This week’s Five Things…

1. Switched On Pop break down Taylor Swift's new album. This was a great episode.

2. I can barely stand up on a skateboard, Isamu Yamamoto can do this.

3. This is a great ad. I can't imagine how long it took to find the footage that made the final cut.

4. Finally, some good news! "UK coal use has fallen to the lowest level in 250 years. Amazingly, the 8m tonnes used in 2019 was similar to levels last seen in 1769. By wild coincidence, 1769 is the year James Watt got the first patent for his steam engine" Dr Simon Evans

5. Oops... "If you were writing a book and needed to find out how red clothes dye is traditionally made, you’d probably start with a simple Google search. At least, that’s what John Boyne, the author behind The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas says he 'must have' done when it emerged that several fantasy ingredients from The Legend of Zelda have appeared in his most recent book, A Traveler at the Gates of Wisdom." I'm still very much looking forward to reading the book!

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ps. There won’t be a Five Things next week, but usual service will resume the following week.

This week’s Five Things…

1. An excellent conversation between Derek Sivers and Shane Parrish on the Farnam Street podcast.

2. I like a Taylor Swift album!

3. This talented brother and sister duo used to attend Rock Schools. Such a great cover.

4. Mrs. America (currently streaming on iPlayer) is a fascinating look at the fight for sex equality in 70s America. Amazing cast.

5. Freaky fish!

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This week’s Five Things…

1. "Red kites can now be seen in most English counties with an estimated 10,000 birds in the UK, including 1,800 breeding pairs." An amazing comeback for Red Kites, I'm pretty sure I saw one the other day over Sproughton.

2. Bath ballet?!

3. A strong contender for the oldest depiction of a drummer.

4. "with a conservative estimate of 14bn capsules being sold each year, and 0.9 grams of aluminium per capsule, that means 12,600 tonnes of Nespresso aluminium end up in landfill annually, enough for 60 Statues of Liberty." A not-so-fun fact from this long read on Nespresso and coffee.

5. I transcribed Beautifully Unconventional by Wolf Alice yesterday. 2 minutes 13 of indie-pop perfection.

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This week’s Five Things…

1. Lin-Manuel Miranda explains his writing process for the song One Shot from Hamilton.

2. I love this: Wild bison to return to UK for first time in 6,000 years

3. I like this vision of carless cities.

4. One for the drummers: Benny Greb (drummer and clinician extraordinaire) has released a metronome app called Gap Click. It’s not just any old metronome app. It has a number of cool tricks up its sleeve. My favourites being that you can set it to cycle between different rhythms (one bar on the beat, one bar on the offbeat) or switch between metronome and silence (one bar click, one bar no click).

5. Nadine Shah has a new album called Kitchen Sink. It's really good.

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This week’s Five Things…

1. A clever illusion that uses coloured lines to trick you into seeing a black and white photo in colour. This sort of thing always amazes me.

2. Food for thought from Ian Leslie's excellent newsletter: “if you never question the beliefs of your tribe then your ability to think for yourself withers away. That isn’t just bad for you, it’s bad for the collective intelligence of your group.”

3. We watched Hamilton on Disney+ yesterday. It's as good as everyone says it is!

4. I just finished reading Annie Lowrey's book Give People Money. The book explores the positive case for a universal basic income. I found it very persuasive. A UBI would be very expensive to implement, but could solve so many problems — for one, pretty much eliminating poverty overnight. That sounds like something worth aiming for!

5. This is for the drummers out there. I've been adding a lot of transcriptions to my website recently. If you'd like to get a brief update on new posts each week, you can subscribe here.

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