and Trump and Syrian Wars, these glowing colours offer us a few small moments of wonder and marvel, enough to temporarily soothe our battered spirits and give us pause before the dawn comes again.