Russell Davies

41233

A few years ago I did a weekly podcast for a year. A tiny assemblage of bits of audio. A collage. A compilation. It was called 41256. I've decided to do it again. Only now it's called 41233. The feed is live. I think.

If you subscribe it might give you all the old episodes, depending on your podcast player. It might not. Who knows?

Find it wherever you get your podcasts, as they say.

New episodes will happen on Sundays at 4:12:33. 

I get it

I've loved all the lists that are coming out of things people have loved and learned in 2022. Someone should do a list of lists. They probably have. Someone should do a list of lists of lists. I don't have such a list, but here are some of the things I wrote down in 2022 that didn't go anywhere else.

Bearing down on is the new getting a grip / I have told friends that I get it. I have become a distraction. I'm stepping back. I look forward to clearing my name / I might be evolving away from tennis too / Marmalade making for the Daily Worker bazaar / Dodge and delay / I take off my cycle clips in awkward reverence / Dewsbury Hall / Economic headwinds / Sunshine and flanneled ease / Enemy Collapse Sabotage Bureau / Mike Dean, the strawberry girl / Neither Westminster nor Manchester / JD Slazenger / There is a lamb that never goes baa

There's a new division in the world between those who thought Paul McCartney could have done an incredible hour at Glastonbury and stopped there. And the others.

This year I want to say "How do you do?" when I arrive and "will you excuse me?" when I leave.

PowerpAInt

I've been waiting for this. I assume MS are working on it. An 'AI' tool that creates slides (or a whole presentation) based on a prompt. I've only just started playing with it. 

I typed the words 'Make it big' and got some cyberpunk

I typed 'Keep it short' and got, er, dunno

I typed 'Have a point' and got a compelling call to action

(Press play in the top right corner and advance through the presentations, if you'd like to)

The words are all as we've come to expect, a sort of fluent summary of the cliches you'd expect. In a style few people would recommend but everyone seems to do anyway. The visuals are much more interesting. Definitely better than clipart. Potentially really compelling.

The Last Great Slideshow

The Last Great Wilderness from Finis Dunaway on Vimeo.

The Last Great Wilderness slideshow is a great example of pre-PowerPoint presentation. 

"...created by a group of amateur activists in the late 1980s. The music, images, and narration are a product of their time, but the show’s message and content seem surprisingly fresh and relevant today...

...For almost two decades, Lenny Kohm took the show on the road—presenting it in libraries, church basements, university lecture halls, and other venues across the United States. On these tours, he was often joined by Gwich’in representatives who explained to grassroots audiences how drilling in the refuge would jeopardize their culture, food security, and relations with caribou and the land...

...Originally presented with two slide projectors, a fade-dissolve unit, and a sound system..."

From

Lights! Camera! Orange!

Warming

Just the words Afro Cuban Funky Grooves are enough

You got a script

@outstandingscreenplays #DavidLynch screenwriting advice 👌👏 #screenwriter #screenplay #scriptwriting #fyp #author #filmtok #movies #writer #cinema #film ♬ original sound - Outstanding Screenplays

Gathering gatherings

I've been thinking about Interesting 2023 and about places for gathering. This is a lovely piece to do with that. And that formulation (Corner, Club Cathedral, Cocoon) is fantastic.

I was also very struck by Robin Dunbar pointing out that conversations can never, really, grow beyond groups of four people and how that is reflected in the design of tables and events. ('Design' might be putting it too strong, it's reflected in how those things have ended up):

"These natural limits on the size of conversation groups are largely responsible for the traditional size of dinner parties and even the size of dining tables. Four people is perfect because they can form a single conversation. Six or eight are OK because they add variety of opinions and a single table can accommodate two or perhaps three separate conversations – with the table still small enough for people to switch from one conversation to another when they feel inclined. But more people than that means that the table has to be so large that conversations across it become impossible (you just cannot hear what someone the other side is saying), and you end up being stuck with just the people either side of you. Moreover, it is very easy for someone to get stuck between two conversations and end up with no one to talk to. Check this out next time you are at a wedding or a formal dinner where tables often seat ten or twelve. Of course, one reason for larger tables at these kinds of events – and the reason they can get away with this arrangement – is that you aren’t really expected to spend the whole time deep in conversation: you are supposed to listen quietly to the speeches."

 

Monday morning

I read about this on Mastodon, but I'm not quite sure if it's polite to embed/link to that. So I did some independent googling

It's what we all need on a Monday morning.

Nice

This is an excellent idea, from Alex Mitchell of #feministfriday

"Here's something I'm profoundly glad I do at work. Any time someone says (in writing) something good about something that my team or I have done, I save it to a notepad file called nice.txt. Then when I'm in need of a boost I will open nice.txt and read what people have said in descending date order until I feel happy again. If you think there is a possibility that this would work for you, I really encourage you to try it, it's been a tonic for me more than once and is so easy to do."