Reasons to smile [579]

Greetings from The Borders...

I’m Christian Payne, generalist, homesteading, photographer and writer. 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. Thanks for joining in.

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#TheAction

It’s all kicking off here. It’s been a crazy manic day. The guests are arriving and it’s all hands (apart from mine at this moment) on deck.

Tomorrow there will be drinking, eating, music, dancing, celebrating, sitting around a campfire (weather permitting) and camping. All in celebration of the large round number of years our clan's matriarch has reached.

So while we prepare, what you see below has been hastily pieced together. Please accept my apologies for the usual errs and incidents that come from a human under pressure doing manual work with their brain.

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#TheSeen

Lat one night this week I watched Nirvana, The Band, The Show, The Movie.

Beautifully chaotic.

Part prank, part fever dream, part bromance.

Throughly enjoyed it. 4/5

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This video highlights the prevalence of FLOCK cameras in the US and the backlash against them. (Spoiler alert. You can’t really trick them. But you can hack them.)

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#TheWords

I also read ‘The Pocket Book of Orwell’.

It’s a short, easy read introduction to the life, writings and ideas of Eric Arthur Blair, aka George Orwell.

Rather than focusing solely on the big hitters, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, it explores the wider body of his work and the experiences that shaped his thinking.

If it’s been a while since you have read his work and wanted to get up to speed, this is quite a quick read that’ll remind you how and why Orwell remains so relevant today.

His work is as timely now as it ever was and this is certainly not a replacement to actually reading that work. Ideally you have already read a selection of Orwell’s works and then this can serve as an excellent guide and companion.

Especially useful if you wanted to gen up before our yearly meet up at Orwell’s Grave later this month. 11am Thursday the 25th of June, behind All Saints Church, Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire. If you have always thought about going, then choose this one. Now I’m in Scotland it might be that 21 consecutive years of the 1984Symposium is the record. Although I’d like to make it to 25.

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#TheHeard

Last week you heard Day 01-05 of my AudioMo’s and this week you have these…

Day 06 -

Day 07 -

Day 08 -

Day 09 -

Day 10 -

Day 11 -

Day 12 -

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#TheConsumed

This is the highest rated noodle pot I have found on the app Yuka. It was rated 85 out of 100 and rated ‘excellent’.

The down side was that in this instance, healthy tasted weird.

Perhaps it was the kind of miso. It was very different to anything I’ve had before and although not disgusting… it was a long way from delicious. 2.5/5

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#TheThings

Love this tool on the right next to my hand.

It’s called a pipe squeeze off tool costing £24 and it enabled me to work on the mains water pipe leading to my house. Something I should not be allowed to do. Thinking about it, I didn’t check what the rules are on this, but as I needed to tap into a pipe so as I could put an outside tap near the poly tunnel. I’m certainly no plumber but MDPE pipe is like plumbers lego and made the job ̶e̶a̶s̶y̶ not difficult.

As there was no stopcock (that I could find) before the point at which I had to branch the pipe, I clamped it shut and could work in dry relative safety. It will also work as an emergency cut off should I need one in the future.

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There are 149 people within 1km of where I live and 539 within 3km Use this tool to find out how populated your area is.

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#TheLinks

• Welwyn Garden City, built by a cult that George Orwell despised

• Have you added yourself to the Documentally community map?

• Depression as a philosophical problem

• I didn’t realise till this week how big the pet psychic business is. I’m pretty sure there’s no scientific evidence for the claimed telepathy, energy reading or spiritual communication but the good ones are most likely just great pet behavioralists.

• Some of my other places include these… 👍🏽

• Been really busy this last week (and in fact month) leading up to this party. I’m looking forward to some down time where I shall do absolutely nothing and not feel bad about it. If every hour serves productivity, even indirectly, no time truly belongs to you. Idleness is one of the last genuine forms of freedom.

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#TheThanks

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It’s been a week of all the weather, but finally as we put up a marquee and tents for the guests and make final preparations, it’s brightening up.

Thanks for reading. Have a great week and let’s catch up soon.

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“The trouble with people nowadays is they don't know how to do nothing.”

― Iris Murdoch,

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Idle.

See you out there.

Over…

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