Looking Sideways: 10 Things
This week: 75 years of Dirty Old Town, a significant weekend, Mondy on Swell Season, and what exactly is going on in France?
1. Last weekend was great. On Friday, we got a new government after 14 long years. I finally finished The Announcement, the podcast documentary series I’ve been working on for the past 18 months. And England won on penalties.
The small stuff of life, sure, but a noteworthy two days worth acknowledging. So here’s a pic of mine and Peg’s pal Paddy to celebrate.
2. I absolutely LOVED this fantastic BBC Radio documentary on 75 years of Ewan MacColl’s Dirty Old Town - not least because it was narrated by the great Mike Sweeney, a fixture on Piccadilly Radio when I was growing up, and one of the voices of my childhood.
Spoiler alert: Peggy Seeger hates the Pogues version (above).
3. Doing exactly what it says on the tin, a very entertaining - well - rant about the state of the discourse around AI.
4. Ben Mondy on Swell Season talking all things
and Ben’s new Breitling Book of Surfing!ICYMI - my pals at The Wave are the latest additions to HKC Discount Club! Just drop the code SIDEWAVES10 at checkout to get the goods - and see the rest of my HKC club offers by hitting the button below.
5. Why are protesters in Barcelona spraying tourists in with water? (And are they getting the same shit the Stonehenge protesters are getting, I wonder?)
6. This is a really interesting piece about the UK’s top 10% of earners.
7. What on earth just happened in France? Great explained from the Guardian’s Paris correspondent on this podcast.
8. This story about the grant-snaffling debacle that is BrewDog’s Scottish Highlands planting project is fairly enraging.
9. Tickets for the forthcoming Tremula Festival are now on sale - founder Fran has gone for a ‘pick-your-own-value’ ticketing system where you can essentially pay what you think the day is worth, as she explains here.
10. Finally, I keep forgetting to post this, but somebody on Instagram asked me how they could support what I do without signing up for a subscription the other day, so here I am.
Click the link above or here and you can donate the price of a coffee, a pint, or whatever you like, and also leave me a nice message.
Haaa the AI rant is class, though the linked within earlier one on Excel use has me now in hiding
What the Parkwatch article fails to take into account is the people who lost their livelihood when Kinrara estate was sold to Brewdog, keepers and there families who had lived on the estate all their days given the heave-ho. A typical tale of Scottish estates where sheiks, lords and banks own the land with carbon offsetting being the new rhetoric of justification to gobble up land and drive yet more clearances in the highlands.