Today I was gifted a new lapboard so I can work downstairs in the living room more effectively in the evenings. I gave in return a box of raspberry, rose and hibiscus tea from Fortnum’s and a fancy high-end citrus press.
TODAY:
- Starmer announces deployment of carrier strike group to Arctic
- ‘Handmaid’s Tale future’: Reform’s Matt Goodwin sparks outcry with fertility comments
- The rich world should beware Brazilification
Yeah, I’m reading a lot of politics news, but politics news is pretty much all the news there is right now.
John Coulthart’s { feuilleton } blog is now twenty years old.
Recent suggestions that we can improve the internet by a return to blogging strike me as unrealistic. This is an unusual form of activity, one best suited to writers (or to those who enjoy writing), to creative types rather than mere diarists, and to people who don’t suffer inordinately when they throw something into a public arena then receive little or no feedback as a result. Starting something like this today without being part of a connected community like Substack would require resilience to cope with the isolation. And yet… The blogging format still provides opportunities that can’t easily be satisfied elsewhere.
I’m with him there. You can click through on this post’s title, scroll to the bottom and get the daily posts here as an email. But ultimately this space is for me to make notes and think in, in a space I control, thanks to WordPress.
Vaguely related, Emily Sundberg:
The problem I’m running into recently on Substack is that I’m seeing a lot of monotony in the types of writing and formatting of newsletters, and very little user innovation (I haven’t decided if this is on the users or the platform). Subscription creator monetization and parasocial relationships seem pretty intertwined to me — I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about the worst case scenarios of some of the relationships that have been bred here. I hit a wall yesterday afternoon, and was overwhelmed by a feeling that was similar to how I felt when I hit publish on this essay in 2024.
OPERATIONS: I have a contract to peer at and a script to finish.
STATUS: day 186 of the plague
READING: THE QUEEN’S AGENT: FRANCIS WALSINGHAM AT THE COURT OF ELIZABETH I (UK) (US+)
A magistrate from Kent known as ‘Justice Nine-Holes’ bored through the restored wooden rood-loft so he could spy on the people of his parish.
LISTENING:
LAST WATCHED: I started HAMNET, rewatched half of THE FRENCH DISPATCH
MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company or Inkwell Management. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter.
Discover more from WARREN ELLIS LTD
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.