Most people want to help when friends are struggling, but sometimes you just can’t. Sometimes the problems your friends experience can’t be solved or even alleviated by you. So what do you do to show up? This is only my experience, and others may have Read more
I m adding Kit to the list of names I respond to :) My given name is Christopher, but most people call me Chris. I have zero feelings about that, except that as a writer and producer I much prefer to be credited or bylined as Read more
I’ve just realised that the Lloyd Webber/Rice song I Don’t Know How to Love Him is the canonical ballad of a ‘DL straight guy’ falling in love with another man. I’ve long thought it works well for a guy coming to terms with his bisexuality, Read more
In all the chatter¹ about dashes revealing the use of generative AI such as ChatGPT, I’ve seen two things missed. First, confident assertions about em-dashes — like these — being ‘correct’ don’t make any allowance for regional variations. Em-dashes remain common in formal US styles guides, but shorter en-dashes Read more
I do use AI, mostly as a research aid, but I have lots of issues with it. Issues with the forced and unheeding acquisition and exploitation of others’ IP, issues with the carbon impact, and issues with inequality and inequity — even before we get to the Read more
This photo was shot on the day my wife and I took afternoon tea to mark the turning of a page: a month later, we’d be parents and this was our acknowledgment that this kind of life would be out of reach for a while. Read more
Last night someone I don’t know got in touch with me, politely and humbly to ask for some advice on a professional matter. This is not uncommon, and I always make time to offer what help I can; I can’t promise I’ll actually ever help, Read more
My in-laws live a few miles up the east coast of Scotland, in a town called Arbroath. It tickled us no end that our daughter – surrounded by nothing but Scottish accents – parsed this as ‘our broath’. It’s not the ‘broath’ bit that’s notable Read more
I’ve just watched Philippa Perry’s episode of Victorian Sensations, and one of the thoughts in the film resonated with me in particular. Maybe it’s not surprising that people of the age saw so many ghosts because, in a sense, spirits did haunt the Victorian home. Read more
It took me until my early thirties properly to be exposed to a really simple idea: everyone around you, indeed, everyone all over the world, has a story that brought them to today, to this minute, this second, that is as rich and internally consistent Read more