Luckily for you all, I’d already made a good headstart on this week’s Offcuts before feeling ill and succumbing to brain fog. I am resisting, with much difficulty, apologising for there being no newsletter this week. Drafting is all about showing up in any way shape or form and I still did by sharing the amazing Substacks of other great writers I subscribe to and read. As I said, next week’s newsletter will be what I was working on this week and wasn’t able to finish in time about adulthood. Until then…
In this post, there’s a brief mention of suicide and eating disorders so please read with care and caution and if you want to skip this week that’s completely okay.
It was a great week for reading. I finished Mother Daughter Murder Night. It was a run-of-the-mill thriller with an easy-to-follow plot and an underlying theme of familial love. I also whizzed through Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan. I’m a big fan of her writing, I loved Antarctica and Small Things Like These. Need to get myself to the cinema next week to see Cillian Murphy as Bill Furlong. I also got through a load of the articles I’ve had saved in my notes, so I have lots of links for you today with the highlights:
Does anyone really know you? The yearning to be fully known
Egyptians drank cocktails of psychedelic drugs
Daniel Craig’s masculine constructs
A fruit-stand banana taped on the wall sells for $6.2 Million
Isabella Rossellini: People never talk about the freedom that comes with ageing
An open letter to the microplastics living in my body
What do animals understand about death?
Sally Rooney and the rejection of romance as a genre of ‘commodity’
After reading the Daniel Craig interview in The New Yorker, I’m even more excited for Queer to come to cinemas on 13th December. Craig's co-star in the film, Drew Starkey, was also interviewed by Dazed. The piece has gone viral and Starkey has been propelled into heartthrob stardom thanks to Aidan Zamiri’s photography. The countdown is on.
The sheer excitement of being gifted an advent calendar as a child and being allowed to eat chocolate every day for breakfast was a marvel. One year I remember our very naughty dog Maisy (a beagle with a penchant for trouble and food) sneakily managed to get hold of ours and devour as much chocolate as she could. The dog had a stomach of steel. I probably cried. Advent calendars aren’t just for kids. Or dogs. This year, I treated myself to one from a Hotel Chocolat and today is finally the day I get to dive in.
A few weeks back, Whoopi Goldberg announced that she’d be launching an ‘All Women’s Sports Network’ that would be made available in 65 countries 24/7. Pay disparity and lack of coverage are only some of the problems facing sports that aren’t played by men. In recent years, the England women’s national football team, The Lionesses, gained much-deserved notoriety after winning the Euros in 2022 which has helped to open up the right conversations when it comes to women in sports more generally. Intrigued to see what comes of Goldberg’s newest venture.
My disdain for Character.AI continues. Futurism reported that the platform is hosting pro-anorexia chatbots. I recently wrote about the role of Character.AI chatbots in the suicide of a 14-year-old boy. Something former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has expressed concern over, particularly for a youth obsession with AI girlfriends. How have we ended up here?
I’ll round off today by quashing the fears of AI taking over our lives and making creativity obsolete in the form of a quote from Margaret Atwood. “You’re never going to kill storytelling because it’s built into the human plan. We come with it.” Keep on keeping on and create to your heart’s content.
