The grass, such as it is this time of year, is back. ### Status: * The Christmas tree came down today. I’m a full Twelve Days absolutist, because otherwise what’s the point of the song and am intrigued by people who put their decorations up in late November (which is fine - better to light a candle and all that) but tear them down before NYE even. But then I worked in retail for most of my 20s and have always made the distinction between the run up to Christmas, which is hell, and actual Christmas, which starts at 5pm on the 24th, is quite nice actually, and lasts for twelve days. * A few weeks ago Fi read about PFAS forever chemicals and went scorched earth on any scratched teflon in the house, which included the pan in the bread making machine I mentioned recently. The idea of stopping this small but regular activity made me sad, so we got a new one which arrived today. We also have a load of new stainless steel pans and are debating the pros and cons of seasoning vs scouring. * Last night it was minus five degrees which doesn’t happen very often in Birmingham. I popped out to check the rabbits were OK (they’re fine) and was struck by how cold it _didn’t_ feel. The absence of any wind or moisture meant there wasn’t a chill factor and a couple of friends of ours from the northern American territories confirmed this to be the case. Sure it’s cold, but it’s not unpleasant. As I write this it’s well above zero and raining. I’m staying in. ### Overnight listening: * In Our Time: The Franco-American Alliance 1778 ### Music: * Scout Niblett - blimey I’d forgotten how good she is. If you’re not familar, start here. ### Reading: * Molly Crabapple: They tried to smear him as an antisemite – but Mayor Zohran Mamdani walks in a rich Jewish tradition * Helping strangers access the internet - Doug Belshaw explains how TOR works and its interesting new Snowflake plugin which you can install to help people bypass internet censorship. ### Watching: * Wax or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees (info) _1:33:10_ * Recreating an Ancient Pump (with no moving parts) _13:11_ * Small Men of History from Hitchcock’s Saboteur. _2:29_ ### Telly: * University Challenge - really enjoyed the Christmas specials and rather chuffed with the winning team.

Wally and Lav are still not sure about the snow and are wondering where the grass went. ### Status: Feeling better today. Talking stuff through with Fi yesterday and with my sister today helped. Filed my self-assessment tax return today. Wasn’t putting it off for any reason other than just another thing on the list and I completed it in 10 minutes. I’ve done so little self-employment since the CFS hit that I’d only earned £200 in that tax year, which is the sort of number HMRC just aren’t interested in. (Amusingly my PAYE employment had undertaxed me by £1.80 so I did have tax to manually pay this year. Some numbers they are very interested in.) In the old days freelance work was about 2/5th of my income and now it’s basically nothing, but I think I’ll stay registered. While I don’t really know what’s going to happen with my employment status over the next few years, I suspect freelance bits and bobs will probably be on the cards. ### Overnight listening: * In Our Time: Arianism - not, as I thought for a while, aryanism, but the early Christian sect that the Goths converted to before being told it wasn’t the correct Christian sect anymore and they were all heretics now. Early Christianity is turning out to be really fascinating. ### Reading: * Confucius vs Qin Shi Huang * Why I left Substack * It’s hard to justify Tahoe icons - if you’ve been tricked into updating your Mac to the most recent operating system this might explain why you’re struggling to use the menus. ### Looking: * Thirteen Japanese views of snow ### Telly: * University Challenge

Frosty rectangle in found in garden. ### Status: A down day today. Woke feeling a bit depressed so went back to sleep. Optimism levels are low. Eased off over the day (I’m always better in the evenings) but the reality of this being a long haul to no certain recovery is sometimes hard to avoid. ### Overnight listening: * In Our Time: Pierre-Simon Laplace ### Reading: * Steven Levy – I Thought I Knew Silicon Valley. I Was Wrong (archive) * John Harris – In 2026, remember this: Britain is much better than it was in so many ways. Don’t swallow the right’s lies. * Readers reply: should we turn the internet off? - the range of replies to this is fascinating. Yes, the obvious response is “you don’t hate the internet, you hate capitalism” but seeing it all laid out like this… ### Watching: * Laura Kampf * Henry Brown said a word a day for an entire year ### Telly: * Bay of Fires * University Challenge

Lav is still nonplussed about the snow but Wally is out and about in it. He was hanging around me much more than usual though. It was almost like having a dog for a while there. ### Status: Did an hour of work for Loaf today, getting the online shop ready for the new year - hopefully for the last time as a the jury-rigged Wordpress mess I oversaw will be replaced by something else in the spring. It might be equally jury-rigged (e-commerce is not optimised for baked goods, I find) but it won’t be my mess anymore. Felt a bit deflated afterwards and had a good chat with Fi about _stuff_ which helped. I have my rearranged appointment with the chronic fatigue therapist in a fortnight which couldn’t come sooner really. I have a lot of questions about how this all plays out. ### Overnight listening: * If Books Could Kill: Elon Musk pt 2 - I like their thesis that Walter Issacson went into this wanting to write a Great Man biography and didn’t, or wouldn’t, realise he was witness to a much bigger story about the radicalisation of the billionaire class. ### Reading: * Discourse 2000: Out on the wildy, windy moors: Judge Dredd – The Cursed Earth - I’d say this is the first 2000AD story that properly defines 2000AD for me, taking it from another kids comic to something quite distinct and other. ### Completed: * 45 groups of 45 - I’ll admit to discovering all the groups are in the source code so I had that open in another window for the final stretch for when I really had no fucking idea. Still took me four days. My fellow CFS suffering friend did it on her phone in three. Go girl! Back to the jigsaws for me then. ### Telly: * Wild London - lovely cozy Attenborough telly, though I was a bit disconcerted when he said hedgehogs “prefer” slugs. They don’t. They eat them as a last resort and should not be relied upon as slug control. Still, whatever gets the public to look after them is OK with me. * University Challenge - the Christmas specials continue to entertain with panels of old people totally out of their depth. Lancaster were particularly hilarious.

Moss has a snow cap. ### Status: Much sleeping, let the rabbits out in the snow (they weren’t impressed), great-nephew M came over for a bit, powered up the old infra-red camera to diagnose cold spots in the house, hopefully entered the end game of 45 groups of 45, screwed the legs onto Fiona’s new desk, which she’s very happy with. ### Overnight listening: * If Books Could Kill: Elon Musk pt 1 - focussing on Walter Issacson’s hagiography and his inability to see through Musk’s bullshitery as much as the bullshittery itself. ### Reading: * ‘A place of darkness and light’: the uninhabited Japanese island that became a rabbit paradise - I have so many thoughts and feelings about the Japanese rabbit island, the main one being it’s not cute, it’s a hugely problematic animal welfare issue. Still, it’s good to get a bit more of the history of the place, and those listening devices in the header photo look pretty neat. * A Difficult Few Months - Robin Ince reflects on the final night of Monkey Cage * A website to destroy all websites. How to win the war for the soul of the internet and build the web we want. - [old-man-voice] I’ve read (and written!) similar polemics over the years but it’s always good to keep up to date with the nuances of this sort of thing. (I really hope “the web we want” isn’t formatted in this style-over-accessibility way, and at least renders in Reader view better than this. Sheesh.) * Ancient Everyday Weirdness - one of those loooong Bruce Sterling pieces which are usually worth it in the end. This one starts off with some musings about multitools and has some nice lines. This one, about multitool nerds, could apply to a lot of contemporary things: “Normal people are becoming weird like them, much faster than normal people can scold them, assimilate them, or calm them down.” ### Telly: * Bay of Fires - Fi discovered this and I’m quite liking it so far.

Fi sanding in the shed. ### Status: Around a decade ago I decided to learn how to do woodwork adequately. I’d never really got beyond hammering two bits of wood together and, having dabbled in making camera obscuras, realised this was something I wanted to know more about. I did a short course at an adult education place and when we decided the rabbits needed a shed we doubled the size so I could have a small workshop at the bottom of the garden, followed by the inevitable accumulation of tools and “useful” wood. My woodwork skills became adequate and I can construct things that hold together, even occasionally getting paid to do so. I enjoyed pootling in the shed, making things with my hands that existed in the world. I mildly resented not being encouraged to learn such things as a youth but was keen to make up for lost time. And then I got ill. I still potter in the shed a bit and power tools help a lot but, like with everything, my capacity has dramatically reduced. I take heart from all the old blokes you see still working with wood in their sheds but shifting down to that level has been tricky. I just want to get stuck in and realise the things in my head, and I just can’t anymore. Last week Fi got a new desktop from the street group chat. While it’s the perfect size for her office it turned out to be three scaffolding planks fixed together. Nice and chunky but with a warped surface. Since she’s going to be typing and writing on this she needs it to be flat. Simple! I have a nice hefty floor sander (I usually use it upside down as a mini belt sander) and running that over it for a while should get everything nice and even. So we cary the planks to the shed and I have a quick go. Nope, I can’t do more than five minutes of this. So I show Fi how to do it. Usually I’m pretty good at teaching, but I’m already a bit tired so I struggle not to get impatient. Thankfully she gets the hang of it and I give her space and it all works out. She has a fairly flat desk now, at least in the areas that matter. We can do the rest later if necessary. As I’m sitting in the garden watching Fi work I’m trying not to feel too sad about this situation. It was around the time I first got Covid that my woodworking confidence turned a corner and the window in which I was able to put it into practice, as the Long Covid turned into Chronic Fatigue, was distressingly small. Last year saw me doing “grief work” for the stuff I suddenly found myself unable to do, and starting to figure out what it is that I can do now – what’s left and what’s new. It’s taking a very long time though and moments like today remind me that it’s really barely begun. I wonder if I should just get rid of all the tools and call it quits. That might be easier than trying to figure out what I can and can’t do with them. But if I do that with everything what would I have left? ### Overnight listening: * Night Tracks ### Reading: * I’ve read 3,000 studies about covid: here’s what you’re ignoring that could (still) harm you or a loved one * Birmingham revellers turn out for non-existent fireworks – for second new year in a row ### Telly: * University Challenge

V makes sushi on her 21st. ### Status: Still feeling fragile but was determined to make it to my niece’s 21st for sushi and dumplings which she was making with my sis and bro-in-law. A nice time but I’m wiped now, of course. Le Sigh. ### Overnight listening: * In Our Time: The Russo-Japanese War ### Reading: * My big night out: I realised I could leave the house party behind – and everything else that made me feel small - always a fan of Laura Barton’s writing. * John Allison notices he has a Substack newsletter - _‌I apologise. Despite my best efforts, we have drifted into a redundant intimacy._ * Erik Davis was a Teenage Jesus Freak ### Distracted by: * 45 groups of 45 - if you’re going to rip off Only Connect’s wall (ahem, NY Times) then this is the way to go. I’ve matches 447 of the 2025 items (aha!) so far. ### Watching: * Ants Pants: Finishing my giant grease pit project - part 3 of 3

The younger great-nephew didn’t want the box his gift came in. Wally is more than happy to check it out. Lav will destroy it later. ### Status: Bit bored of saying how tired I am so here’s my top 16 films I watched in 2025. * The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman’s Portrait Photography (2016) * The Ballad of Wallis Island (2025) * Blue Moon (2025) * The Brutalist (2024) * E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) * The French Dispatch (2021) * I Am Martin Parr (2024) * Listers: A Glimpse Into Extreme Birdwatching (2025) * My Old Ass (2024) * Nosferatu (2024) * One Battle After Another (2025) * The Phoenician Scheme (2025) * A Real Pain (2024) * The Substance (2024) * Sunlight (2024) * Wake Up Dead Man (2025) All of the above I rated five stars. I watched a total of 77 films this year (so far - might watch one tonight or tomorrow) and they break down like this: 16 at ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - Best thing ever. Would rewatch and highly recommend. 36 at ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️☆ - Very good and a satisfying watch. 23 at ⭐️⭐️⭐️☆☆ - Adequate entertainment. Enjoyed it for what it was. 2 at ⭐️⭐️☆☆☆ - Don’t exactly regret watching but probably wouldn’t recommend. 0 at ⭐️☆☆☆☆ - Bobbins. Avoid. The lowest rating is a bit misleading as anything that poor didn’t make it past 15 minutes as so wasn’t actually “watched”. But I’m fairly happy with the distribution. Watched a lot of things, most were good. From the four star list, a few that I’d like to draw attention to: * Agent of Happiness (2024) * Paying For It (2024) * September 5 (2024) * Sometimes I Think About Dying (2023) * The Surfer (2024) Something I’d like to change going forward is to dig a bit deeper into the archive and augment my bias towards new releases. Not just filling in gaps, particularly in continental European cinema, but to also revisit favourite films I’ve not seen since I was a young’un and see if they stand up to my wizened eyes. If nothing interesting happens tomorrow I’ll tell you all about the telly I watched this year. Fingers crossed, eh? ### Overnight listening: * In Our Time: David Ricardo - the free trade dude who really didn’t like landlords. ### Reading: * What an unprocessed photo looks like - I have an intrinsic dislike for the hyperreal photos that come out of modern cameraphones but it’s worth remembering all digital images have been processed and manipulated to make them visible. To probably misquote Ansel Adams says, half the work in done with the camera, half in the darkroom. * Campaigner turned down MBE over ‘scapegoating’ of people with disabilities - the best people in the New Years honours list are those who turn the damned things down. * Me? I thought, OBE me? Up yours, I thought - Benjamin Zephaniah ### Watching: * Rian Johnson Breaks Down a Scene From Wake Up Dead Man

Four-and-twenty-odd magpies having a proper to-do in the big tree today. Dive bombing each other and squawking like the genetic future of their species depended on it. ### Status: Recovery day 3. Feeling mostly OK but very aware that I’m on thin ice and any exertion can tip me over. Started a conversation with Fi this afternoon that quickly got too interesting and had to shut it down as my head started ringing which has continued into the evening. That’s probably what I hate most about chronic fatigue, the limited capacity to engage intellectually. Being sofa-bound I was resenting the paucity of good reads on the internet this time of year, but I already have a backlog of tabs open. Maybe tomorrow! ### Overnight listening: * In Our Time: Iris Murdoch ### Reading: * Vulnerable people still living in unsafe supported housing in England two years after law was passed - a hotspot for this is about a mile down the road from me. * Tommy Robinson says he found Jesus in prison. Churches disagree about how to respond. - It’s going to be interesting to see how far-right Christian nationalism establishes itself in the UK over the next few years. One thing I noticed when the flaggers came to Stirchley was how they promote the English flag as a Christian flag, presumably as a way to exclude people from ownership of “England”. It’s a tool in the box, for sure. Whether it’s an effective one remains to be seen. ### Watching: * Elle’s Sci-Fi Book Club | Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (57:45) - I last read this in my early 20s and it’s definitely overdue for a re-read. * Noah Kalina: Reverse Chronological Order (2025) (10:13) ### Telly: * Down Cemetery Road

Trying to get a nice picture of the buns during the banana frenzy. Got this instead. ### Status: Recovery day 2. Funny thing about betwixtmas, it lends itself to chronic fatigue recovery days. Despite what I tell myself I still have a lingering guilt about my enforced rests, but not this week cos everybody’s at it. (For some value of “everybody” - I’ve done my time in the retail trenches.) ### Overnight listening: * In Our Time: The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth ### Reading: * Entirely too many thoughts about Wake Up Dead Man - yeah, read this last night when I couldn’t sleep. Upgrading the film to the full five stars and scheduling a re-watch for the new year. * John Allison’s albums of the year - always good value. * In the battle against antisemitism we must accept that Zionism means different things to different people - I realised a while back that while I think I have a pretty good grasp of the rights and wrongs and have been educating myself on the history of Palestine / Israel, I just can’t have a discussion with anyone about it because I don’t know what exactly they’re talking about. Not that they need me in the discussion, of course. ### Bookmarking * Plain English ffmpeg - this looks like a gamechanger for those who rely on ffmpeg but don’t use it regularly enough to remember anything. ### Watching: * Ants Pants - Giant grease pit project ep2 : Pouring everything! - alongside being entertainingly zen I’m always impressed by Andris' cinematography and editing. The 90 seconds from this point are just gorgeous and should in a gallery. Someone do a video essay on him, please. ### Telly: * Down Cemetery Road

Trees from today’s walk along the river. ### Status: Fi got me a crochet starter pack (some wool and a hook) so I guess I’m at the stage where crochet happens. Checked out the basic beginners video and it looks fairly achievable. I got her a Jonathan Edwards print which looks gorgeous in the flesh. Went for a walk along the river (well, I was on my scooter) with sister. Had a very nice meal with Fi. Then sister and niece came over for pudding and I retired to write this up. That’s enough Christmas for one year. ### Overnight listening: * Night Tracks ### Music: * A Charlie Brown Christmas by Vince Guaraldi Trio * A Kind of Blue by Miles Davis ### Reading: * We invited a man into our home at Christmas and he stayed with us for 45 years * Years of scapegoating rhetoric has led to ‘envy and resentment’ of those with blue badges, research finds ### Telly: * Only Connect * Gone Fishing: Christmas special

Creepy Santa on great-neph’s windowsill wishes you a merry eve. ### Status: Christmas Eve happened. Went to visit Fi’s family south of Birmingham for an hour, which was nice. Then I had a nap while she went to the Bournville carols-on-the-green, returning with a couple of chill friends for dinner. Probably reached my limit of activity and we’ll see how it affects tomorrow, but tomorrow is traditionally a do-very-little day for us, so it’s all good. ### Overnight listening: * In Our Time: Herodotus ### Reading: * Landslide; a ghost story - long and essential looking piece by Erin Kissane about “the societal problem of collective derangement” which I will be slowly digesting this week. The first bit, about an earthquake in Alaska, is fascinating even if you don’t read on. * Further thoughts from Adam Greenfield, which again, I haven’t read properly yet. * The Best Films I Saw in 2025 - my chum Joel has good taste. * In Berlin, I took an evening class on fascism – and found out how to stop the AfD * Truth in fantasy: what Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials taught us over its 30-year run - I haven’t read, or heard much about, the second trilogy. I love that he apparently lays into Dawkins-style atheism. _In The Book of Dust, a 20-year-old Lyra falls victim to the writings of two popular authors who are determined to see the world as a collection of meaningless facts and circumstances: “It was nothing more than what it was,” one writes. The authors are so enamored of doubt that they question the very existence of daemons in a world full of them._ ### Telly: * Only Connect

Five goldfinches singing in the gloom this afternoon. ### Status: I somehow managed to marry a person who cannot stand dried fruit in any form, including fruit cake, mince pies and Xmas pudding. Yes, I know. It’s fucked up. And so around this time of year, because I don’t do the meal planning (for both our benefits), I have to make a concerted effort to get my black gold deserts in, and then remember to eat them. A little microwavable pudding from Aldi has been lurking in the cupboard for a couple of years, maybe longer, with an expiry of January 2026. And while it would probably be good for a while after that I was determined to see it eaten this season. Tonight I ate it. It was glorious. ### Overnight listening: * In Our Time: The Evolution of Crocodiles ### Music: * Kayla Painter ### Reading: * Just Two Things: Futures | Geopolitics - a nice chunky read to end the year from Andrew Curry. The stuff on futures make me think there’s a definite overlap with magic and spell casting. (I mean that in a constructive way.) * Why Japan’s internet looks weird — unless you live here (archive) - I find the maximalist approach to Japanese design both hugely exciting and terrifyingly overwhelming. I want to both swim in it and hide away in a dark corner. ### Watching: * Pincers Restoration * Underneath a Breaching Humpback Whale * Simone Giertz’s emotional rollercoaster necklace ### Telly: * Dead Ringers * University Challenge * Down Cemetery Road

One thing about rabbits is they LOVE banana. If you ever need to get a rabbit to come to you, eat a banana. ### Status: Cruising gently towards Christmas day. Got a couple of short family things scheduled so I want to be ready for them. Sister popped over today for a catch up. She’d been in New Zealand for my niece’s graduation and was just getting over the jetlag. I’d asked for some merch from the university because she was at the Auckland University of Technology, which acronyms to AUT, so it doubles as autism pride merch. I now have a keyring and a weird mug (they were out of caps). Happy Pete. ### Overnight listening: * Origin Story: Socialism - what’s Left? * Night Tracks ### Reading: * ‘We’ve got more in common than what divides us’: a Muslim-Jewish kitchen in Nottingham counters hate and hunger * Abel Ferrara and Catherine Breillat on why Pasolini’s Salò is a gift that keeps giving - realising I’ve not seen this. Adding to the big list. * The Guardian’s 10 best experimental albums of 2025 - nobody I’ve heard of so plenty to explore. Also gives me the opportunity to share my idea for a band playing straight middle-of-the-road soft rock which only performs at experimental music festivals. Their name: The Control Group. I thenk ewe. ### Telly: * Only Connect and University Challenge

Didn’t get any photos today so here’s a tree I photographed in December 2006, 20 years ago. ### Status: Said goodbye to a good friend who is leaving Stirchley. She isn’t moving too far and may return, but it’s still a sad day when a member of your little community departs. I realised I never used to feel like this because I never stayed in one place for more than a 2-3 years. But since I shacked up with Fi fifteen years ago I’ve grown to appreciate what it means to have a geographically based community. It’s nice. ### Overnight listening: * In Our Time: Shakespeare’s Sonnets - nearly skipped this as I don’t get poetry at all, but it was a fascinating listen. * Night Tracks ### Music: * Fractures and Infinite You by Kayla Painter ### Reading: * Why British Jews are experiencing their biggest change in 60 years * Flamboyant, furious and full of hope: CMAT is the sound of 2025 * Life on the road: staying organised * Worldbuilding Agency week 51: tearing away the caul * The post is the product - a brief history of rage-bait - skimmed for now but will revisit as I’m interested in different takes on “transgressive media” and what that might look like today. ### Watching: * CMAT covers Withering Heights - wow and blimey. * Laura Kampf demolishes a caravan ### Telly: * Down Cemetery Road

My local park, yesterday. ### Status: Rough night and subsequent morning with disturbed sleep and weird dreams but it must have worked through some subconscious shit because I’m not feeling so bad today. Tired, sure, but not grumpy. Fi came back from Moselele’s Xmas gig with fish and chips so we stuck on a movie and declared it date night. In other exciting news I knocked over a hot cup of tea which splashed on my foot. Got my sock off before it did any serious damage. Phew. ### Overnight listening: * Night Tracks ### Music: * Songs of Earth by Rebekka Karijord featuring London Contemporary Orchestra * Ambient Owl Core vol.4 by Kayla Painter * (Both heard on Night Tracks.) ### Reading: * Space Chameleons (and other chimeras of the mind) - Ed Pinsent reviews the disconcerting work of Jemma Sharp. * Corridor8’s Midwinter newsletter * the consequences of failure are everywhere to see * The Komoy Noise Research Unit: Books. Loads of books. - some interesting non-fiction tomes I might check out in the new year. ### Watching: * Jack Mack Woodturning: turning a yew log into a decorative vase * Ants Pants bought a 30 ton Åkerman EC300 excavator

Treeline along the River Rea ### Status: Better day. Made it out on my scooter to the pharmacy and popped into work to see everyone. But that was about it. Reflected on yesterday’s musings (with some nice feedback from a fellow CFS sufferer) and feel better about things. Also I used the word “promulgate” in a group chat. Always a good day when that happens. ### Overnight listening: * In Our Time: Edward Gibbon ### Music: * Heroine by Pauline Kim Harris ### Reading: * Everything Ian Dunt got wrong this year * Gisèle Pelicot’s power, and Dominique Pelicot’s shame * For Every Winner a Loser - long but worthwhile read in which John Lanchester breaks down how modern finance works with some distressing facts laid bare. _‌The total value of all the economic activity in the world is estimated at $105 trillion. The value of the financial derivatives which arise from this activity – that’s the subsequent trading – is $667 trillion. That makes it the biggest business in the world. And in terms of the things it produces, that business is useless._ ### Bookmarking: * How To Request And Download All Your iCloud Data From Apple - useful if you don’t have a reliable secondary backup in place and don’t trust a corporation not to accidentally delete everything on a whim. Do this every six months, I reckon. ### Watching: * Kermode film reviews * Restoring the world’s biggest Zippo lighter * How climate change triggered a landslide tsunami in a Greenland fjord, vibrating Earth for 9 days - fascinating bit of science unpicking this mystery. * Timber framed barn part 36 top floor door ### Telly: * Dead Ringers * Pluribus

Hanging with my buns in the shed, waiting for the rain to stop. (It didn’t stop.) ### Status: This has been the sixth day in a row of me feeling unable to do much, if anything. According to the pattern of “my condition” I should have been capable of stuff yesterday or today, but I’m not. It’s a good reminder that there isn’t really a pattern to chronic fatigue. Sometimes recovery will be quick, sometimes it won’t. This one seems to be on the slow side. Today’s big achievements were loading the dishwasher and putting away my laundry. Oh, and not needing an afternoon nap. It’s very easy for this to feel like a failure. I’ve definitely gotten better at managing my capacity and my expectations over the last six months, and thanks to some good therapy I’m less likely to get angry and upset when things don’t go as I’d hoped. But the fact remains this autumn was going to see me engaging with the world again and it doesn’t look like much on paper. I’ve managed about an hour a week on average at work and probably go out of the house/garden twice a week. I’m writing this blog, which is a major achievement in rethinking my writing practice, pacing it over the day instead of cramming in one session, but I haven’t written anything more substantial than a few paragraphs. It’s a proper glass half empty / half full paradox, I guess. I have made progress, but I also haven’t hit the marks I was kinda hoping I might. Which just means the marks weren’t achievable and need to be adjusted, I guess. Known unknowns. Really wish the NHS chronic fatigue centre had more capacity and hadn’t been overrun with flu. I could really do with a chat with the occupational therapist there. Fingers crossed for an appointment soon after Christmas. In there meanwhile farting this out to the handful of you lovely people reading this will have to do. ### Overnight listening: * Origin Story: The Fall of the USSR * Night Tracks ### Music: * Singing in a storm drain in Calatayud, Spain ### Reading: * Pretty birds and silly moos: the women behind the Sex Discrimination Act - always worth remembering how hard-won the things we take for granted are, and how easily they could be lost again. * Facebook tests £9.99 monthly subscription for sharing more than two links - if evidence were needed that the Facebook empire is not part of “the internet” in any meaningful way. Anecdote: I’m a member of one, and only one, FB group (for ageing 90s comics nerds) and had to be made an admin because every link I posted (and I only ever post links, because I’m from the actual internet) got flagged as suspicious. * What the Noam Chomsky – Jeffrey Epstein e-mails tell us - Seeing Chomsky in the troves of Epstein photos and emails has been a bit of a jolt. Surely not Chomksy? This article offers some context for why he was even conversing at all, but it’s really just another reminder that your heroes are just humans who will (at best) make bad decisions and it’s probably best not to have heroes in the first place. ### Looking: * Take that Santa! This is me upside-down and naked in a fireplace – Brooke DiDonato’s best photograph - there are many more great images on her website. I like mirror photos a lot, and this is quite delightful. * Christopher Anderson’s warts-and-all photos of the Trump administration. - paywalls abound so the best way to see the pics is on Anderson’s Instagram, if you have an account. * How Edward Weston transformed bums, veg and egg slicers into sculpture - I’m always astonished by Weston’s photographs, doubly so when I remember how old they are. The Pepper from 1930 is just timeless. ### Watching: * Like Stories of Old’s Best 11 Movies of 2025

🎼 Pigeons in flight 🎶. Circling around our neighbour’s garden waiting for her to put out their food. ### Status: I checked my bank statement this week and saw a £10 payment from Department of Work and Pensions. I wasn’t expecting this. Turns out this is my Christmas bonus from the government as part of my PIP eligibility, which I attained earlier this year for how the chronic fatigue has disabled me. I’m kinda fascinated by this. We live in an era when the headlines are dominated by the welfare bill with benefits under threat from all comers, yet this has presumably been going on for quite some time under the radar. Or maybe the optics of cutting a “Christmas bonus” are too much even for this zeitgeist. I’m going to assume it’s never gone up because inflation would not allow it to remain a nice whole number. When was it introduced? How much would it be worth in real terms today? And will it ever go up? (And because I can’t resist answering questions, it was introduced in 1972 (it’s that year again!) and has never gone up. It should be worth £119.12 adjusted for inflation, it costs the state £185m and there are no plans to increase it.) ### Overnight listening: * Night Tracks ### Reading: * Sinners was the hit Hollywood didn’t want - _‌Ryan Coogler’s bloodsucker blockbuster is all about Black creative freedom. No wonder the industry saw it as a threat._ * The magical life of Toni Basil: how she taught Elvis, enchanted Bowie - and had a smash hit with ‘Mickey’ - I love these profiles of the weirdos behind the scenes of the 20th century, nudging greatness along. ### Watching: * Sleaford Mods Ft. Sue Tompkins - No Touch * Ants Pants: Building a giant grease pit - part 1 ### Telly: * Fallout