Being a day pupil at a boarding school in the late 70's / early 80's was a weird thing. For starters there was a whole part of school life that you weren't part of anymore. The evening high jinks, playing out in the woods in summer, playing inside on the table football or table tennis in winter, missing out on the midnight swims and not being beaten on the bare backside for talking after lights out at bed time.
Hello again, Dear Reader.
In case you're new here, I'm Alastair Johnston and you're receiving this newsletter because you subscribed over at my blog or via a link from Substack. I'm grateful for you giving me some of your time and attention and hope I always inform or entertain you here. If not, please feel free to unsubscribe, I won't be offended.
Here are the latest interesting things I’d love to share with you.
Bird by Bird and Prep School Lunches
I’ve a new piece over on the blog inspired by an exercise in Anne Lammot’s Bird by Bird. Sometimes you write to scratch your own itch, to work things out. And although this post seems like it’s about school lunches, it turned out to be something a little more introspective. Another reason why writing helps make sense of things.
What do you want?
Over on The Unmachined, I’ve been thinking about how this one question can be really useful in choosing what technology we use or resist.
CD’s are not dead
CJ Chilvers’ Why I went back to buying CD’s (and you should too) makes a case for the humble CD in a world that often seems to only consider vinyl as the format for physical music. When I decided to undertake a depth year, I realised the value of physical media that streamers can’t remove. And with the poor taste that Spotify leaves in my mouth, I think I will soon be considering unsubscribing and just purchasing used CD’s instead.
The Red Hand Files
Nick Cave’s music did not really feature much in my listening, but I’m going to have to revisit this after stumbling on his beautiful website The Red hand Files. How to describe this one? Answers to any and all questions by an artist, thinker and kind soul. The kind of wesbite that feels old school, gets you thinking and has warmth and humanity running right through each page.
That’s it for now.
Be kind and live well!
Comments? Insights? Join the discussion or email me.