Week 139: Mealy Mouthed Pragmatist

May 2, 2021

Apologies to anyone affected by my RSS feed going a bit wonky. I fixed it.
I was re-reading a corporate personality assessment thing I did a few years ago, hoping to understand why I am finding something at work difficult, and the thing I was left thinking was: Am I the Keir Starmer of my peer group? I don’t actually know what Keir Starmer is like, but I know what leftist twitter thinks he’s like: An ineffective mealy mouthed pragmatist who walks around saying things. I mean… that does sound like me. Except the walking around bit.
I had a google meet last week with a man who had a really good quality microphone. When it combined with my noise cancelling headphones taking to him was like talking to a voice inside my own head. The very first thing I said to him was “cor this is like I’m listening to a man on a podcast”. I think I might get a good microphone. I thought a better webcam might be the first upgrade but actually I think this slightly shit one is doing me a lot of favours in terms of blurring out my very tired face and postpartum hair loss.
I have a special relationship with Gardeners World. I had been watching it when my waters broke before baby C was born. They say you have to feel very safe and relaxed to go into labour (which is why they often start at night) and that checks out. ily monty.
Baby C slept through the night! Because he was very sick! Still, nice to have a quiet night.
There is a good story at work about the time someone in the editorial department meant to email the editor of How To Spend It to approve the spend of £8k on a haircut for a photoshoot, but accidentally emailed everyone in editorial. They were savagely and relentlessly roasted in the replies. That story came up again and I got to see a photo of the haircut this week. Wow. I need to start charging Lachie more for his haircuts.
I am very into Depop. I’ve bought a pair of Margaret Howell linen trousers, and a yellow Paul Smith Jumpsuit both for £40 each. I’ve also picked up a load of Arket kids clothes. I wish depop would add push notifications for my regular searches.
I’ve been mainlining Season eight of Dissect. Its a podcast that examines an album (one per season) in forensic detail. I’ve previously listened to the one about Beyoncé’s Lemonade, which was good, but I think I got a bit bored half way through. Season eight is about Kanye West’s Yeezus. I always liked Yeezus, although it’s a difficult listen in parts because (I have now learned) of all the dissonant chords. The podcast benefits from Kanye doing a lot of interviews at the time about the album and about his struggle to break into fashion. These interviews contain a lot of very funny sound-bitey parts which liven up what could otherwise be a bit of dry podcast (unless you really like hearing about music production which, I do not).