Looking Sideways: 10 Things
I’ve been away in Normandy for the past two weeks with minimal internet, so this week’s ten things selection is particularly podcast and Substack heavy.
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1. The first thing we noticed about being at our new place was…the silence. We’re in the sticks in rural Normandy, which means no lights, no cars, no … anything, really, other than endless birdsong and wildlife chatter.
And obviously, there’s an app for that: in this case the miraculous Merlin Bird ID app, which records the local birdsong and tells you who’s in the hood. In our case: storks (these lads above are our neighbours), woodpeckers, thrush, robins, chiff-chaffs, blackbirds, chaffinches, tawny owls, cuckoos, great tits, sedge warblers, jackdaws, blackcaps, wood pigeons and wrens. And that was just in our garden 😍
2. Tom Hanks on Adam Buxton is just lovely, a proper warm bath of a conversation.
3. In contrast, George Osborne on Leading is … enraging, particularly on austerity.
4. When he’s good, he’s really great, and on this occasion Marc Maron got the proper goods from Ice Cube. Loved the story of how John Singleton chased him down for his role in Boyz N The Hood
5 When we hired ACM Senior Copywriter Chris Sayer last year, the challenge was simple: ‘make writing about marketing less cliched and rubbish’. Job done.
6. A zinger of a Note from
about what Martha Stewart’s Sports Illustrated cover says about beauty culture.
7. Why has Street League Skateboarding teamed up with ‘right-wing online video platform’ Rumble? Great stuff from
, my favourite skate blogger on Substack
8. I loved this extract from DJ Taylor’s forthcoming biography of Orwell, on the writer’s relationship with the natural world. From the brilliant
Substack.
9. My pals at Outside ran a skate jam last week - and myself, Owen Tozer, Leo Sharp, Outside, Goodrays, Yeti and Db teamed up to run a photo comp! If you were there and took some snaps, post them on Instagram and and use the hashtag #outsidephotocomp to enter. Owen and Leo Sharp are judging, there are some great swag up for grabs, and we’ll post the winners next week.
10. Finally - Surfers Against Sewage are organising a national day of action in protest at the ongoing state of our waterways. Find out more about the SAS Paddle Out here.
Thanks for the share and the kind words, Matthew!