Dear chuckle chums,
How are you today? I hope you’re well and that this week is being good to you.
For me, I’ve come back to Finistère after two weeks working in Paris. It’s always great to get back. I was born in London (the subject is a subtle reference to where I was born - did you get it?) and I love cities but I do like getting back to the countryside too.
Now, you’ll note that this is the third newsletter in three weeks - something of a record for me. And this one isn’t coming out at the weekend - which is a bit different. There are all sorts of reasons for this. As regular readers will know, when I teach on the content creation and social media module, I am given my annual kick up the bum to do another newsletter and that seems to have been more effective than normal this time. But, also, I am interested in finding out when is best to send the newsletter out. I normally send it on the weekend but the last couple have been on a Friday - but everyone does that. So this one won’t be on Friday - let’s see what happens!
Right, so that’s the admin out of the way!
In this pony (numerical not quality) edition, I will:
Show you something I found on the floor
Talk about Pebbles
Get excited about elections
…and more!
So, without further a do (or ado - I’m not sure which), let’s dive in!
James x
Collecting Rubbish
I’m a great fan of looking up (see below, ironically) but you shouldn’t neglect to look down.
Having been born and brought up in east London, I am a bit addicted to street markets. If I am being honest, the rougher the market, the happier I am. Before gentrification ruined the area, I loved going up the Lane - Brick Lane Market and the roads off - on a Sunday. Just to be clear, the world does not need another ironic coffee shop. Not now. Not ever.
Sorry, where was I? Oh yes! Markets!
So, like a moth to a lightbulb, I have developed my own little internal map of markets in and around Paris. In the rare moments that I am in town when they are on, you can probably find me in one of them, haggling over something that I didn’t know I needed.
Anyway, last week, I was wandering around having had a particularly unfruitful tour of the market when I looked down and saw the normal rubbish that you find on a market floor. And then I saw…
I cannot explain how exciting this was. I felt like I was in an Amélie remake.
As soon as I got on the train home that same afternoon, I took them out of my pocket and had a better look at them.
When I flipped them over, they had things hand written on the back.
The first seemed to be “Loirmoutier, Le château-fort”.
This turned out to be Noirmoutier. The castle is on the l'Île de Noirmoutier in the Vendée region of France.
When I held the slide up to the window of the train, I could get a clear look at the castle…
…which I then managed to find on Google Street View…
The photo seems to have been taken from a point where there is now a carpark (from the blue marker looking towards the red marker). (Link here)
The second was a giveaway to the reason for the first!
It reads “Ile de Noirmoutier, Installation aux Sableaux” and there is a clear caravan and tent pitched under trees.
There is an area on the Ile de Noirmoutier called Les Sableaux that includes a number of camp sites.
So I had stumbled across someone’s holiday slides on the floor. It’s a lovely spot for a holiday!
In the very unlikely event that these were, once upon a time, yours, let me know and I’ll get them back to you!
Amélie Trailer
In case you’ve forgotten, here’s the trailer - you should probably watch the film again too!
The Pebble Sunk
In the aftermath of Elon Musk taking over Twitter, a number of projects took off which aimed to offer a better Twitter experience for those who didn’t want to hang around on a network that was happy to have people sharing child abuse images.
One of those new networks was T2. T2 was set up by a number of people who had been involved in Twitter (or T1!) and aimed to have the same experience but better.
However, while it looked good on the surface, the decision making process was opaque with rules being created on the hoof and applied retrospectively - which, to be fair, is pretty much like Twitter now operates - and support promising lots but delivering little.
The sad thing is that it had a really nice feeling to it. Indeed, despite the experiences I and others had, I do believe that the team had the best of intentions. However, alienating users (even if that wasn’t the intention) was never going to be a good look and, according to the official email, they just couldn’t get the growth in users to convince investors to get (or stay?) onboard.
RIP T2/Pebble
Over on Bluesky…
A few of you contacted me to ask for Bluesky invites - and it’s great to see you are now on Bluesky. For those of you who don’t know, Bluesky is a social network that is currently in invite-only beta but is looking increasingly like the go-to Twitter replacement.
Want to try it? Drop me a message somewhere and I’ll get an invite to you!
Already on it? Say hi to me @jamesmb.bsky.social
More Photos
Last week, Christian Payne (Documentally - sign up for his newsletter here) and I went for a wander around the Louvre. When we finally got kicked out (they were closing, we hadn’t do anything wrong), we walked through the underground shopping area and saw a photobooth which offered 4 snaps for 10€. We discussed the very high price of that booth and, as we went around the corner, we saw another, more fun booth.
This booth offered 4 fun photos for just 3€. Christian couldn’t resist and, as soon as he had done his, he triggered a queue of other people who wanted a go.
Then, overcome by FOMO, I decided that I had to have a go too! Here’s the result!
If you can find one, these Tabobine booths are great fun and well worth throwing a few euros in.
Fun Button Corner
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Thank you!
Elections!
As you may know, I worked in politics for a long time and, as anyone who has done the same will tell you, it’s a drug. So to have my right to vote taken away from me by the Brexshitters hurt a LOT - and I know it hurt a lot of other people too.
Luckily, I now have that back and as a Croatian and European, there is a plethora of elections to look forward to in 2024, including:
6-9 June 2023 - Election of members to the European Parliament
Spring/Summer- Croatian Parliamentary elections
December – Croatian Presidential elections (first round) (Second round is in January)
There will be a lot more about these in coming newsletters - all with the added excitement of someone voting for the first time… again.
So don’t say you weren’t warned!
Origin Story
If you can’t look at this from the Louvre’s Ancient Egyptian collection…
…and think ‘proto-Gogglebox’, then there is no helping you.
Game Time
How many London Underground stations do you know? Less than you thought!
Play the world’s most annoying game here. I got to 42.9% but it was a struggle!
That’s it for now!
It’s pouring down with rain as I type - winter has set in and at least one mouse has taken up residence in the walls… the joy of living in the countryside.
Final thought? Twitter’s losing its most active users - hahahaha!
Take care, everyone!
James x
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