Sunday smörgåsbord #038 - 10.3
This week: Spicy aguachile, binaural beats, and eight-minute phone calls - with a side serving of Tom Cruise.
NB: [PW] signifies a paywall, though some providers allow you to read a set number of articles for free.
Happy Sunday! This has been a slower week than usual, culture-wise, as I had a lot of deadlines at work and needed plenty of early nights after a hectic weekend in the mountains.
Most of my writing energy went into my piece on who International Women’s Day is for - if you’ve not yet read it I’d love to know what you think. I didn’t write it with the intention to shame those who lean on the programme. It was more about following my own nose about whose commercial interests are behind initiatives like this. I think this is a question we can - and should - ask more of the media around us.
Have a great week ahead,
Emma
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Features & Podcasts
‘‘In January, it was the most heard song on Earth!’: the amazing story behind Murder on the Dancefloor’, The Guardian. This was a fun little trip down memory lane supposedly about the making of this Sophie Ellis-Bextor classic but just as much about 90s one-hit-wonders the New Radicals. I had no idea it was co-written by their lead singer, Gregg Alexander, nor that it was originally supposed to be the band’s first single in place of You Get What You Give. Honestly the entire article is full of surprises (Joni Mitchell saying that the New Radicals song convinced her not to quit the music industry is one of them). It’s great to see these artists get another moment in the sun from its use in Saltburn (just no spoilers please, I’ve still not managed to see it!)
‘Day 2 of the happiness challenge: The Secret Power of the 8-Minute Phone Call’, The New York Times. I found this interesting little nugget of an article via
‘s newsletter and, as someone who is lucky to have many friends around the world but not enough time to keep in touch, I’d love to give it a try. It certainly feels very NYC in how small the prescribed window is (why 8 minutes and not 7, or 9 - but at least you have 2 min to decompress after). As I get older I do struggle to keep up with Whatsapp (and since I’ve been doing more writing it feels harder to write even more so via text), but phone calls nowadays feel like they need to be orchestrated. Maybe an 8 minute call is the key - who fancies a try?‘MP says depiction of Milton Keynes in EastEnders is 'out of order'', BBC News. Milton Keynes makes front page news and as usual it’s only because people are taking the piss out of it, this time for a feature in popular UK soap Eastenders in which local children are seen ‘roaming the streets, eating out of bins’. I mean, MK isn’t the loveliest place but it’s not that bad either. I couldn’t help but laugh at the outrage on display though, the best part being that, despite the headline, the MP in question can only muster up a lukewarm ‘I’m quite positive about Milton Keynes’ in response to the portrayal. Too bad the concrete cows didn’t get a feature - probably because the episode was actually filmed in Barnet.
‘Burnt-out and taken for granted: Britain’s workers need upside-down management’, The Guardian. The UK company Timpson’s is renowned for its progressive, people-first approach to running a business, which includes a long history of hiring ex-offenders to work at their high street cobblers and locksmiths. I enjoyed this piece by CEO James Timpson on their ‘upside-down management’ policy, which got me thinking about what that might look like in other businesses. Stand-out quote for me:
[Local employees] can ignore guidelines from the office, as long as they stick to our only two rules: put the money in the till and look the part. Everyone else in the business is there to help them, not tell them what to do.
Arts, Culture & Entertainment
Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning - Part One, dir. Christopher McQuarrie (2023). There are SO many films on my ‘to watch’ list right now. I love Oscar season for the glut of high-quality, starry, much talked-about options on offer. My list includes: Anatomy of a Fall, Past Lives, American Fiction, The Holdovers, and, of course, Saltburn. So naturally I sat down on a much-needed Saturday night in by myself, takeaway ready to consume, and… put the latest Mission Impossible on. Sometimes you just need to veg out - mind as well as body. This latest instalment of the never-ending Tom Cruise franchise runs at an impressive if exhausting two hours and forty-three minutes, and it’s only Part One. Now, I LOVE the Mission Impossible films - they are peak ‘plane film’ for me: the kind of action film you can watch over and over and still enjoy the ride. And the first one is, in my opinion, a classic action film (that first set piece still thrills me!) But this one lost me. Maybe it was how tired I was, and that I was watching on a small screen with more distractions, but there was just so much action and little time to digest anything you were being shown or told. I had to switch off halfway through. Being a committed franchise fan, though, I will try the next half tonight.
War and Peace, Tolstoy. From the ridiculous to the sublime. And no, I’ve not yet finished it - and won’t have until December 31st when I finish
‘s group readalong. But I *have* closed Book One (of Four), which ends with the dramatic - and tragic - Battle of Austerlitz (Napoleon makes a stunning cameo). Though I’ve read a fair few weighty tomes in my time, I’ve never read them this slowly or purposefully. And whilst there can be a tendency to feel sometimes like a chapter a day is another item to ‘tick off’ on my to do list, I am noticing how this approach speaks to the meditative quality of reading. This last week I also found myself reading on ahead for the first time because I couldn’t bear to wait to see what happened next. Above all, I would never be able to finish this on my own, without the support, observations, and wit of the wider reading group. It feels like a good moment to check in and realise that yes, I am enjoying the book - as well as the experience!
Lifestyle
La Condesa, C/ de Dalt, 11, Valencia. One of my favourite bars in Valencia is La Botanista (covered in Sunday Smorg #21). It’s a teeny-tiny little bar in the hear of the old town which serves the most delicious cocktails (and yes, I still always see someone I know in there). The owner, Gabriel, just opened another, bigger version - this time with food! The concept for the new place seems mezcal-bar-meets-cantina, with shelf upon shelf of mezcal bottles, plus a cocktail list covering Mexican favourites (Palomas and Margaritas) and other yummy concoctions (like the one I had whose name I can’t remember, probably because I had three of them). We devoured one of the best aguachiles I’ve had in years (the perfect mix of spicy and sour) and a fresh ceviche served with guacamole, before finishing up and heading right over to their sister establishment for a nightcap (or two).
Late night churros stop, any vendor, Valencia right now. Turns out that two raw fish dishes, whilst delicious, were not sufficient stomach liners for multiple mezcal-based cocktails. Lucky for us then that Fallas has arrived in Valencia: the streets are currently lined with churros and buñuelo stalls selling their deep-fried wares until the early hours of the morning. We got six sugary churros and a cup of chocolate to go, and gobbled them down as we stumbled home. I regret nothing.
Binaural beats, YouTube. I had a shedload of work deadlines last week and was chipping away at my IWD piece in any spare moment between them, but suffering from a bit of low energy. When I feel like this, I turn to the Pomodoro Method and stick some binaural beats on in the background. It’s incredible how much you can get done in twenty-five minutes and I find the music really does help me get into the zone immediately. In fact I think I’m becoming a bit Pavlov’s Dog about it - I accidentally kept it running in the background when a friend was over for lunch the other day and found myself immediately thinking about my to-do list. Here’s one of my recent YouTube plays - if you try it, let me know what you think. Just make sure if you search for one, you add ‘focus’ or ‘concentration’ - as there are some relaxing ones too!
Substacks
‘Who are you’ - 1000 Weeks by Ruth Sturkey
Every post on 1000 weeks chimes with a question I’ve been thinking about lately, and this latest edition is no different! I am so lucky to love my work and get a lot of ‘life purpose’ out of it, but I have had moments of realisation at times where I see I tie it too closely to my overall identity. Ruth’s honesty and gentle questions made me think about how I can tie what I do to my values more, so I can begin to think of my work in terms of ‘value drivers’, and less as a frenetic means to an end.
‘The internet needs curators’ - Unsquare by Jaime Derringer
I found this article via a friend and it absolutely fascinated me. Even though I’ve always worked in digital marketing and, more recently, tech, I never really thought about the internet’s content in these (yes depressing) terms which Jaime lays out. Not only did it get me to think, it resonated so strongly with me through its thematic overlap with one of my life’s mantras ‘Follow the Money’ - aka ask ‘who is paying for this?’ whatever you consume. This slogan has served me well through a lifetime of newspaper reading (I always play a game: spot the press release) and free-app-downloading - and following it again last week led me to sniff out my IWD article on ‘who really owns International Women’s Day?’
Plus Zine fangirling? It’s gotta be an instant subscribe for me.
That’s it for this week. I hope you find something in this list that sparks joy or curiosity.
If you’ve got any recommendations on articles, podcasts, Substacks or shows for me to dive into, please drop them in the comments. Until next time!
❤️ If you liked this post don’t forget to hit the heart to let me know and help others find my writing.
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I feel like a corpse when I get a peak into a week in the life of Emma!
Emma, another jam packed smorgasbord (even if you said it was a 'lite' version!). Thanks for reminding me to add You Get What You Give to my 'happy' playlist. And thanks very much for the shoutout to 1000Weeks :-)