Looking Sideways: 10 Things
Stab on The Announcement, a great anti-AI rant, and Zadie on Tracy.
1. We’re back in Normandy for a bit, which means I’m back on these beautiful early morning dog walks through the marshland with Peg 😍
2. I’m giving my last Announcement conversation with Jon Alexander, which has been garnering some brilliant feedback on Substack (as above) and precipitating quite the debate on LinkedIn, another boost. You can watch or listen to our chat here.
Jon is also hosting a really interesting looking Adventure in Democracy chat with Erica Benner in London next week. I loved Benner’s biography of Machiavelli, and have just ordered her new book about the history of democracy. Sign up for the evening and chat here.
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3. The Announcement series proper continues to pick up press in the unlikeliest of places. This week it was core edgelords Stab, one of the biggest surf sites in the world, with a particularly active below-the-line community, unexpectedly quoting Slavoj Žižek and debating billionaire influence in their review of the series.
What a truly random year 2025 is turning out to be. Read the piece here.
4. This Saturday 12th! The Big Sea gets its US premiere at the International Ocean Film Festival (with my trailer playing beforehand 😎). Now the real work begins…
5. Congrats to the team at NorthernFront on the forthcoming release of Beyond The Island, their new documentary about Ben Larg. Watch the trailer above.
6. Zadie Smith on Tracy Chapman was one of the best things I read this week (and any excuse to watch this clip of Tracey’s life-changing, last minute slot at Wembley once again).
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7. In a week when everybody on my LinkedIn feed has, for some inexplicable reason, been turning themselves into AI action figures, the eloquent rage of Alex Roddie’s most recent piece provided some much needed perspective and sense.
8. My pal Easkey Britton (listen to our most recent conversation here) is hosting a really intriguing-sounding workshop and retreat in Donegal this June. Details here.
9. This great Luke Pilbeam short about the relationship between photographer James Bowdon and surfer Noah Lane is now free-to-view. Watch it above.
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10. There are so many jaw-dropping details in Sarah Wynn-Williams expose of Facebook, which I read this week, that it’s almost difficult to know where to begin.
Suffice to say that the title, a nod to the vapid, soulless, and sinisterly moral-free Daisy and Tom in The Great Gatsby, is well-chosen. Essential reading if you want to understand how we got to this point.