A few weeks ago, I came across the concept of weeknotes (if memory serves it was thanks to Denis Defreyne) – a relatively freeform writeup of what people have been up to in the past week, interesting articles they’ve read, and so on.
It’s obvious that I’ve struggled to maintain any sort of consistency with blogging in uh… many years. But the concept of weeknotes appeals to me so here goes nothing.
Travel
I spent the majority of the past week in the north of England. It’s a region of the UK of which I hadn’t yet seen much (though as it happens, this was the second time I’d been up there in as many months) and I already look forward to going back.
Newcastle, for the most part, is a big British city like any other (Grainger Market is top tier though and I love that there’s a Tsujiri, which was serving a tiramisù hōjicha (1) that I’m still thinking about and is pictured below), Tynemouth is ridiculously pretty as are Harrogate (I am still dreaming of those fondant fancies from Betty’s) and Durham (I’d like more small cathedral cities, it has such a unique charm). And Sunderland not only has an awesome market inside a train station, it also has a place called Pablo’s Eggsgobao (yes, I love the pun) that serves fry-ups in a bao bun – a true revelation that I had for breakfast on Easter Sunday, as Jesus would’ve wanted.
I also had my first-ever stottie. It’s all left me wondering why so many in the UK seem to have prejudices about the north of England because it’s lovely there, the people are super friendly and the food is lush.
Entertainment
The latest episode of Game Changer is great but I’m wondering if anything will ever reach the absolute insanity that was the season 7 opener (even more bonkers that they had to cut it down from an initial two and a half hours). I’ve been slowly getting rid of subscriptions this year but Dropout.tv is going to stay (2nd Try is also worth it for Escape the Kitchen alone).
I need more people to watch Doctor Odyssey on Disney+. It’s ostensibly a medical drama set on a cruise ship (starring Joshua Jackson as the titular doctor) but it’s very self-aware, very over the top (there’s literally a two-parter about shark and orca attacks on the ship), very horny and very queer (perhaps unsurprising, given it’s produced by Ryan Murphy).
I’ve been making my way through the new season of Black Mirror and it’s disappointingly hit and miss. Common People and Eulogy are outstanding, but Bête Noire was a letdown (the Barnie’s/Bernie’s gag was a nice touch though — I was shown the Bernie’s hat, which one did you see?). Hôtel Rêverie felt like a rehash/worse version of San Junipero. I am looking forward to watching the second USS Callister, but yeah, I also haven’t exactly rushed to see it.
I rewatched Hot Fuzz for the umpteenth time but the first time in ages. Still perfect, no notes. My Letterboxd is looking depressingly empty for the year but life’s been busy.
I’m also very slowly making my way through season two of Biester (free to watch in the ORFthek as long as you speak German) but it just isn’t grabbing me like the first season did. Ursula Strauss is still fantastic in it – no surprise there – and I’m definitely becoming a fan of Fanni Schneider.
I finally finished The White Lotus. It’s great but it’s also just really intense and I have to be in a specific mood to want to put it on. Apple TV actually lists this thing as a comedy for some deranged reason.
I’m halfway through my friend Joël’s book, which had been lying on my TBR pile since he gave me a copy six months ago. Very fun so far, I’ll have more thoughts next week (if I keep these weeknotes up). I’ve also added a bunch more to my TBR but you can never have too many books, right? Right?!
I managed to get tickets to Taylor Tomlinson’s first European show and I am so excited.
Articles
I despise generative AI but it turns out people who use ChatGPT a lot actually exhibit addiction traits and suffer from withdrawal symptoms.
Some people use AI to help them write software, which sounds useful until you realise the AI invents dependencies and that’s turned into a goldmine for spammers and malware distributors.
And if you just want to burn the planet for the lols, you can make up idioms and add “meaning” at the end, and Google will just hallucinate an explanation. If nothing else, this really demonstrates just how stupid this artificial intelligence is.
Anyway, on to more cool stuff.
I’ve been reading a lot recently about people trying to make really cool, pretty websites. This taught me a lot about typesetting on the web and I got briefly excited before I realised that my browser of choice, Firefox, refuses to implement text-wrap:pretty (Firefox also just keeps adding more AI shit so I might have to go looking for another browser… and no, it won’t be Chrome or Arc).
This has also led me down a bit of a rabbit hole of reader-supported websites. Ghost looks to be the platform of choice for many and I enjoy reading publications like 404Media (which is how I first came across Ghost), and I keep thinking it might be fun to launch something myself on Ghost (2). The rabbit hole eventually led me to this rather utopian question from Kōdō Simone: what if we made advertising illegal? On a related note, who else is fed up of making the rich, richer?
And entirely unrelated: it turns out if you don’t know about a conjecture, you might just disprove something everyone accepted to be true for 40 years. You might even do it as an undergraduate.
Writing
I bought myself a Lamy Safari Vista pen for my birthday last month and as my current Moleskine is about to be full, I’m wondering if there’s a nicer notebook to switch to. Moleskine is fine but maybe there’s something better? I’ve browsed a lot of online stationary shops but nothing has clicked so far. If you have a recommendation, hit me up in the comments or on Mastodon.