Here are 1731 words. Plus some other linked media.
#TheAction
This publication has always been a two way street. Even more so this last week. Thank you everyone who emailed me after the last dispatch and offered tips, advice and ideas. I am my own worst enemy when it comes to plugging this email, as in the last issue I said subscription was $5 per week when of course supporting subscribers only pay $5 a month. That’s only £3.61. I have really enjoyed working through some of the ideas and comments you have shared.
In addition to text chat I had two in person meetings with David Sheppard where we fleshed out some ideas regarding some art/media projects he is planning. And one video chat with Chris Woods where he assisted me in formulating ideas around delivering virtual and physical learning materials.
One of the meetings with David took place during a bike ride in the blazing sun. Me on the Sonder and David on his retro Muddy Fox mountain bike.
I think it is the Muddy Fox Explorer. Either way it’s doing well considering it’s over 30 years old.
So moving forward, as well as writing this I’m going to focus on content creation coaching. It was just a fraction of what I was doing before lockdown but it’s one of the most enjoyable facets of my work. Also the kind of thing I can easily do remotely.
I enjoy assisting others in honing their online presence. Showing them how they can build communities, networks and trust around what they are doing. Providing they pass the traffic light test that is. There is nothing more demoralising than working with a company you later realise is heavily invested in developing new kinds of weapons after you’ve helped them ‘tell better stories’. I really don’t want to develop content creation strategies for companies who have no intention of making the world a better place (Red). I’d rather spend my time on those ethical, authentic enterprises and individuals (green) who are already doing that. Or those who need a little help getting to that place (amber).
In other analogue news I started to build a tool shed out of pallets. It was on one of those really hot days. I was in sandals. I bet you know where this is going. Anyway, I extracted the six inch nail from the side of my foot and can confirm a medical dressing with sandals is as bad as wearing socks with sandals. The good news is that it was a shiny nail and three days in I think it’s healing.
#ThePictures
Really enjoying the work of Ben Phethean.
There are six episodes in this mini series. Ep1, Ep2, Ep3, Ep4, Ep5, Ep6.
And I bet you haven’t seen this little known gem.
I remember documenting @Granumentally’s house after she had to go into a home. But nowhere near as viscerally raw and honest as this. Wonderful, if slightly disturbing storytelling.
Just watched the latest series of Money Heist. Don’t watch the trailer if you have never watched the earlier series but intend to. They are worth a watch. But only in Spanish with subtitles. I think the dubbed version is too weird.
#TheWords
Thanks to Slavik for this fascinating long read which as he says “…touches upon the reality of reality and how the internet got us to this era of uncertainty and disbelief”. One woman’s mission to rewrite Nazi history on Wikipedia.
Stories about refugees, written by refugees. The 1000 dreams project.
Here is a free book on nuclear war survival skills.
#TheSound
Just ordered this vinyl EP from Peter Alexander Jobson.
You might remember him as the guitarist and founding member of I Am Kloot.
This is his new single. Please Please Please. I think Shaun Keaveny played it for me on his last show. ;-)
Here is a band i’d never heard of till I spotted this record in Oxfam.
Buying records with strange covers is risky. But when I saw this alien dude making weird hand gestures while trying to ride the stump of a tree on planet mushroom I thought… I bet this is prog rock.
I was right. Greenslade were a prog rock outfit and this their first album is as old as me. They seemed to have disbanded in 2003.
I was also kindly gifted a pile of vinyl this week. Courtesy of David Sheppard and his Mum. In amongst them was this 45 in the original bag it was bought in 46 years ago.
Harlequin Records and Tapes were a popular chain that was taken over by Our Price Records. The people who shopped and worked there remember it fondly on the British Record Shop archive. There is very little info on my favourite local store in Rugby Discovery records.
#TheConsumed
It used to be just me who liked natural yoghurt in the house but since I’ve been making it everyone now want’s it on their breakfast. So I’ve had to up my production. It might be I’ll need a better straining system moving forward as at the moment I have a cloth in a sieve in a bowl in the fridge.
The whey drains through to be decanted into a jar for bread making and the remaining yoghurt is thick and creamy. Or if leave it a little longer it’s greek style.
If you know of a straining system that will let me thicken about 4 pints of yoghurt in one go please let me know.
A friendly neighbour keeps bringing over bags of homegrown tomatoes and runner beans. They are delicious and I’ll often eat the beans raw as a snack. Not fast enough though. So I decided to make a curry in an attempt to reduce the bean and tomato mountain. It took a little longer than anticipated as I didn’t have any tandoori paste. Neither did the local shop. So I had to make that first.
Recipe for tandoori curry paste
INGREDIENTS: 1 teaspoon salt / 1 teaspoon turmeric / 1 teaspoon ground coriander / 1 teaspoon cayenne / 1 teaspoon chili powder / 1 teaspoon paprika / 1 teaspoon dry mustard / 1 teaspoon ginger / 1 teaspoon garlic powder / 1 teaspoon fennel / 1 teaspoon cumin / 1⁄2 cup yogurt / 2 tablespoons lime juice
DIRECTIONS: Mix together salt, cayenne, paprika, garlic powder, chili powder, dry mustard, ginger, turmeric, fennel, cumin, and coriander in a bowl or food processor. (On this occasion I only had wet mustard and no fennel. Still tasted fine.)
Add the yoghurt (I’ve no shortage of that) and lime juice and if you are not going to use it all it will keep in the fridge. I only needed a portion of this for my curry but bunged it all in for good measure.
Recipe for runner bean, tomato & coconut curry
INGREDIENTS: 1 large finely chopped onion / 1 tbsp vegetable oil / 2 tbsp of the tandoori curry paste / a handful of fresh chopped coriander (leaves and stalks separate, although I only had frozen chopped coriander)/ 2 limes, 1 cut into wedges, the other zested & juiced / a 400ml can coconut milk / 200g red lentils / 300g basmati rice / 300g runner beans sliced thin / 400g cherry tomatoes, halved
DIRECTIONS: Firstly heat the oil in a large pan. Add the onion and cook until softened. Add the tandoori paste, finely chopped coriander stalks and lime zest and cook for a couple of minutes mins. Add 400ml of hot water, coconut milk, red lentils and bring to the boil. Then turn down the heat and simmer for 15 mins.
Start cooking the rice.
Finally, add the runner beans and tomatoes into the mix and cook for a further 5 mins. The lentils should be thickening now. When ready, drain the rice, add the lime juice to the curry, and sprinkle the coriander leaves over the top.
Serve with the rice and lime wedges on the side.
I loved this curry but be warned, adding all the tandoori paste made this a little too spicy for the kids and they needed more yoghurt mixed to reduce the pain :-)
#TheThanks
If you are in a position to chip in to support my time in producing this dispatch and nurturing our amazing community, please do so.
Thank you to creator, product developer and programmer James Mundy who heard the call and slipped over from the free subscription to supporting this dispatch with a small payment of £3.61 per month. Check out his work at JamesMundy.net
Also Giuseppe Sollazzo aka @puntofisso who writes a data based newsletter focusing on data journalism and visualisation.
Finally, the latest new member of the family is Slavik. He became a supporting subscriber last night and is doing a bunch of interesting things. Check out DigitalFilmmaker.net for starters.
Click the links. Click all the links. These are the people funding the continuation of this email. You can as well. Or perhaps you can gift a subscription to someone else.
#TheWeb
These people have enough data to say that aliens really are out there. They can also roughly estimate where (some kinds) are, what they are doing, and when we will see or meet them. Link via Thack <- not a subscriber but I still love him.
There are a few new people on the Documentally community map. Even someone near Tom in Penzance. Who are you ‘point 403’?
Have you seen that Twitter is testing more emoji reactions beyond the like button?
“The red planet is gorgeous, it’s awesome, and we love it. But Mars is no place for a human.”
Is it time to up your mask game?
Ever wondered why Hyperlinks are (normally) blue?
#TheEnd
The next dispatch will be issue 300. I think I will make it a subscriber focused threaded chat. We can reflect on previous issues and flesh out some things like the possible addition of a Discord server. More importantly you can introduce yourself and get to know one another a little better.
Till then, thank you for reading.
There is a beer festival in the village. Wish me luck.
Get busy living.
See you out there.
Over…