Happy new year everyone! I hope you had a good Christmas?

My Christmas went something like this: Dad had covid, then Mum had covid, then I had Covid.

In between all the coughing, spluttering, sore throats however, much merriment was found in the xmas/boxingday window. My brother Skype’d in from Taipai where he lives on xmas day and we opened our presents during the call. I got some thoughtful items, books, stationary, a new torch, Pokemon violet!

I also ate so much food! Even when I was down for the count I still found the energy to eat trifle for breakfast because you can’t stop tradition! I also learned this Christmas from that Nigella on TV that Italians call Trifle ‘English Soup’ (zuppa inglese) which is delightful.

This years xmas pudding was great. Another triumph. Funfact! A previous home made pudding from our house is currently the canonical photo of a flaming Christmas pudding on the ‘Christmas is Ireland’ wikipedia page. Which is ironic as you can’t get more further away from Ireland in East Kent if you tried.

In all honesty, the thing I appreciate the most about Christmas is.. just spending time with people I love, my family.

Being ill I didn’t see any friends over the break, tho it didn’t stop me thinking of some of them. Nor did I get back to London for my own NYE party that happened in my flat! Though I understand a good time was had by all.

I did get back to London earlier today tho. A generous lift back up from my parents. I’m still not 100%, (nor are they) but things are moving in the right direction for everyone I think.

There will be a flurry of activity on the blog over the next few days, I have Dec 2022 photo-a-day to post. I also want to write about the experience of completing the project for the first time. I have a 2022 ‘in review’ post half written, it seems most folks got theirs out in the gouch week, mine’ll be out soon.

Podcast season 7 begins this week, if you are feeling full of Christmas cheer why not consider becoming a paid supporter?

Photo 365

The Ministry Of My Own Labour

• Closed down 2022 completely.
  • Updated spreadsheets, archived files, all the usual things.
  • Only one thing outstanding / carrying over.
• Filled in the “Year Compass‘ workbook for 2023.
• Pre-Christmas I built a website for a project kicking off next year
• Post-Christmas I did nothing

Terminal Access

Over on Bestseller, Kelby Losack coins the term Ghost Audience

the Clout Trade Center known as Twitter/Instagram/etc, is an arbitrary number on your profile representative of a ghost audience. To post is to perform in front of a faceless crowd that you can’t see beyond the brightness of the stage lights.

Dipping the Stacks

Maybe that’s the lesson – annie mueller

The more I burn to the ground the more space I have. Sometimes it feels like a big blank space opened in my mind and it is full of dancing question marks and I don’t even know what the question is.

Fandom should be a hobbyspace

it’s too often younger ones holding fandom spaces as societal influence & activism spaces instead of a HOBBY SPACES.

The rise and fall of British institutions – by Ed West

If you ever wonder why many British men care so much for their football teams, sometimes to a deranged degree, then for many their club might be pretty much the one stable institution in their lives.

What Is Even Happening?

The problem of Kanye’s madness implies a similar set of questions: is this just an accident brought on by temporary mental illness, or does this reflect something deeper or more problematic going on in the culture and society?

From Andrew Tate to Corn Boy: How the TikTok algorithm changed the fame game in 2022 | British GQ

TikTok’s mysterious algorithm has turbocharged virality beyond anything we’ve seen before, convincing a generation that online celebrity is just one post away

Reading

I finished Simone Weil’s Gravity and Grace. It was an interesting and very personal book expressing her relationship to the divine, but its no Sayings of Light and Love or whatever. I don’t see what all the fuss is about. Unless her anarchism gave permission for PoMo atheists to engage with mystical material?

I finished Book 9 in the Warhammer 40k Ciaphas Cain series – The Greater Good.

I started reading How to Read a Book by American philosopher Mortimer J. Adler. This book is super famous, and really really good. A remarkable text.

I read Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes: The Official Biography by Rob Wilkins. A wonderful portrait of the man. Quite an upsetting book too.

What a horror Alzheimer’s is.

I also started reading Children of Memory by Adrian Tchaikovsky. The third book in his amazing Children of Time series. I’ve only just got passed the first chapter so can’t comment on how good it is yet.

Music

thejaymo.net Spotify Playlist

Unusually I didn’t listen to anything at all.

Remember Kids: