Thom's Link Emporium - 0025 - July 11 2022

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Can’t really talk in detail about this week because the Civil Service requires me to be neutral, but in summary, regardless of the party in power, things like this are like the World Cup for the politically nerdy. It’s been an interesting week.

Links

  1. If you enjoyed the article about the struggles of TalkTV, this article about the struggles of GB News is a nice companion

  2. A fun, morbid, game in which you can guess whether a particular celebrity is still alive or not

  3. A comprehensive answer from a historian on Reddit to the question "What is the likelihood that Catherine the Great ever ate a banana?"

  4. A good friend of mine, Steve Lawson (you might know him as @solobasssteve) has been diagnosed with cancer. He's been a true inspiration in how well he's faced up to it, but you can support him by subscribing on Bandcamp (and getting access to a wealth of outstanding music)

  5. One of my favourite conspiracy theories is almost 300 years of history that never happened were inserted into European records (and, for this to work, equally plausible history records across the rest of the world). This short extract from John Elledge and Tom Phillips's new book about conspiracies is a good summary

  6. Kat Lister interviews John Wood, the producer of Nick Drake's Pink Moon

Listening

I promised last week that I'd share my favourite songs from the first half of 2022, so here it is on Spotify and Apple Music - any feedback in the comments or on Twitter gratefully received!

Watching

I really enjoyed this video of someone making the Flintstones car out of Lego. This version includes some pretty nifty steering which leads to some important questions about the original. How does Fred steer the car? Did Fred just lift and carry the whole car (including two huge columns of stone) briefly to get it to turn? I'd have thought the easiest thing to follow the route back from the cinema would be to swap the direction of the roof and go home without turning it at all?

Quote

When we get a new tool, we generally start by forcing the tool to fit the work we already do. Then, over time, we change the work to fit the tool.

Benedict Evans, Newsletter