In the unmaking [530]
Greetings from The Borders...
I’m Christian Payne, ex most things and quietly starting to feel comfortable being nothing. Which is certainly something. In this weekly dispatch I seek out novelty, explore the relations between things, how we share, what we share and consume, plus where we might be going. This is not an echo. These are some of the things i’m interested. It might be you like them too. Thanks for joining in.
#TheAction
The photo at the top does not reflect the mood in the van as me and my daughter looked out to sea in a rainy St Abbs. We were laughing and joking while acting up on public radio frequencies, transmitting an impromptu play in our best funny voices.
We were killing time waiting for the local chemist to open and finding yet another place to explore in our seemingly endless playground.
Having been spoiled with a string of sunny days and clear skies, we embraced the rain and the drama that came with it. Meanwhile, the south was hit with another record breaking heatwave. We moved up here for a few reasons. One of them to find comfort in the changing climate. I didn’t expect us to see the difference so soon.
[At time of writing, six feet away from me in the den, a guy is pulling a fibre optic cable through the wall. By the time I hit send on this dispatch our internet connection will have increased from 45Mbps to who knows. Exciting times. I’ll share the new speed further down this post when the fibre is lit.
#ThePictures
When we first moved to The Borders I found myself in Eyemouth a lot. It’s a Scottish costal fishing village where I go for coffee, pies, ice cream, the doctors, a weird little charity shop and the chemist.
When walking round I’d see posters and signs with photos remembering ‘Herring Queen’s’ across the years. Up until seeing this mini-doc (linked below) I had no idea what a Herring Queen was, or how they got to be one.
To be crowned Herring Queen, a young woman has to be between 16 and 18 years old, live in Eyemouth or the surrounding area or attend Eyemouth High School). I have been told that the rules have become a little more lenient over the last ten years but applicants need to have demonstrated active engagement in the local community as well as school.
They are also required to be a responsible, confident, and a positive ambassador for Eyemouth during the festival year. Candidates are often nominated or apply with an interview or presentation with the final decision is made by a local committee.
Roles for the Herring Queen include leading the Eyemouth HQ Festival, celebrating the town’s fishing heritage, as well as participating in parades and ceremonial duties throughout the year.
All this is to remember and champion the once hard work of the ‘gutters’ aka Herring Girl’s of old. There are some great black and white photos in this BBC article featuring the Gutters of Wick.
I really enjoyed Season 2 of Andor. The trailer isn’t really worth watching as it does not come close to the awesome. If you have only seen series one get right in to series two and if you have seen neither, start from the beginning.
This is foundational Star Wars lore and sets the scene beautifully. It’s also some of the most glowingly reviewed TV out there.
#TheWords
Nemik’s manifesto seems right for our time.
It’s hard to photograph my upstairs book shelves unless I stand in the bathroom.
My comics, graphic novels, photo books and signed editions are elsewhere, but these shelves in a hallway contain many of the other books I’ve read since childhood. As well as some books i’m yet to open. You know what it’s like.
Nevertheless, this week I picked up four more books. All are rated well, but here they are in the order of online ratings. Left being the highest.
The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life by Suleika Jaouad. This was mentioned in a feed and didn’t feel like the kind of book I could get my teeth into. A few pages in though and it started to talk about all the issues, blocks and self-doubt connected with writing a book. This will be useful.
Human Nature: Nine Ways to Feel About Our Changing Planet by Kate Marvel. This is insightful, beautifully written science.
We by Yevgeny Zamyatin. The book that inspired Orwell to write 1984. Heard good things about this. Only one chapter in and can already feel how much this book inspired others. Hope it doesn’t make me think less of 1984.
Moral Ambition: Stop Wasting Your Talent and Start Making a Difference. This was recommended by David Charles and the first page had me feeling like I really need to be more useful. I’m sure as I read on it will inform me how to do this and I’d not be surprised if a new sense of self worth might also lead to a deeper happiness.
Not spent much time online this week. I had a brief stint checking to see if Twitter was still shit. It is. It also doesn’t look like anywhere I need to be.
I’m quite surprised to see friends of old still posting there. Unless you repeatedly switch back to the alleged ‘safety’ of your ‘following’ column from the ‘for you’ hell pit, all you get is the usual hate, loathing and sensationalist fear mongering.
With it of course comes increased anxiety, hyper vigilance, desensitisation, depression, distress and cognitive distortions.
I miss what it was and don’t need what it is. I’m far happier posting the occasional missive to BlueSky or of course here.
But you’re not missing much. Here are a few thoughts that crossed my mind that nearly got posted online:
What ever a sewage diver earns… it isn’t enough.
If I could speak to the animals the first thing I’d do is ask the blackbird who wakes me up at dawn… “Do you take requests?”
I had a dream that Alan Watts offered me a vol au vent with an acid tab on top and said “This little pastry is not a path… it’s a door.”
I have spent far longer shopping online for chainsaw trousers than i’m ever likely to be doing any actual chainsawing.
Does anyone else lift themselves up out of the bath like you might do so on the parallel bars and think… “When I can no longer do this I will be officially old.”
I just read “...Those two, in paradise, were given a choice: happiness without freedom, or freedom without happiness. There was no third alternative...” by Yevgeny Zamyatin.
I’m not sure life is as binary as this, but it’s an interesting thought experiment.
#TheSound
Thanks to Kosso and the app BlipVox he made just before Audio Bloggers Month I was able to easily share my audio snippets as video into Bluesky.
The only downside for me at the end of the month is not having a stack of WAV files to archive. I have backed up all the videos and can extract audio from them if needed, so should I want to resurface/reuse anything it’s there. Can’t knock the convenience and quick and easy workflow.
Should you be interested here are the posts from a month that passed all too quickly. There’s storms, crowds, trees, travel, chainsaws, beaches, wind turbines and a chat with a grave digger. But it’s mostly daily musings…
Day One / Day Two / Day Three / Day Four / Day Five / Day Six Day Seven / Day Eight / Day Nine / Day Ten / Day Eleven / Day Twelve / Day Thirteen / Day Fourteen / Day Fifteen / Day Sixteen / Day Seventeen / Day Eighteen / Day Nineteen / Day Twenty / Day Twenty One / Day Twenty Two / Day Twenty Three / Day Twenty Four / Day Twenty Five/ Day Twenty Six / Day Twenty Seven / Day Twenty Eight / Day Twenty Nine / Day Thirty
I recorded almost all of the posts with a microphone windshield stretched over my phone. Over the years windshields have creeped up in price from £4.50 for 5 to around £8. Sadly I’ve only been able to source multi packs from Amazon and on checking this morning, the ones I bought last year have shot up in price. These ones look identical though at a little over £4.
#TheConsumed
The recent rain saw the garden explode. The wild cherry has a lot of fruit ripe and ready, but the sweet cherry has a way to go. As do the plumbs which look more like olives at the moment.
Raspberries are popping all over the place, far to many to gather, and young apples are crowding branches that will need a decent prune come winter.
If we have a glut of apples I’ve already brokered a deal with a local store that will sell them for us.
Today I had a visit from Ian, a friend from my old village who owns my favourite record shop Vinyl Revival. He stopped by after a trip to see family and gifted me a fascinating whisky as a house warming present. I’ll share a review when i’ve opened it.
How to dehydrate stinging nettles
#TheThings
Ain’t no stopping me now.
I added a cordless hedge trimmer to the arsenal. Thankfully the batteries for chainsaw and line trimmer will fit it. Messy business though. I spend more time clearing the detritus from trimming than the actual fun bit of trimming. Bit worried that now I am well into the Ego system I’ll start looking at everything they do. Which appears to be more than enough.
How long did it take you to read this far? Without clicking the links and watching stuff (which is not the point at all) according to ‘Words to time’ it would have taken about 11 mins.
It’s a pretty handy web based tool that can help calculate read time of the things you are writing.
First legal e-scooter launches in the Netherlands.
#TheThanks
Massive thanks to the paying subscribers who continue to support this dispatch and the adventures/experiments that make it. You know who you are. ♥️
I’m finding myself far less involved in seeking external validation for my endeavours, but still need some kind of income. So if you value these words, ideas and curation, please consider an upgrade to paid. It’s way better than a like or reshare.
Or if you prefer a random hat tip you can do that via PayPal
or Monzo …
Either way… Thank you for supporting a human doing manual work with their brain.
#TheWeb
One rule about The Collapse Laboratory is that you must talk about and share the existence of the The Collapse Laboratory
Chris and the other volunteers behind B4RN (the rural broadband pioneers) have written a book! You can read it here for free.
If you are supporting subscribe, don’t forget you can add an avatar to the Documentally community map and also get access to the Discord server. Message me for a link. 👍🏽
Becoming American.
‘I watch people scroll through lives they're not living, amassing evidence of their own incompleteness. What if what you need isn’t hiding somewhere in the future, but waiting here, in the part of your life you keep treating like a dry run?’
Robert Llewellyn is teaming up with Colin Furze to make a more sustainably themed Scrap Heap Challenge called Zapheap.
Some of my other places include these…
It’s done! We now have fibre to the house. Here is my first speed test.
More than enough.
#TheEnd
Thank you for your curiosity.
This weekend I’ll be seeking oblivion in vinyl and perhaps the occasional ale. Next week I’ll be back tending to the steading. A practice akin to dismantling false identities, letting go of the need to please, finding clarity in simplicity, and hoping to discover a truer self.
Hope you get to have fun.
“The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.” ― Alan Wilson Watts
Play.
See you out there.
Over…
Agree about the bath exit. I've spent time pondering what I'll do when that sad day arrives.
A totally different vibe these days, I enjoyed reading. If you haven't already got a copy of Jon Alexander's Citizen book, I'd like to gift you a copy that he brought to the last Neotists workshop that he hosted - https://jonalexander.net