The games in my backlog these days are ones that are supposed to have profound themes that I just don’t have time to give the attention they deserve
Day 30: hometown
Though there are many downsides as well, I’m lucky enough to have been brought up in one of the prettiest towns in this country
Day 29: drift
Weekly Digest
Trialing a new format.
Links
This week we have a bunch of lefty links.
- The Forest and The Factory by Phil A. Neel and Nick Chavez. Long, occasionally whimsical essay on a question that is often overlooked in utopian post-capitalist imaginaries — how do things actually get produced? In particular — how are things produced at scale? Neel and Chavez identify as communists, but even if you don’t like that word there is much to be learned here for anyone interested in imaginaries like eco-socialism, degrowth, social ecology, solarpunk and so on. Link to Chavez’s website
- Mother Trees and socialist forests: is the “wood-wide web” a fantasy? by Daniel Immerwahr. The idea that trees are altruistic and can share resources and information has gained a lot of traction recently, sometimes in eco/leftist discourse as part of a project to naturalise peace and cooperation. But I’ve always found it farfetched, and this article seems to agree.
- We Live In An Age Of “Vulture Capitalism”. Interview with economics writer Grace Blakeley. Some interesting discussion about why “state” vs “market” is the wrong debate.
Reading
Roadside Picnic by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky. Gripping Soviet-era sci-fi novel that the Stalker film and S.T.A.L.K.E.R games are based on.
Listening
The Airborne Toxic Event by the band of the same name. I’d not listened to this band in years. Brilliant album, with the standout track Sometime Around Midnight being one of the best sad songs of the 00s.
Watching
- Watched Into The Congo with Ben Fogle this week. Fogle visits Congo-Brazzaville, and spends time with many interesting peoples and people, including Mbenjele hunter-gatherers, the fashion-loving Sapeurs, and stars of the absolutely bananas Congolese wrestling scene. I have a dear friend originally from Congo (hi if you’re reading!), so it was nice to learn a little more about his country.
- Watched Britain’s Got Talent for the first time in over a decade. Saturday night family entertainment is a thing now, I guess.
Up to much else?
- We’ve been laying plywood underfloor upstairs in our house ready to hopefully get some proper flooring soon.
- Final parents' evening of the year was on Thursday. It went fine, despite me being a bit worried about it.
- Made a bit of progress toward my next crossword for mycrossword.co.uk. I’ve not set one for months, and they take me so long to construct.
Day 27: surprise
Day 26: critter
Day 25: spine
Day 24: light
Day 23: dreamy
Day 22: blue
I’ve been experimenting with this approach to lesson planning recently. Impact on students remains to be seen. Impact on me so far: very positive. More efficient, less wasted planning, more enjoyable to plan.
Day 21: mountain
Himalayan
The Guardian’s new quick cryptic series is aimed at those who “can’t do cryptics”. Each puzzle uses only 5 clue types which are explained at the start. A better introduction than the Quiptic, which is often indistinguishable in difficulty to the full cryptic despite being for beginners.
Day 20: ice
Day 19: birthday
Day 18: mood
Day 17: transcendence
Day 16: flâneur
Tough prompt
The papers are gaslighting us. Only one front page (the Times, 6th parag.) mentions that Israel bombed an Iranian consulate, killing two generals and several others, just two weeks prior to Iran’s drone response. Not to excuse either side – only to point out this pretty glaring omission of context.