I’m reading Julia Galef’s “The Scout Mindset” just now. It’s good. It’s a lightish read about why some people seem to see issues more clearly than others, and what I like about it is that its main thesis is emotional, not the sort of smug hectoring Dawkins rationalism that’s done so much to persuade us all to be smarter. She essentially wants to persuade us that being wrong (or at least, being prepared to be shown to be wrong) is good, and to be embraced, because it helps you be right.

Galef distinguishes between the “soldier” mindset most of us have by default – where we “protect our beliefs aggressively and ignore any evidence that we might be wrong” – and the “scout”, who “surveys the land, seeking accuracy and understanding to find all the available information – good and bad – to gain a more truthful picture”.

I like it. Obviously, like everyone, I’m naturally a soldier, but the last decade or so has made me want to be more of a scout. Nobody’s listening. Everyone already knows. That can’t be good.

Reading Galef’s book (and reviews of it) led me to Paul Graham’s 2009 article, “Keep Your » Continue Reading.

Here’s Globle. Start with a country, any country. It tells you how far off you are. Try and get it right in as few moves as possible.

My fave.

Heardle, on the other hand, is a bit more “if you know it, you’ll get it one or two; if you don’t, you’ll never get it.” Fun, though.

https://worldle.teuteuf.fr/

I’m currently in the pub, on pint 2, at 1:39 in the afternoon. I’ve just had a 5 mile walk in the Berkshire countryside, and a ridiculous BBQ lunch awaits down the road.

I’ve been sat here reading in the pub, by myself. I have that tiny but lovely 2-pint buzz on, which has three available options for the immediate future:

– get legitimately drunk

– be hungover by 5pm

– walk the tightrope of maintaining a light afternoon buzz until bedtime.

I’m aiming for the last one, but tbh my only definite is avoiding the second.

Isn’t it great? One’s own company, a book, a pint in a proper little juicer (this one being the incomparable Two Brewers in Windsor: look it up). I hardly ever do this, but when I do, it’s so good.

Unsurprising Larkin ref follows:

“Selflessness is like waiting in a hospital In a badly-fitting suit on a cold wet morning. Selfishness is like listening to good jazz With drinks for further orders and a huge fire.”

What rare, small pleasures do you value most?

I’m not religious, or “spiritual”, or anything like it. I was raised high (ish) church Anglican, though, and the older you get I think the more inclined you become to the view that maybe previous generations didn’t get *everything* wrong.

If I believed I have a soul, I’d say the liturgies and music and buildings of Anglicanism are baked into it, and one thing I think we all need is a bit of ritual, a bit of ceremony. I often wonder if the many benefits of a more secular age haven’t come with a cost we haven’t quite counted yet. Religions do understand a bit about human nature: that’s why the people who insist Christmas is “just a day” are missing the point: all cultures have feast days, they’re a human need – and most cultures also have one at midwinter. There’s something in us that needs the old ways, I tend to think.

Anyway, my little bit of keeping it trad takes the form, this year, of observing Lent. Again, like a lot of cultures, ours has a tradition of fasting over a given period. I think there’s a lot to be said for it: imposing a » Continue Reading.

How feasible is it to introduce a mute option for individual threads so they don’t come up in Site-Wide Activity?

Every once in a while, a thread ends up with a large number of new posts, and if you’re not interested, it slightly clogs up the update page.

No big deal, but if you’re not interested in a certain thread, the option to mute it would be kind of nice.

I feel like this might be a non-starter, the Afterword largely being more interested in obsolete music tech than dressing properly (joke! joke! But not really. No, really, joke. I love you guys).

But I recently did a shoe and shirt audit and well holy Christmas, I have a lot of shoes and shirts.

Gary’s mention of brogues and Nikes over on the tea and coffee thread put me in mind of this. I love brogues and Nikes, equally, for different things. I don’t buy shoes often, but when I do, I’m willing to pay – because good shoes are a life investment. The occasional resole and you’re set for life – plus many of the good shoe firms will recondition your shoes back to new if they’re really in need.

Any other shoe lovers on the AW? What are your favourites?

I’m still really proud of it. I don’t really seem to make music any more (maybe I lost the ability when I lost the 4 or so stone I’m carrying in this video, like a fat Samson) but Katy and I are still really close friends and whenever I think of this song, I think of two things:

1) how much this little song about hope and light in the midst of darkness and cold still means to me

2) how much the Afterword, in all its slightly Partridge weird loveliness, still means to me. You lot, and all the many departed since, were always really supportive (mostly!) and without Word, we wouldn’t have got to make this, or the two albums and and one EP that Katy and I have made together.

Wishing you all the joy of the season. It’s been a weird decade, but we’re mostly all still here. Everything’ll be alright.