This week the things I found most interesting: Adam Buxton’s excellent podcast. Kevin Rose spent more than 200 dollars on a blanket. Of course, climate change is affecting the trees. I want to live in a warehouse. Fast cars and muscle-bound men in a movie series.

Ramble Chat: Of course, I’m late to Adam Buxton’s great podcast. I’ve been listening to it almost non-stop. I loved ep.61 with Romesh Ranganathan, ep.67 with Aisling Bea, and Simon Amstell’s episode (ep.55). The one that really stood out though was ep.57 - Hassan Akkad. What an amazing story. Really worth a listen. The Adam Buxton Podcast

Heavy: Kevin Rose recently pointed his readers¹ at an article about blankets - The Seductive Confinement of a Weighted Blanket in an Anxious Time. Its a pretty interesting piece about how weighted blankets could really help people sleep. He said he’d bought a gravity blanket - the ones mentioned in the article. At a whopping 229 dollars though, I’m happy with my current duvet.

The trees are ok: Grist’s Eric Holthaus recently wrote a really interesting article on trees, forests, and all things climate change. There are some alarming numbers in the article, e.g. the number of trees disappearing every year is an area the size of New Zealand! It’s not all gloom though. There’s also something weirdly reassuring in that trees and forests will be around forever, but maybe not of the kind we know now. Up in Smoke

Photo by Guy Bowden on Unsplash

Industrial chic: I absolutely love repurposed industrial buildings. One of my dreams would be to turn one of the great old warehouses in Dublin into an amazing place to work and live. Something like Ricardo Bofill’s beautiful old cement factory. The Spaces recently ran a great piece on Barcelona’s Poblenou district and how these old industrial buildings are being reused as great creative spaces. How Barcelona’s Poblenou district is becoming the city’s creative heart.

La Escocesa is an ex-industrial building, now a base for 17 artists. Photography courtesy Barcelona Ajuntament, from thespaces.com

Faster and faster: From humble enough beginnings, now the Fast and Furious movies are a huge franchise. I really like the series even if some of the movies haven’t been great - I’m looking at you The Fate of the Furious - so I really enjoyed this Fan Service article on the series. The best way to watch the ‘Fast and Furious’ movies

What am I doing with my life I’m currently reading Chris Bonington’s book (Ascent) which my partner got me as part of our first year wedding anniversary gifts. It’s very good. I’m also really enjoying Assasins Creed Origins, even if it took me some time to get into it. I’m really enjoying how open the game is - though this is something that sometimes causes me some issues in games. I might get the whole way through this one.

I’m also currently learning to type all over again. This time, however, I’m doing it properly - 10 finger touch typing. I’m finding it amazingly hard to do but feel like it would be good in the long run. I’m using typingclub to help me do this and have found it very useful.

I’m also trying to replace Twitter as my source of news. My lack of self-control means I’m spending more and more time there. I really do enjoy twitter so will be hard to wean myself off it. Hopefully sharing here instead of there will be a start even if no-one ever sees it here. (Who am I kidding - no-one saw it on twitter either!)