Relax and Float [590]

Greetings from The Borders...

I’m Christian Payne, generalist and writer and you could be here for a number of reasons, all of which I hope are a result of your own free will.

Thank you for opening this email… It’s long so may be ‘truncated’ in some of your email clients.

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#TheAction

I spotted this notification on Substack this week.

I’m not the slightest bit bothered about the ranking thing. Every time I write about resilience, cycling, subcultures, chopping wood, or our Polytunnel, I most likely slip down a little further in the ‘top 100 in tech’ list. Once upon a time I was in the top three. No idea how, as this has mostly been an eclectic mix of whatever I'm currently interested in.

If I was bothered I could always optimise my titles and intros to say things like…

I Asked AI to Make My Dinner. It Suggested a Polytunnel.

After exhausting every productivity app, language model and Lora sensor, I stumbled across a technology that’s been surepticiously shipping updates for over 10,000 years. They call it compost!

I guess I could re-lable my substack and remove the technology tag. But isn’t everything we create to solve a problem a technology?

My axe is technology. My bike is technology. My typewriter is technology. Our polytunnel is technology. Technology didn’t begin with silicon chips and it doesn’t end with AI.

Although ...actually it might end with AI. Everything could end with AI.

I shall continue not to bother with tags and rankings and keep doing what I enjoy. Looking for novelty, exploring the relations between things, learning to spell and sharing what I've had to eat.

Thanks for being a part of this somewhat eclectic mishmash.

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In regards to what I've been up to this week…

I rode my eMicro Microscooter to the local brewery.

The battery wasn't full when I left and it made the hilly 12kms with no bother. Not bad considering I’ve now had the scooter for 10 years! I recorded the audio in the above video through the AirPods and they did a great job of removing the wind noise.

I also entertained guests this week, as well as pruned the plum trees, started eating our apples, accidentally ran over an antenna with the lawn mower and painted the caravan (radio shack). I won’t bore you with many hours of painting, but here’s a short video of the first coat of three.

Oh… I also went surfing. First time in Scotland and the first time in about 29 years. Looking at my journals I first surfed on the 6th of November 1997 on the 18th day of my Australian travels. A few days before, I’d bought my first surf board. 6.5 feet long and costing $40. I wasn’t very good. Here’s an excerpt from my Journal…

After the night of heavy drinking and dancing, at lunch I surfed for the first time in Aus. Difficult or what? A combination of unfit, small board and that I'm crap. I caught a couple of waves. Mostly just trying to get out of the water so I could lie exhausted on the beach and try to catch my breath. I lay there watching with envy as the local males and females made it look as easy as breaking into a jog.

This week on the East coast near where we live, I was on an 8ft board. Far better for a novice. Especially almost three decades later. So that will be the size of my next board.

I was achey and broken after my first ever attempt and weirdly felt pretty good after my two hour session this week. Till the following evening that is, when, after a full day of hedge trimming I really felt like I should have rested instead.

There was no certificate for managing to stand on the board for a few seconds at Coldingham Bay, so I bought my VW van a surfing sticker. I felt like I earned it.

I have now surfed, either side of a thirty-year gap, but I have never been a surfer.

Maybe this is just another middle-aged fad. Or perhaps it’s something that’s been lying dormant, waiting for me to live near the sea.

I suppose I’m about to find out.

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#TheSeen

The photo at the top of this post was taken while I was working in NewZealand and was given a motorbike as my ‘hire car’.

I felt crazy lucky for the opportunity to explore such a beautiful part of the world.

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For your entertainment. And mine. I find these videos fascinating, funny and better than most things on the TV.

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I also watched Alley Cats by Ricky Gervais this week. It reminded me a little of the ad-libs from Peter Cook and Dudley Moore which with today’s filters made for some cringy watching. Not all of it was cringe and I mostly agree with this Guardian review in that I feel it could have been so much more. I watched them all though and feel I may have inadvertently contributed to it becoming a number one show on Netflix. 2/5

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And I also watched the 2007 Wes Anderson film ‘The Darjeeling limited’.

Visually stunning with lots to keep your eyes occupied, but I felt that it meandered around a deeper meaning without getting profound. Perhaps that was his intention. 3/5

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#TheWords

I love this interactive map following literary journeys all over the world and have lost a good 40 mins revisiting the places many books have taken me.

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A long read exploring how science fiction promised us better futures... faster travel, cleaner energy, life beyond Earth and technologies that solve problems we can hardly imagine. But what happens when the people building tomorrow are Musk, Bezos, Thiel and Zuckerberg? They borrow the spectacle while leaving behind the values.

An uncomfortable but compelling read. The looting of science fiction.

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#TheHeard

I finally managed to find a reasonably priced copy of Atomic Rooster’s debut album. It’s only taken me 11 years.

As there were a few different mixes/releases with the same cover and sleeve ,I had to check the matrix number’s engraved on the run out and thankfully it was the version I was after. CAS+1010+A2 and CAS+1010+B2 signify the original keyboard heavy mix that featured some mad flute, so is called the ‘Flute mix’.

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And one of the more interesting records still in my Discogs want list.

As you’d imagine. Quite collectable, so not cheap.

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#TheConsumed

Recently, somewhere on the mountain road to Sparta, after the tarmac sinkhole that had fallen into the valley below and just before the rockfall we bounced over that was being cleared by a digger… we found this guy.

I don’t know his name and he didn’t speak any English. But through a series of gestures we were able to taste and purchase some incredible greek honey. Some of the best I have tasted.

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The olives on the left that we brought back from Kalamata were amazing.

The jar of Kalamata olives on the right we bought from Morrisons so we could compare…. were mediocre at best.

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Photos below show some sections of our dried plums fresh from the dehydrator, one of our seemingly infinite (and massive) tomatoes, the beginnings of our ripening orchard and some still growing borlotti beans.

Just some of the things growing/ripening here.

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#TheThings

I never really choose to do jigsaws. Especially 1000 piece ones that cost 50p from a charity store and feature wedding photos from the TV series Coronation Street between the years of 1981 and 2000.

But someone left it partly done on the kitchen table and I got pulled into it. Time behaves differently when you are attempting to complete a jigsaw. On minute it’s 11pm and I’m just grabbing a drink of water before bed …and the next it’s 1am and I’m cursing the jigsaw wormhole I fell into.

And yes, there was a piece missing. (Visible on the right).

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After struggling with a 6.5” foot surf board all those years ago, I’ve ordered an 8ft one.

Stable, less demanding than a short board and able to catch smaller waves easier. Which means more waves to learn on. It’ll also be a lot safer when I start making an art form of the wipeout.

An old friend called Richard recommended a shop in Cornwall and they were super helpful on the phone. More on that when the board arrives.

As soon as it does arrive I'll be calling a new friend called Richard who I met surfing this week. He also has a board on the way and we plan to head out together. Probably safer that way. ;-)

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#TheLinks

• Sweden’s national strategy hopes to strengthen resilience in it’s population against foreign interference and disinformation.

• Just checking the Documentally community map to see who might live near some good waves and wow. A lot of you are coastal. ;-)

• Are all the things you subscribe to as wordy as this? Or are some things comic-y?

• Thanks to traumcave for this link to an article about a sudden mysterious buying-spree that is unsettling Europe’s booksellers.

• Some of my other places include these… plus back in the 90’s, after my first ever go at surfing, we medicated ourselves before going to see Event Horizon at a small cinema. Here is the Letterboxd review, I’m also hoping to get more stuff on Strava (although they don’t log surfing. I’m still building my Ale collection on Untappd, my audio RSS feed is still online and I occasionally post to Mastodon and Bluesky. Don’t forget supporting subscribers also get access to a Discord server. Message me if you would like in. 👍🏽

• Why we haven’t found any aliens yet.

• This week SimFin reminded me that it has been exactly five years since I rode from London to Edinburgh and fell in love with the borders. A journey that started here.

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#TheThanks

Thank you very much if you are one of the few who like, share and link to my posts. I’m sure it all goes some way to getting the word out to any other curious folk who might find something of use here.

And special thanks to the supporting subscribers who pay a small amount every month to receive this dispatch. You keep it free for all and help me to fund my hobbies, experiments and adventures. All of which you are welcome to share.

Thank you so much. ♥️

If you are in a position to be able to pay the price of a coffee a month to keep these words, ideas and curation happening, please consider an upgrade.

Or if you prefer a random hat tip you can do that via PayPal

or Monzo …Either way… Thank you for being here and supporting a human doing manual work with their brain.

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Wow. We got down here in good time. I got up early to finish this early so I can get out in the sun (only 22°C here) and ride my bike.

This next week I'm keen to catch a local food and drink festival, some of the Edinburgh Free Fringe and if the surfboard arrives… some waves.

See you on the other side!

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“We’re all equal before a wave.” — Laird Hamilton

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Ride.

See you out there.

Over…

A ❤️ is a high-five, a comment is a hug. A supporting subscription earns my undying love.