You’ll find no sale here.
Only free thought, cheep words and an escape from the usual madness.
#TheAction
A trip to London to see friends was a welcome break from the shed. As was a Sunday lunch with family. But as the nights draw in and the urge to take shelter by the fire takes over, I have felt another week fly by.
I did make lots of business type calls. And tried to make them fun by not putting a suit on my words.
Some may take my tone as amateur or unprofessional. And that’s fine with me. If those calls don’t lead to a business opportunity, i’m just happy for the human connection.
I’ll always be an ardent amateur, embracing the Latin root of the word ‘amor’, someone doing things out of love.
#ThePictures
I enjoyed this edit of a first inspection of a lighthouse bought for $200,000.
I’ve wanted to buy every lighthouse I have seen for sale, but it never happens. I’ve no idea what the renovation of a lighthouse might cost but the other day when riding across the flatlands to the coast on my motorbike, I had an idea. If I was ever to tackle a ‘grand designs’ project i’d like to build an inland lighthouse somewhere in Norfolk or Cambridgeshire. It would be the perfect opportunity (some might think folly) to build an amazing lighthouse with jetty and all off-grid services ready for when the sea level rises. Obviously as the light aspect might not be needed i’d focus on the coms aspect delivering longrange wifi, radio links and whatever is needed. I shall file this idea in the ‘when money is no object’ folder.
You might have seen this fantastic Nina Conti moment on some other social platforms tragically where it is tragically cropped square. This is how it was meant to be shared. Be warned it is NSFW.
This week I rewatched Rio Bravo. It was the first time for my 14 year old son. I enjoyed sharing this genre with him. The closest he had come to a western is Back to the future 3. My Grandpops got me into Westerns. He was always watching them. It was where I accidentally learned about American mythology and its ideals of individualism, heroism and the constant struggles for justice. Where I got a glimpse into a clash of cultures, and the impact that colonisation had on indigenous populations. Although oppression and murder featured heavily, the word genocide never cropped up. Besides, back then I was more interested in the showdown with the lone hero and the border roll. No doubt the reality was very different to these cinematic reflections. Here is a short review I wrote of the film.
#TheWords
I started writing about how a night with some vinyl had me retracing my steps 36 years ago. It got lengthy, so I shared it with supporting subscribers in a separate post. I love how faded memories can be enhanced and restored by old documents.
The greatest dictionary collection in the world.
Billy Connolly’s Rambling Man is currently only 99p for the kindle.
#TheSound
It’s been eight years since Matt Wade interviewed me for Desert Island Geek. The web has changed a lot and so have a couple of my answers. But the essence is there.
Currently listening to Fatty Funky Bird by mandruvá & Da Iguana
The Science Vs podcast asks… Sleep. How do we get more.
#TheConsumed
I’ve been egg pickling again.
If you can get hold of local free range eggs there’s nothing like it. Here is my recipe, play around with the quantities as it’s hard to go wrong:
A jar of white wine vinegar 400-500ml
Up to 100g of caster (or normal) sugar
2 bay leaves
1 tbsp black peppercorns and another of mustard seeds if you have them
1 tbsp coriander seeds
6 or more large eggs (I manage to split these ingredients between 12)
Start by preping the hard-boiled eggs. Peel after cooling them quickly in an ice bath.
Combine the vinegar, sugar, salt, bay leaves, peppercorns and mustard seeds, In a saucepan, while gently heating. Add some chilli flakes if you like a bit of heat.
Bring it to the boil, then simmer for a few minutes. Then let this ‘brine’ cool.
Pop the peeled hard-boiled eggs in a couple of sterile glass jars. (I just sterilise with boiling water.)
Then pour the cooled brine over the eggs till fully submerged. If necessary, use a clean weight, such as a small plate, to keep the eggs submerged.
You can of course eat the eggs at any time you like but in my opinion they won’t get really tasty till after 10-14 days. They’ll last for months but once open it’s best to eat them in a couple of weeks.
#TheThings
I took the snap at the top of this post because of the sheepskin waistcoat in the top left of the window. I think I got mine at a carboot sale for £1. It might not be the coolest thing to be seen in, but considering this particular design of clothing might be many thousands of years old, I’m amazed to see this simple relic of the past survive this long. It pops up all over the place. I see it in cowboy films and on Eurovision. Add a little embroidery and it finds its way onto catwalks and sells for thousands.
Mine hangs in the cupboard till it’s needed to finish some fancy dress. But between me and you, i’d wear it every day of winter if it had pockets.
Needed a quick and easy cordless hoover for dog hair and wellington boot mud. I have stripped the handheld Dyson for repair so many times it now lives in the shed and does an ok job. But there is £300-400 difference between other vacuum cleaners with a similar spec and a Dyson. So just ordered a Greenote. BlackFriday is mostly a con, so be sure to check price checking sites that will check historical price fluctuations. Camel Camel Camel Showed me that the £79 was an actual discount so I nabbed it.
I’m slowly throwing images into a folder. Photos once forgotten, hidden inside hard drives. Images that trigger something. A smile, a furrow of the brow, or a lingering interaction. Some I shall print to give away. The gift of an echo. Others i’ll print keep as a reminder of what once was.
I'll not swap the convenience of digital photography for anything. But sometimes a hard drive full of little-seen images feels like a wasted opportunity.
After the joy of capturing moments, I love the time spent reviewing and honing them. Sometimes they reach an online platform. For the curious to find, but until then, lost behind a link.
I have a small printer but nothing professional. I'm yet to master the art of making a quality print. I'd much rather pay someone who knows the craft. That way I can have that analogue flashback I miss from when waiting for a film to be developed.
It's a wonderful collaboration. As my once intangible image, confined to zeros and ones is released to have a life of its own. Immortalised within a palpable, sharable object.
We should print more. Free our images from those little screens. And as we invite someone to step into our captured moments, a split second is transformed into an enduring narrative. Preserved for all time. As I feel our favourite stories should be.
#TheThanks
If you support this dispatch you get all the emails and audio delivered. You are also inspiring me to keep this up. And for that I thank you. If ever you need a chat or to pick my brains you know where I am.
For everyone else, if you can spare $5/month to upgrade, keep things going, and get all the content, please do.
No discounts. If anything, future supporters will be paying more as it’s been £3.97 a month for ages. And what does that get you now-a-days. Outside of my love.
#TheWeb
The photo sharing app Retro aspires to be ‘the most perfect social network’ and says it’s for ‘For friends. For families. For yourself.’ No mention of whether it’s for the marketers or data miners as well. Apart from in the small print.
Hey John V Keogh and Exanguinator, welcome to the Documentally community map. Custom icons are only for supporting subscribers unless we go way back. Then you get to keep it for a bit. ;-)
GameMaker makes its 2D engine free for non commercial use.
Generative A.I for beginners
Some of my other places include Letterboxd, GoodReads, FarceBook, Flickr, Strava, Untappd, Diaspora, Vivino, LinkedIn, YouTube, Mastodon, a ham radio newsletter or search ‘Documentally’ on Wire, Birdsite or Bluesky.
All spelling and grammatical errors in this email are sent to test you. If you’d like to learn how to spell (like I didn’t) here’s a link.
#TheEnd
Thanks for reading. I know it’s late but I opened the wine a bit early and got distracted. I’m off to light the fire and put on a record. I hope you have a great weekend/week to come. Do your best, forget the rest.
“To live fully, we must learn to use things and love people, and not love things and use people.” ~ John Powell
Enjoy.
See you out there.
Over…
Another fab dispatch, thank you! Do you have any recommendations for places to print photos, Christian? You're inspiring me to start printing mine (and so are my empty walls in my new house) ...
I've been thinking a lot about printing some of my many many digital photos. For a long time I used some of the services like Postagram regularly. The prints themselves are not necessarily high-quality but we could be at a family or friend event and I could take a great picture and right away hit send and everyone in the group would get a postcard with the photo within a few days. Also great for when kids are young and grandparents want anything to hold onto. I do use a few local photo shops now to print on quality paper etc. but would love an online resource that would provide both quality prints and if selected, framing.
I find a framed photo is one of the most treasured gifts these days because we so rarely have prints anymore.
Probably a decade to go on Thanksgiving my daughter had a couple of her friends come to our dinner and one of them brought as a hostess gift something only a darling 18–19-year-old could do, a framed photo of himself. he passed away about five years ago and it's one of my most beloved framed photos, plus makes me laugh every time I see it.