The plants in the garden are really suffering right now.
Status:
I have found the perfect way to spend less time on my phone.
I needed to employ my secondary swimming shorts today and the main ones needed a wash. The elastic on these is not what is was and while they’re fine in a push I can’t have anything heavy in my pockets. So if I carry my phone with me, as I’m wont to do, every step reveals a fraction more arse until I’m borderline indecent.
Within the home this isn’t necessarily a problem but I don’t want to inflict this upon any neighbours in their gardens. So my phone stays in its dock while I find myself wondering what to do while I give the rabbits their run and just lean into looking at the trees and letting my mind drift.
The only thing I miss is the camera. Might be time to dig out one of the old compacts.
Archiving:
- Assembly Birmingham: from precarity of modern living to the power of righteous fury — Back in 2018 my chum Antonio curated a conference of smaller arts orgs in Birmingham and I was employed to report on it for the Artists Network. It’s no longer on their new website (because who needs history!) but Ant found it on Archive.org and I was pleased to see my writing stands up quite well. I wonder how many of the young people mentioned are still trying to make a living from their art.
Reading:
- Taking back control of rents: The impact of rent regulation on affordability, public spending and landlord profits — A policy document on imposing rent controls at a government level. I’ve just read the executive summary (and the bit on the Guardian’s politics blog) but it all seems highly sensible stuff. The difference between paying rent, mortgage payments and having paid off the mortgage is probably one of the big divides in the country and having been in all three positions at some point the unfairness feels untenable. "For mortgaged landlords, a 20% reduction in rent reduces mean pre-tax profit margins from 70% to 64% – which means they would still be 4.5 times bigger than the mean pre-tax profit margin for UK businesses." How is this legal for something as essential as housing? Grrr.
- How to get ahead in journalism — Ian Dunt’s guide for young folks thinking of a career as a journo, written as a riposte to the old folks who told him it was a dying trade and he shouldn’t bother. “People have been proclaiming the death of journalism my entire career, but it’s still here. It’s still possible to have a career in it. It’s still possible to make money in it. Will you be rich? No. But you will work in the most exciting job in the world."
- ‘See the whole world in lichens,’ the marvels that grow anywhere — A lovely piece about the tiny probably-plants that grow everywhere and the scientists who study them. I once joined a moss and lichen guided walk around Birmingham with magnifying glasses and it was marvellous, finding these little forests in the bricks.
Watching:
- Primitive Technology | Firing tiles and building the roof on the mud mortar/fired brick hut (16:11)
- Welcome to Auralnauts (2:50) — News of their demise was wrong, actually. Looking forward to the new stuff!
Listening:
- Origin Story: Luddites (1h44) — A solid deep dive into the actual history of the General Ludd, such as it’s possible to discern, and how the meaning of the word was twisted into an insult before being reclaimed in recent years. I disagree with some of Dunt and Lynskey’s conclusions at the end, but that’s one of the reasons I listen to them (never limit your inputs to people you always agree with).
Music:
- Feeling Lost by Echo Juliet — My friend has released some music and I like it!