Thinking of the (probably) billions of dollars that have been poured into the Amazon machine learning system, which is then brought to bear to regularly send me these incredible notifications.

The Center For Humane Technology announced that they have started a Substack. I’m so disappointed, and wrote to them a couple of weeks ago to say so but didn’t hear back. Substack is known to profit from newsletters that spout hate on their platform. It seems so bizarre for this organisation in particular to move their newsletter to the platform in 2025.

🎶 Woke up this morning with this tune in my head. I love how an earworm always seems to reappear at just the right time.

🔦 I’ve put together a page of highlights of my blog posts through the years.

📷 Street poem, found on my commute.

Random pondering: can people take quotes way out of context and use them on book covers? For example, if I wrote a review that said “Simply nothing worth reading in this book”, could the author publisher write ‘“WORTH READING” — Andrew Doran’ and slap it on the book?

📚 Finished reading Exit Stage Left: The Curious Afterlife of Pop Stars by Nick Duerden. A large collection of vignettes about various pop stars, which I ultimately found to be a bit of a trivial and unsatisfying read. It’s the second book in a row where I’ve not been able to mentally keep track of how and why the anecdotes have been grouped into particular chapter headings, which implies it might be me instead of the authors. I did like Stuart Copeland’s reflection on playing new songs versus old ones at concerts:

📷 Clouds over Playa del Carmen, Mexico.

📚 Finished reading How To Lose A Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship by Ece Temelkuran. I found this important, readable, but hard-going. The book uses the experience of Turkey over the past few decades as a warning of what can happen to democracies. I found it difficult to remember where I was in the 7 steps, which may be more of a reflection of me reading it before bedtime each night than of the book itself.

The point that struck the biggest chord with me was how humans need a cause that they can get behind. The left isn’t offering this, so people gravitate to whatever narrative there is, typically one touted by right-wing populists.

🎶 I seem to rediscover this beautiful song about this time every year. The Smoke Fairies have reissued their Christmas album Wild Winter for its 10th anniversary, which was a good excuse for me to finally buy the CD version.

Back in the pre-Internet days, I used to love reading the ‘Contexts’ chapter in a Rough Guides book when I went on a trip abroad. It gave a good overview of the history of a place as well as recent important events and politics. Is there a modern equivalent that is as well-written as these were?

🎶 Online Album Club tonight. When the host announced it would be an Alanis Morissette record I braced myself for an ordeal, but Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie was an intriguing, surprising treat.

It’s our office Christmas party soon. The dress code is black tie. I’ve managed to avoid tux-based events for some time, but I didn’t realise quite how long for until I dug my old suit out of the cupboard. I now feel like Steve Martin in Father of the Bride.

📚 Finished reading My Old Man: A Personal History of Music Hall by John Major. A book on this topic is a difficult concept, trying to convey the essence of acts that in many cases can’t be seen on film or heard on audio recordings. The photos and illustrations in the book go a little way to bringing things to life. At times it felt quite dry and textbook-like, but it would then pick up again when the next chapter took a different angle. Aside from the music hall, what stays with me is the author’s childhood memory of accidentally injuring his father and believing that he had caused him long term damage. What a thing to carry with you through your life.

📚 Reading a book that comments on what people were doing with their increased leisure time in the late 19th century. With this new information, it now feels as though my beloved Berkhamsted Cycling Club just isn’t trying hard enough in the name stakes.

I’m enjoying the Openvibe app. It lets you view a consolidated timeline across multiple platforms such as Mastodon and Bluesky, including the different feeds from each service. Really well done.

📷 Debating whether to clean up the tonne of leaves that have already come down, or to wait for the others to join the party. It makes no sense to do the job twice, right?