#31 The Offcuts
Classic reads, defiant squirrels and careers in Cyber
My week was a very slow one. I didn’t push myself. I didn’t do anything that I didn’t want to. But I still achieved lots. I started my 30 day experiment of posting across all social media platforms to see what happens. I started a course of Skillshare that I’d had saved for months. I went to the dentist. My newsletter this week about Wednesday was a good reflection on how my week went as a whole. There were no fireworks, sparkles or extravagance. Just small little snippets of beautiful mundanity.
I decided I wanted to read more of the classics. Things loaded with potent commentary on the contextual issues of society at the time. It’s what I enjoyed most about English Literature at school, assessing the layers of meaning. So I settled on A Handful of Dust by Evelyn Waugh. Written in 1934, the plot mirrors a lot of Waugh’s own life at the time including his recent divorce and his changing relationship with religion. Waugh’s stance on women, race and colonialism at times makes for difficult reading. What I will take away from the book is the sections written as telegrams. I liked the abbreviations like text speak. Of course, V stood for very and then there was also, SB which stood for ‘shameless blonde’.
Any other recommendations for classics for me to read?
Other things I’ve read this week:
Interview with Tony Wang on Embedded - my interest was piqued by the idea that culture and creativity have become stagnant due to what they call “hyper-optimization”
“Phenomenon” of adults watching their parents date on TV - interesting read. It’s clear there is still a wider lack of societal acceptance for older women in the dating scene and older women being portrayed as another other than grandma or old-cat-lady-spinster-witch.
Best, worst, and wildest guesses about the origins of Stonehenge - had to refrain from diving headfirst into a conspiracy wormhole after reading this.
AI will never understand what makes writing great - “All my life I dreamed of the day when I could write for a living – it was my greatest fantasy. And yet every day I drag myself to the office chair and force myself to do it instead of walking to the park or eating breakfast for two hours, as I would prefer. But that struggle – not just the hours spent working, but necessary setting aside of other more immediate pleasures – is part of the output. The hours of my life I spent writing before anyone was willing to read it, let alone pay me for it, all count for something.”
The screening for the new Disney+ TV show Rivals happened this week. What exactly are we to expect from a Jilly Cooper adaptation? I’ve not read the books, but Cooper’s literary reputation and penchant for steamy romances precedes her. I’m glad it’s still set in the 80s, I have high hopes for the styling of set and characters. Perhaps I can squeeze in a read before it airs in October.
I wonder how many people did actually end up working in cyber. Remember back in 2020 when the government outwardly and blatantly expressed their disregard for the arts and creative jobs? The arts were impactally greatly during covid and the response… was to encourage people to “rethink, reskill and reboot” in an entirely different and new field of work. So I just wonder how many people saw this propaganda and decided yes, fuck this, cyber is my true calling. And what happened to Fatima?
Every now and then there’s a piece of news I can truly get on board with. The winner this week was the story of the squirrel that refused to get off a train so they had to cancel it. The train was actually heading to Gatwick too, imagine missing your flight because of that. Talk about mitigating circumstances. It’s a bit ‘dog ate my homework’ isn’t it? I love to think he genuinely had important business to attend to and that’s why he refused to get off. I enjoyed the very obvious dad-joke humour around it all too. A GWR spokesperson confirmed the train from Reading to Gatwick was terminated at Redhill after a couple of squirrels boarded the train “without tickets”. Har har.
It reminded me of a home video of me and my siblings presenting the “news”. I wrote a script and one of the headlines involved a penguin running away from the zoo, leaving behind a very concerned wife and children.
Speaking of the zoo, I cannot believe that people actually went to Khao Kheow in Thailand and threw things at precious little Moo Deng. Her attitude and photogenics have captured all our hearts and she should be treated like royalty. She’s cute, she’s hectic and she’s a little biter. Joining the Moo Deng hecklers in the bin is also Sephora who created a Moo Deng make up tutorial on ‘how to wear your blush like a baby hippo’.
We’ve come full circle and we’re rounding off as we began, with the words of Evelyn Waugh. “Sometimes, I feel the past and the future pressing so hard on either side that there's no room for the present at all.” It’s a line from Brideshead Revisited, considered one of his greatest works, and it’s a state in which I often find myself: unable to exist in the now. I’ll be going into next week trying to create more room for myself in the present.
