Not The Right Book
I’ve seen otherwise straight-laced, shoulder-padded clerks-of-the-court reduced to hands-and-knees licking the live rail to alleviate the boredom.
Happy Friday!
And a warm welcome from the Palace.
Two things that this newsletter isn’t:
This newsletter isn’t a book.
This newsletter isn’t put together by AI.
Two things that I don’t hold against people using AI:
Single-handedly destroying the planet — AI chatbots aren’t too bad ‘compared to most of the other stuff you do’. That friend having a go at you for using ChatGPT? Send them this chart and a year’s supply of tofu:
People (including me) using AI as ‘a junior colleague, a partner in creativity, an impressive if unreliable wish-granting genie’. AI is doing genuinely big things in the realms of science and conservation — and, more importantly, diagnosing what’s wrong with my aloe vera.
Two things I do hold against people using AI:
People using AI to replace people. People need people more than people need AI. If you’ve got a question, AI might give you the answer. But if you’re questioning everything, people won’t give you the answer — people are the answer.
People not using AI.*
*Actually, I don’t really care if you use AI or not. But I do think that most people should probably give it a whirl, if only so that they can develop a more robust critical theory around its potential outputs. Otherwise bad things can happen.
Some corners of social media are already at least 50 percent AI ‘slop’, with UN Press Releases not far behind. No one wants to be taken in by bad faith AI content, even if most of the time it’s just annoying. Some of the time it’ll be worse than annoying.
What I’m trying to say is: go where the people are — and thank you for human-reading this human-writing!
For those of you new around these parts, welcome 👋 My name is David and I’m a writer, outdoor instructor, cyclist-at-large with Thighs of Steel, Expeditions Manager at British Exploring Society and trainee Advanced Wilderness Therapeutic Practitioner. Yes, that is too many hats.
In this newsletter, I write stories that help you and me understand the world (and ourselves) a little better.
Sometimes I marvel at humanity in a world of imitation.
Not The Right Books
If you’ve not got time to read, you’re not reading the right book.
No, not the words of Marcel Proust or Maggie Smith — the words of me, the other day, in my head.
(Yes, this really is how newsletters are born.)
The words-in-my-head (thought?) came to me as I skipped up the stairs at Battersea Park station1 and, to my delight, saw that I had a TEN minute wait for my train.
Normally, in London, a TEN minute wait is the precursor to apoplectic breakdown — I’ve seen otherwise straight-laced, shoulder-padded clerks-of-the-court reduced to hands-and-knees licking the live rail to alleviate the boredom when the board flickers inexplicably from —
Mill Hill East 2mins to —
Edgware 9minsBut, to me, this TEN minute wait meant TEN more glorious minutes reading my book.
The book title is less important than the feeling that this book was, right now, the most gripping way I could spend my life.
So, as the words-in-my-head suggest, if you feel like you’ve not got time to read, then find another book.
Find another book: one that screams READ ME READ ME READ ME at you until you find yourself thrilled at inconvenient commuter delays because it means ten more pages of commune between you and your puppetmaster.
Oh — and, while we’re here, you have my permission to draw a big thick indelible marker line through every title on your ‘I really should’ reading list.
Books are damn hard to write — years of grind with no pay and no praise until, maybe, if the author is lucky, right at the very end, perhaps years more after they themselves gave the book and all its ideas up for dead and dull.
That means books only ever exist because an author was eaten up — for years — with something improbably important to say. If that book ain’t speaking to you right now, that book ain’t for you right now.
Move on.
There are millions out there. Find one that grips you by the heart and doesn’t let go.
p.s. The book title was How Not To Hate Your Husband After Kids by Jancee Dunn — thank you to M.C. (👋) for the timely recommendation.
Three Tiny Big Things
1. 28 slightly rude notes on writing
All emotions are useful for writing except for bitterness.
I can’t believe talented experimental psychologist
bothered to write this masterful catalogue of notes on writing. I could’ve done it so much better.2. From Hackney to Gaza
On Tuesday, I went to a fundraising dinner hosted by Gaza Sunbirds paracycling team, the centrepiece a lip-smacking maqluba prepared by Chef Nour.
Before I’d digested the last of my rose pistachio rice pudding, the money was already in action:
Yesterday, we celebrated Maqluba and our rich culinary heritage, and today we are distributing food to underprivileged children in the most marginalized camps in Gaza.
If you’ve never had Palestinian speciality maqluba — literally ‘upside down’ — you’ve not lived. It’s not only delicious, but a piece of culinary theatre that, on Tuesday, was accompanied by jubilant hand-claps, darbuka and mizmar.
Stuffing my belly in a hipster-friendly Hackney eatery might be a jarring way to financially support a starving population in an open-air prison, but as Gaza Sunbirds co-founder Karim Ali pointed out, ‘Our food is our culture and, when we share our culture, we bring all people together.’
If you fancy getting in on the act, then you can donate a fiver to fund a Gaza Sunbirds Pizza Party — because ‘there is no reason Aid shouldn’t be fun!’
3. Is this the time of monsters — or miracles?
Well, this made me cry from about minute two.
Headlines warn of a world in collapse, but solutions journalist Angus Hervey finds the overlooked triumphs that never make the news — from the rollout of malaria vaccines to the recovery of sea turtles. With hard data and stories from the frontlines, he reveals the hidden progress that perseveres even as it feels like the world is falling apart, and challenges us to decide which future we'll help write.
Yep — it’s a TED video, but it’s a TED video that’s not full of crap. 10 minutes worth your time today.
Thank You
Huge thanks to all the paying subscribers who helped make this story possible. You know who you are. Thank you. 💚
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As always, thank you for your eyeballs and thanks for your support.
diwyc,
dc:
Incidentally, I love that there is now a Battersea Power Station Station.
But what powers the Battersea Power Station station? It can't possibly be the Battersea Power Station station power station can it?