Month: April 2026

A couple of days ago, I really indulged myself!

I hadn’t been to the cinema in ages, probably 10 years at least, because I just can’t bear being lectured to that capitalism is so bad when I’m paying £15 a ticket. But I recently discovered there’s a branch of a quite chi-chi, niche cinema chain that I visited when I lived in London (it’s called Curzon).

So I took took myself to the branch in Sheffield, it’s very glamorous and housed in a former bank building, most tasteful. I ate my popcorn before going into the cinema, sat in one of its many lounges, I felt very peaceful.

But here’s what I got from watching the 25th Anniversary screening of the French film Amélie.

Colour!

Comedy!

Quirkiness!

It was transporting. Particularly nice as it only me and another chap in the cinema. The bliss of watching a film unpolluted by politics. It was sweet and vibrant, incredibly witty than what I had actually remembered. 

Charming. We have to take responsibility for our individual place in the world. The reason you’re depressed is you follow fashion, you wait for people to tell you what’s hot and what’s not. You believe war is a necessity.

Enlighten yourself. I’m not saying it’s easy but it’s your job.

I originally had quite a different idea for this post.

When I go out on my walks, I surveil the landscape highly meticulously. I pick out details, examine, see how things interact. It occurred to me that the reason we see manmade structures – buildings, walls, wells, infrastructure, etc. is because somebody has honed in and focused on one particular enterprise and invested their time and energy into it.

Simple really.

Today, someone I follow commented on an Andrew Tate post. I have to admit it made me laugh because, whatever you think of ‘TopG’, he’s an absolute master in how to draw people’s attention and even if his follower count is artificially inflated, that only happens if you’re ‘useful’ to the powers that be.

You’re, much of the time, observing masterclasses in how to distract, manipulate and fool you. I put ‘useful’ in scare quotes because I’m not necessarily saying it’s either good or bad influence but simply observing Tate’s behaviour, in this case, is effective. Highly effective. And let’s face it, people could only dream of having a tenth of his influence and they want to be part of it, they want to use it to advance their own platform.

They’ll never admit it but, truth be told, I don’t follow him anymore, I did for a while and briefly joined his Real World school but I only see such people on my feed now from the hate comments left of those I do follow. If he’s so very terrible, stop giving such accounts free advertising AND stop allowing them to live rent free in your head.