Week 14: Eels writhing across a canteen floor

November 25, 2018

These weaknotes are late but they’re good! Poetry! German Shepherds! Eels!
Max Gadney reminded me of the phrase “typing for coins” which is how Jones used to describe bits of consultancy at BERG. Tippy-tappy! Typing for coins!
Did you know the game Set was developed originally to determine if epilepsy in German Shepherds. Yet another fascinating thing I’ve learnt from the Feminist Friday newsletter.
Last week was a bit of a stretch tbh. Forces outside of my control led to two away days in one week, which then pushed all my other work into the remaining two days. I’m also still spending about 1.5 hours a day expressing milk.
I am not a productivity nut. I find those people… Embarrassing. But! This article does have some good tips about making your iPhone not quite so horribly distracting. I implemented quite a few of the suggestions.
There are some absolute bangers on Russell’s Poker Playlist.
“Short sentences / Strong verbs” was the title of a Revisionist History episode that I listened to this week. I googled the phrase because it sounded clever and I want to learn how to write good. Maybe I’ll try to deploy some strong verbs. I think I’m OK at the short sentences.
People who just say “hi Alice” on slack and then don’t type anything? Please type something. I know you think you’re being polite but actually from “hi” I can’t tell what you want or how long it will take me to answer.
Someone suggested we should be building ‘frictionless’ experiences the other day. I asked them to elaborate and they had a great point about sign up flows that I didn’t disagree with. But I loathe the word ‘frictionless’ in this context. Friction is what is keeping me on my chair right now. It stops us all from sliding all over the place like eels writhing across a canteen floor. Friction in services helps us make decisions. Amazon’s sign-up to Amazon Prime at the checkout is so frictionless I keep frigging doing it by accident and not realising. Friction is useful and important.
This has reminded me of No to noUI from 2013
And don’t get me started on ‘delight’
Sam Saccone’s Instagram is in my top five for his commitment to a theme.
Developers and designers that work at the FT and read it with an ad blocker are a puzzle to me. How are you going to appreciate the user experience of most of our readers if you block ads?
I went to the post office today to post a surprise present for someone. I’m so chuffed to have found such a great gift for this person - weird, difficult to come by, inexpensive - that it was entirely worth going to the post office to send it.
I was in Wiltshire this weekend, we did some good walks, I will treasure the memory of my friend talking to a pony while we lifted the running pram over a stile into its field. There were 10 stiles across the whole walk and I have ruined my trainers from the mud but I have no regrets.
This article about how good Britney Spears is at perfume was really good.
We drove past Slough on the way back from Wiltshire. I hadn’t read Slough by John Betjeman in a while. I looked it up and it does have some cracking bits.

Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn’t fit for humans now,
There isn’t grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!

Come, bombs and blow to smithereens
Those air -conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,
Tinned minds, tinned breath.

Mess up the mess they call a town-
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week a half a crown
For twenty years.

And get that man with double chin
Who’ll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women’s tears:

And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.

But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It’s not their fault that they are mad,
They’ve tasted Hell.

It’s not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It’s not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead

And talk of sport and makes of cars
In various bogus-Tudor bars
And daren’t look up and see the stars
But belch instead.

In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails.

Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales.