Last week I attended a guided mindfulness session at which the guy leading the class started by admitting that he once left his home before realising he was wearing watches on both wrists. It was an excellent ice-breaker and a masterful bit of expectation setting for what proved to be a really great experience. In between grounding exercises, the teacher led us through small techniques designed to showcase how quickly the mind makes (often incorrect) assumptions as a result of sub-conscious, evolutionary traits we’ve all inherited.

It has rained a lot in the south of England recently, and tomorrow is forecast to bring another 12mm of precipitation, including snow. Today though, we’re enjoying a brief spell of sunshine. It’s still only 5ºC, but folks on my lane are sat out in their back gardens. The neighbour a few doors down is playing the new Puma Blue record—a perfect-seeming soundtrack as it drifts out in the cold, bright air.

A small group of alpacas standing in a grassy enclosure beside a brick building, with a white alpaca wearing a purple halter in the foreground and brown, black and cream alpacas behind.

A white alpaca with a red and blue halter standing in a grassy pen beside a brick building, with visitors gathered behind a metal fence and other alpacas nearby.

Oxford University can be a strange place to work. This morning I attended the Academic Registrar’s Briefing, then walked to St Anne’s College for a symposium on AI in Education, and then across the road to Kellogg College, where a friend had organised a visit from some alpacas (and a llama) for wellbeing week.

Zadie Smith @ The Sheldonian

Last night we went to see Zadie Smith at the Sheldonian. Some readers may recall that a couple of years ago I saw Ali Smith receive the Bodley Medal at the same venue, so I enjoyed the symmetry of taking my seat to see Z Smith this time around.

Only when she walked out did I realise that, despite having read her for some time and listened to her on podcasts, I’d not updated my idea of Zadie Smith much in the last 25 years. She appeared impossibly cool behind dark-tinted glasses, and spoke with effortless thoughtfulness, answering her interlocutor’s questions in an entirely unguarded way. She is no longer the wise-beyond-her-years 20-something that I first encountered in issue 81 of Granta back in 2003. Then she was a member of a loose set of young British writers who were reinvigorating the novel: see also Monica Ali, Rachel Cusk, Hari Kunzru, David Mitchell and Adam Thirlwell. A few of those have lasted for me over the decades, but Smith now seems to occupy a particular echelon of (not just) British literature. Alongside half a dozen novels and more than a decade as a tenured professor at NYU, she’s kept up an impressive cadence of non-fiction, such that one gets the sense she can now write on whatever she’d like.

Ostensibly, Smith was there to talk about her new non-fiction book, Dead and Alive (2025), but the conversation was wide-ranging, as befits a collection of essays on topics as diverse as the art of Kara Walker, Joan Didion, the movie Tár (2022) and a love letter to her native NW6. She read this last piece, ‘Kilburn, My Love’, for us, and must have been gratified to have a couple hundred people rapt, laughing in all the right places.

Paperback book titled Gifted by Suzumi Suzuki, shown at an angle on a striped fabric surface. The cover features bold black text on red and white blocks, with a black-and-white photograph of a woman smoking in the lower section.

Proof positive: no sooner do I shout out the work of Luke Bird (in the latest newsletter issue) than I find he designed this great, bold cover for the novel I just finished.

Die My Loves

A week or so ago, I gulped down Ariana Harwicz’s slim debut novel Die, My Love (2012) in advance of Lynne Ramsay’s film adaptation (Die My Love (2025), no comma) arriving on MUBI. It’s an arresting piece of fiction, both thematically and (in Sarah Moss and Carolina Orloff’s translation) textually.

I found particularly effective the manner in which Harwicz warps time and sensation on the page, so that it represents her protagonist’s state of mind and confused perception. It’s not a new technique of course, to shape a text through the lens of its narrator’s psyche, but here it’s done superbly well, to disorienting effect. In response to her feelings of resentment, boredom and entrapment within her relationship and her new motherhood, the nameless woman whose mind the reader shares throughout is by turns acidly cruel (‘The baby is crying his quota of morning torment.’ (p81)), and possessed of an inner monologue that twists and turns alongside her restless, malcontent spirit:

We saw the little rabbit skulls. And the death of a tiny chick that had got separated from its nest.

Its mother's sharp black beak, wide open in fear. I gave the baby swamp water from the pond to taste. Petals from the most colourful and fragrant flowers to eat. Leaves to chew on for their sap. We mimicked the calls of the animals around us, becoming part of them. The diurnal and nocturnal birds answered us, and we heard the cry that begins peacefully and turns mournful halfway through.

The pleasant vowel Aa that changes into the hoarse, fearsome consonant Och. The bird that calls out and becomes two birds: sane and insane, tame and murderous.

I dunked my son in the icy water and baptised him by mistake. May God forgive me. (p66)

I don’t intend to do this every month, but as we close out January, let me share the 2026-released albums I’ve listened to so far this year. In case it’s of interest, I’m keeping a running list over here of the ones that are really working for me.

A tall grid of square images arranged in rows, showing a mix of album covers and art prints in varied styles, including abstract patterns, portraits, paintings, collage, photography and graphic design, with colours ranging from muted greys to vivid reds, blues and yellows, creating a visually eclectic gallery-like display.

Likewise, here are all of the films that I’ve watched so far this year. (Heart icons represent those I liked most.) If you’d like to keep up with progress throughout the year, you can find me over on Letterboxd.

A dark interface showing a grid of film posters arranged in rows, featuring a wide mix of styles and genres, from colourful illustrated designs to dramatic photographic portraits, with visible titles such as Akira, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Die My Love and Winter in Sokcho, creating the impression of a curated film library or watchlist.

Wes Anderson: The Archives

This weekend we took a trip into London to visit the Design Museum for Wes Anderson: The Archives. If you had asked me to draw up a shortlist of directors whose works I’d like to have the chance to step into, Anderson would be right towards the top. It was a delightful—if occasionally surreal—experience to come face-to-face with so many of the building blocks of his meticulously-designed worlds.

Glass display case with rows of spiral-bound notebooks filled with handwritten notes, surrounded by scattered instant photographs, set against bright red walls lined with more photographs.

Upon entering the exhibition—through a door marked ‘NO CRYING’—you’re greeted with a display case in which Anderson’s hand-written spiral bound notebooks are piled below a gallery of candid Polaroids taken on set throughout his career. It’s a fitting introduction to Anderson the archivist, as well as the filmmaker.

Close-up of a pair of white Adidas trainers with blue stripes and yellow laces, worn with pale trousers, displayed on a bright red surface with another pair visible behind. — Photo by Elizabeth

Close-up of a khaki scout-style jacket decorated with numerous badges and patches, including a stitched animal face, star emblem and ‘Field Mate’ labels, with a yellow neckerchief tied at the collar. — Photo by Elizabeth

The exhibition proceeds (mostly) chronologically through Anderson’s oeuvre, starting with Bottle Rocket (1996), through to 2025’s The Phoenician Scheme. Centrepiece to each room are the costumes used during filming. It brings home just how many iconic looks have featured in Anderson’s movies: from Jason Schwartzman’s beret in Rushmore (1998), to Ben Stiller’s tracksuit and Gwyneth Paltrow’s fur coat in The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) and of course the blue and red ensemble worn by the crew of the Belafonte in 2004’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

Glass case displaying a fragile, yellowed paper plan with hand-drawn architectural elevations and floor layouts of a large institutional building, set against a deep red background.

Freestanding sign titled ‘Hovel District’ displaying a dense, colour-coded transit-style map with district names and routes, framed in green against a dark red background.

There are also a huge number of props and pieces of set dressing from each film: as small as a compass or pocket knife (Moonrise Kingdom (2012)) and as large as a scale model of multiple train cars (Asteroid City (2023)). Even the entire façade of the titular building in The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), and the rooftop signage from The French Dispatch (2021) are viewable up-close.

Display of three anthropomorphic animal figures in a gallery setting: a fox woman in a patterned dress with arms folded, a taller fox man in a shirt and tie, and a smaller opossum in a safari-style outfit, with framed paintings, an easel and a folding chair behind them.

Miniature diorama of a Japanese ramen street scene, with small figures in baseball uniforms queueing at a noodle counter, a chef behind the bar, a dog with a bat, and glowing lanterns and shop signs lining the narrow street.

One of my favourite rooms of the exhibition was the one that breaks the chronology, but for good reason: bringing together sets and maquettes from Anderson’s two stop-motion animated films to date. The chance to see the level of detail in the models for The Fantastic Mr Fox (2009) and Isle of Dogs (2018) was truly special.

• • •

Also in several of the rooms were screens playing scenes from the film in question. The idea was to showcase the costumes as they were worn, and the props as they were used. However, I couldn’t help but notice that the screens always had people gathered at them with smiles on their faces, won over anew by the charm of Anderson’s film-making. I certainly came away from our visit with the intention to revisit each of these movies again soon.

Row of brightly coloured vintage vending machines labelled with unusual categories such as ‘Stockings’, ‘Cocktail’, ‘Coffee’, ‘Ammunition’, ‘Candy’ and ‘Snacks’, displayed side by side against a dark red wall.

In some personal news, my electric toothbrush has become haunted. For about 20 minutes today I thought my neighbours were drilling, but it turned out to be my toothbrush vibrating in the ceramic cup it lives in. I’ve had no choice but to swaddle the brush in soft fabric whilst waiting for its rechargeable battery to die. I will then dispose of it responsibly, attaching a label that reads ‘Caution: possessed by a restless spirit’.

• • •

Writing about this makes me recall reading once someone’s 21st century lament, that all they wanted to do was read their book and smoke a cigarette, but they couldn’t do either because both their book and cigarette required charging first.

A hand holding a matte white bag of coffee labeled 'Routes Coffee Roasters', with a blue sticker reading 'Colombia, Julio Quiceno, Caturra, Coconut Ferment' and tasting notes of chocolate, butter, and coconut, illustrated with a city skyline and van.

Back at it again with a new one from local roasters Routes, and this time it’s something… unusual! I’ve not had ‘coconut fermented’ coffee before, and right upon opening the bag it became very obvious that this was going to be a different experience. The beans smelled strongly of coconut, and whilst the aroma deepened upon grinding, the cup still had a distinctly coconut-y scent. As for taste: it’s a strong, sweet and unusual coffee as a filter. I’m intrigued to find out what happens when I throw it in the AeroPress later in the week.

Ribbit

I’ve sung the praises of Zach Gage and Orta Therox’s daily puzzle site Puzzmo here before. I still play pretty much every day, and recently a new game got added that I’ve really been enjoying: Ribbit.

Stylised network diagram of 16 dark circular nodes arranged in a 4×4 grid connected by black lines; each circle contains a white capital letter. Pastel pink and blue semi-circular rings radiate around each node, giving a colourful, modern infographic appearance.

It’s simple enough to play: just find all of the words of four characters or more in length. The paths between, and borders around, each letter denote the connections you should be looking at.

Network diagram similar to the previous image, with several nodes and connecting lines highlighted in light blue to show a path: R connects up to I, then diagonally to V, across to A, and down to L. The highlighted nodes (R, I, V, A and L) and their connecting lines stand out against the remaining dark nodes and lines, indicating a selected route through the 4×4 grid of lettered circles.

As you find words, those connections disappear as they’re no longer required, making for a puzzle that actually gets easier the more progress you make. This conceit, along with the visual design of the puzzle, was the subject of a recent newsletter by Zach Gage, from which I found this detail really interesting:

On my wife's recommendation, I kept the walls, but I switched the visual focus from walls to paths. Instead of light paths and solid walls, the final version […] has solid paths and light walls. This minor visual trick worked perfectly.

The most delightful part, however, comes when you’ve found all of the words that use a given letter. The letter then disappears, revealing a little frog in its place.

Illustration combining a letter network and icons: on the right, a partial grid of dark circular nodes connected by lines, each labeled with a capital letter; on the left, a grid of pastel-outlined circles each containing a small cartoon frog icon in different colours.

Not to boast, but at the time of writing I’ve got a pretty decent Ribbit streak going. You should think about joining me, and if you do, let’s be friends.

Turquoise and wood-paneled mobile coffee trailer parked roadside, with a serving hatch open, a sign reading Mima’s, and another sign advertising organic coffee and artisanal bakes.

One thing I’ve missed since we moved out of (more) central Oxford, to the eastern village-like part where we’ve now lived for two years, has been easy access to coffee spots. We were a little spoiled where we were previously: two streets away from one local roastery and—on the other side of the road—a vegan café owned by another. Where we are now, the closest place is a 30 minute walk or 10 minute cycle away. Not a huge effort by any means, but an hour’s round-trip is a different proposition to nipping out for a quick croissant, and I’ve found we do it infrequently.

That changed a bit this week, with the arrival of this cute little horse box coffee place just about 10 minutes’ walk away. Hours are limited, at least to start with, but the coffee was good, and the vegan blueberry muffin was a treat.

2026 Resolutions

Black triangular banner hanging from a wooden bookcase with the words “DO RIGHT AND FEAR NO MAN” in yellow letters, surrounded by shelves of books in a home interior.

It is customary at this juncture to discuss resolutions. That’s one of mine above, in pennant form, gifted to me for Christmas. And I have another, which goes something along the lines of: read more, write more, relax and make a ‘mess’. Those quotation marks are important: I don’t intend to leave the house in disarray, I mean to not be quite so uptight about adhering to self-imposed restrictions. These are everywhere in my life, from the restricted colour palette of my clothes (every item bought from one retailer), to the times at which I make coffee (08:15; 10:30; 15:00). Before heading to bed each night, I don’t just make sure the door is locked, I also check that the couch cushions are in their correct rotation. I am prone to completionism and perfectionism, which are fine only so far as they might make one happy. So, that resolution is about letting go of the need for things to align quite so neatly at all times.

A bright blue coffee bag from Round Hill Roastery held in one hand against a red brick wall, with a label showing Kenyan washed coffee “AB Gakundu” and tasting notes of shortbread, cinnamon, and blackcurrant jelly.

Starting the new year with a new coffee from Round Hill. My first cup, as filter, tasted a little more black tea than ‘blackcurrant jelly’, but it was very enjoyable.

Marty Supreme (2025) dir Josh Safdie

A table tennis player in a dark arena extends his arm to serve, holding a bright red paddle toward the camera, with a focused expression and the blurred crowd behind him.

Back in January of 2020, I squirmed in my cinema seat throughout the Safdie brothers’ Uncut Gems (2019), hooked on every tangent taken by Adam Sandler’s unravelling jeweller / gambler. Here, older brother Josh recaptures much of that same frantic energy, but it stems from a different place. Where Sandler’s Howard Ratner was increasingly fuelled by sheer desperation, Timothée Chalamet’s Marty Mauser is propelled by unflagging self belief. As things start to come unglued, that distinction makes all the difference. There’s a myopia to Mauser, and a powerful selfishness; the film catalogues numerous misfortunes rendered unto others because of his actions. And yet, some combination of script, performance and character arc make him hard not to pull for. You’re still likely to only use the edge of your seat, but you’re less likely to watch between your fingers.

Friends, as has been tradition for more than quarter of a century, I’ve rounded out my music-listening year with a rundown of the twenty records released in 2025 that brought me the most joy. If that sounds interesting to you, grab a warm drink of your choice and head this way for the full list.

Bath Explorations

Recently we took a trip to Bath, a city we’ve visited a few times in the past, but only ever for a day at a time. On this occasion we stayed over—at a cute little townhouse on North Parade—so that we had a bit more time for wandering. We found good coffee at WatchHouse¹ and Coffever, browsed the shelves at the superb indie bookshop Topping & Company, enjoyed a meal at The Botanist² and pancakes at Courtyard.

View of the Pulteney Bridge in Bath, England, with its historic stone buildings reflected in the River Avon, and the curved weir in the foreground creating white, cascading water.

A quiet residential street lined with tall trees in autumn, their leaves turning shades of orange, red, and yellow. Fallen leaves scatter across the road and pavement, and a few parked cars are visible in the distance under an overcast sky.

A black-and-white photograph of a large glass dome ceiling with a geometric, star-shaped pattern of beams. The intricate framework forms symmetrical lines converging toward a central skylight, viewed from below inside a multi-level building.

A close-up of a woven textile featuring a spiral pattern in shades of yellow, blue, and multicoloured threads on a dark blue background. The texture of the fabric and individual stitches are clearly visible.

A black-and-white photo showing a musician’s foot stepping near a pedalboard filled with multiple guitar effects pedals and coiled cables on a stage floor.

Pitchfork Music Festival

Back in June, I descended the stairs into the basement at Third Man Records in Soho and was treated to a pretty incredible set by Seattle band Deep Sea Diver. During that show, Jessica Dobson mentioned from the stage that they were due to be back in the UK in November, to play the Pitchfork Music Festival. So, I snapped up a ticket for the festival’s 8 Nov takeover of five venues in Dalston.

With each of the spots walking distance from one another, it was a case of figuring out who else I wanted to see between doors opening at 17:00 and DSD taking the stage at 21:30. I got started with Texas quartet Mamalarkey, whose 2025 LP Hex Key I’ve been enjoying. The venue at EartH, with its amphitheatre-style seating, was a slightly weird setup for a rock show, but the band made it work and looked to be having a good time.

A band performs on stage under deep blue lighting. The group includes a keyboardist, drummer, lead singer with an electric guitar, and a bassist. Amplifiers, microphones, and cables are visible on the floor, and beams of stage light illuminate the musicians through a smoky atmosphere.

A five-piece band performs on stage under a mix of orange and blue lighting. The setup includes a drummer at the back, two guitarists, a bassist, and a keyboard player. Cables and equipment are spread across the stage floor, and the scene is softly illuminated by stage spotlights through a light haze.

Shazamin’

Do y’all Shazam? I’ve had the app on my phone for fifteen-plus years at this point, and it still feels a little like magic every time it works, which it does more often than not. If you’re not familiar, it’s a simple utility for identifying a piece of music: you hit a button, Shazam turns on your microphone, listens to what’s playing around you and reports back with the name of the track, the artist and (usually) a link to Apple Music.

My primary use cases for the app fall loosely into the categories of ‘I recognise the song playing in this coffee shop, but cannot for the life of me recall the name of the artist’, or ‘what is the song playing in the background of this pivotal scene in a movie that I would be paying more attention to if I wasn’t just thinking about the music?’. If I open Shazam now, I can scroll back through the list of tracks I’ve used it to identify, and I figured it might be fun to share a few of them, along with what I can recall about where I heard them.