Choo choo we’re a train and we’re back on track. Pick it up, pick it up, pick it up let’s goooo. It’s Sunday and there’s an Offcuts, I am thriving… [days later]... I wrote the train analogy a little while ago and it’s irking me now. I am writing this from the platform of a station waiting for a train that may never come, post cancellation of the train I wanted to get. Lost in the limbo of somewhere in between. My earlier attempt at wit only taunts me now.
This week I finished reading Green Dot by Madeleine Gray. I really enjoyed it. It’s impressive when a book can evoke empathy from a reader towards a deeply flawed and morally questionable protagonist. I was rooting for a happy ending for Hera even though her idea of a happy ending would have been the ‘wrong’ one. I went back and read Gray’s interview with Emma Gannon in The Hyphen which shed light on her writing process and experience of debuting a novel. I’m still slowly making my way through Hera by Jennifer Saint. Just realised I was simultaneously reading about two Heras at once, what are the odds, huh. I do need to pay more attention when I’m listening. I often listen to audiobooks while doing something else at the same time which means I’m not really taking it all in. My bad. I’ve now started The Lagos Wife by Vanessa Walters. Despite saying I would try to alternate I’m sticking with fiction for now. Green Dot sucked me in and had me excited to pick the book back up. I rarely feel that with non fiction and I’m intent on riding out the high.
I didn’t want a job
An interview with James Baldwin
Creating a decentralized network of alternatives to social media (a good thing to follow from ‘rewilding the internet’)
The Cringe Matrix
An extract from Love in Exile by Shon Faye
A plate of 16 to 20 peeled bananas appears on a street in Beeston once a month
Only a week and a day left for us to wait now until White Lotus season three yay. Of course, things shall not be the same without the people’s princess Jennifer Coolidge in the cast. RIP. The trailer holds promise for another captivating storyline, this time in Thailand. I can’t wait to be hypnotised by a spin-off of Aloha! during the opening credits once again.
For lunch on Saturday, I had a sandwich and shared some Micro Chips with my sisters. They were soggy and flavourless but so full of satiating nostalgia. Just the other week I saw a TikTok which I sent to my siblings akin to all grandparents having Micro Chips in their freezer in preparation for when hungry sticky-fingered grandchildren pay them a visit. It was, in fact, at my grandma’s house where we were having lunch. There is truly no original thought.
I had my first mini eggs of the year this week. I managed to wait until February which is quite restrained. Easter chocolate is probably my favourite in terms of holiday-themed chocolate. I am partial to a Malteser bunny I think they’re my favourite. Probably. I am hesitant to commit to anything as my favourite or the best in case I decide to change my mind. But for the popcorn-flavoured Malteser bunnies, I may reconsider. I bought one by accident the other day and it was the *best* mistake I have (surely?) ever made. I’ve decided in this moment to be an influencer and this is my first influential purchase I urge you to make.
It’s always good to know where some of the money from extortionate train tickets goes. I was on a train to Brighton this week to get a new tattoo (it’s a beauty) and I have never in my life seen so many people on one train checking tickets. At least five. This is not new of course, and on longer cross-country journeys it’s a given. But these employees had uniforms I’d never seen before. With the words ‘REVENUE PROTECTION’ emblazoned brazenly on the backs of their vests. They’re dressed akin to police officers. But it felt like a kind of cosplay for a modern mercenary army diligently protecting the profits of those who jumped at the chance to own a piece of British infrastructure when John Major very kindly offered it up on a plate in the 90s. While the maid was in the garden hanging out the clothes (paying train fares like a mug) the king was in the counting house counting out my his money.
When it comes to looking for inspiration in winter, Katherine May is Mother. As the weather turns again and I shiver on my walks, accepting that winter still has a way to go, May’s book Wintering harbours encouragement. “That’s what you learn in winter: there is a past, a present, and a future. There is a time after the aftermath.”
