More pictures from last night's gathering (courtesy of Mary Beer).

What’s odd is that emotionally I’m in tune with this and prone to nostalgia, but intellectually I can’t convince myself. Things are worse in various ways (the internet, etc) but I think we forget just how corporate and dead the past was too

I can think of music critics who said this in the early 60s. To me it rings the same tune as older generations complaining about the rudeness of youth, which is an ancient tradition.

Frankly, I was guilty of gross fetishisation and nostalgia for a time when I wasn’t even around. Every period where ‘pop’ music has been a commercial entity has had terrible music played on the airways all day. The 80s was no better than today

My response to this sort of thing is rude: I remember being a stupid edgy teenager who preferred ‘older’ music from the 60s/70s/80s, and disliked contemporary music. But there has Always been utterly shit pop music, from the 50s onwards. And there is still good music today, just look for it

Some think being twee and cutesy is complimentary, but this is only true in particular situations. Some orgs have shifted to twee language to look more ‘appealing’. As if we are children. Yet there is a high risk of sounding patronising, vulgar, unprofessional or unserious...

One of the worst features of social media is that in the past narcissists like this could only bother anyone immediately next to them. Now they feel compelled to tell anyone their grievances and have the means. We ignore posts like this, while narcissists only see a self-regarding opportunity

There are a choice few fiction writers (primarily fiction writers, anyway) who have essay collections that I think are better than their usual (fictional) work (I won’t name them). I might be biased as an essay writer but I think, almost, that they’re insecure about the purposes of each medium

Yet some fiction writers are afraid of ‘straightforward’ exposé, so feel they have to ‘dress-up’ any message or ethical concern, yet their fear of non-fiction, something they should attempt, means they don’t ‘use fiction’ in all the necessarily vague and magical ways it can be used

As someone who writes memoirist, indulgent and diary-like non-fiction, I think I notice diffuse worries, or concerns, with both fiction and non-fiction writers — non-fiction writers can be afraid of personality and ego, fetishising formality and impersonality; …

… Yet they are then, also, unable to compute fiction that isn’t explicitly moral or instructional, literal or instrumental, and so condemn anything outside their narrow frame

Crude reply, but I think *some* fiction writers think they absolutely have to have an explicit moral obligation in their work tethered to the real world, but they’re afraid of non-fiction and want hide in the plausible deniability of fiction...

China's solar power capacity (887 gigawatts) is almost double Europe's and America's combined total, but at what cost?

If you are reporting China news, this is the tried and tested formula:

Bad News: China struggles [blank]

Good News: China [good news], but at what cost?

Oof. 'for being uninterested'. Omit Not.

I like to expand my interests or find something new but I really can't be spending my time reading articles about stuff that doesn't pique me, so I'm fine skipping even a good half of some issues if a few good reviews/articles make up for it.

I forgive myself for not being uninterested in various subjects. I skim through and if after reading the first few paragraphs I am really not moved by some article about something personally uninteresting I skip, without qualms. Forgivable philistinism. I'm adept at fishing for the good stuff.

I've had a Private Eye subscription for over 15 years. I subscribed to the TLS in 2020 and despite various criticisms I have come across good, new books I otherwise would never have heard of, and I occasionally read a very good review/commentary. So despite any misgivings it is worth it