Anyone got some hairspray and a lighter?
What’s up, buttercup?
This week I found out the New Yorker has been spying on me for years. This piece explains how leaving dishes to soak, refusing to throw away manky leftovers and mopping with my foot and a floor wipe demonstrates how I’m a fearful and avoidant type (who is likely to have a cramped hamstring). I mean the shame.
Still, at least my slovenly behaviour has freed up time for browsing through Netflix’s obscure search categories, which include ‘visually striking gory crime movies’ and ‘emotional dramas for 11 to 12 year-olds’. As yet, there’s no category for ‘animated films featuring sanitary pads that will freak out your conservative grandma’ — Disney/Pixar got the jump on them there.
Enjoy the weekend – and don’t eat that tupperware of chicken in the fridge…
Let’s dabble!
The bad luck of the Irish
(No, since you ask: one week mentioning corned beef WASN’T enough.) Yes we’re all very topical here at The Pocket Polymath – we discovered this week that it was the farming of cows for corned beef that pushed the Irish to rely on potato crops for sustenance in the 1700s. And we know how well that turned out…
Insects: repellent?
Are you scared of bugs? I’m not too bad with insects, but when it comes to spiders I’m with Charlie Brooker, who described them as mobile nightmare units. And in the event we ever went to war with insects, as the inimitable (and probable Actual Polymath) Bill Bailey, pointed out:
“Spiders are not insects, but in a war they will side
With the insects
Traitors! Traitors! Spider traitors!”
Anyway…I’m back in the room. The top three reasons for our fear, according to certain scientists, are an evolutionary anxiety, a disgust response, and a fear of – retch – infestation. They say that if we learn more about them, they’re less likely to freak us out. So you do that. Blowtorch at the ready…
Damn fine coffee?
COFFEE IS VERY IMPORTANT. Well it is to me, anyway. (I just discovered that the coffee provided at work has been decaf for weeks. WEEKS. I’ve been gaslit many times, but never by my morning beverages.) Anyway, this materials scientist claims a good brew is more of a science than an art, as it depends on “the speed at which coffee flavor moves through the solid particle to the water-coffee interface”. I mean that’s some sexy shit. Now pass the cherry pie.
Shelf help
Sometimes life gets tough. We turn to booze, to baking banana bread or to obscure Netflix sub genres to find some meaning in it all. But a massively underrated form of self-care is reading kids’ books. Here are a few that might get you through the grind…but personally, I recommend The Adventures of the Dish and the Spoon. No, YOU have something in your eye.
Heads above water
This my friend, is a two-headed terrapin turtle. The best bit? It is/they are called Mary-Kate and Ashley.
(Actually, to be fair, the best bit is that they’re being looked after to make them less vulnerable to extinction. Then the name thing.)