Four hours 34 minutes with weighted jacket (11ish kilos) and 2 bricks in a daypack. Also, sensibly for once, 2 litres of water consumed in hour 3.
Goslings – 18-20 of the blighters, cared for in a “creche’. I will put video footage on Twitter and then link back if I remember/am asked.
Podcasts (in order they appear on my device, not order listened to)
David Runciman Past Present and Future The Other 911. Hmm, Runciman deferred to first guest, who downplayed US role, and who took the economic difficulties as a given. No mention of Nixon ordering the CIA to “make the economy scream” and all the other shenanigans. Fairly typical, that. Second guest interesting – (Lorna Scott Fox) and I probably need to (re)read her Chile visit piece in LRB, 2006 (for various values of ‘need’).
David Runciman Past Present and Future The Novel that Unravels Democracy. Runciman talking with Ian McEwan (I liked Sweet Tooth, Solar, Enduring Love. Haven’t read much else) about a fascinating sounding Italo Calvino novella called The Watcher. Gonna have to track that down.
Melvyn Bragg In Our Time on Animal Farm – Mary Vincent being talked over (but she is only a woman). Mostly quite interesting, on where it came from etc. This is long pre-Anna Funder’s book on Eileen O’Shaughnessy [see illuminating review written by Rachel Cooke of an earlier book here; BBC book of the week here). (see also Runciman Past Present and Future podcast on Animal Farm, with Adam Biles who has written a follow-up, arriving soon chez moi, called “Beasts of England”
Melvyn Bragg In Our Time on Simone Weil – they give some good details, but cough and go silent on her anti-Semitism.
The Blindboy Podcast – “Why I want to fuck Captain Planet.” This was brilliant (if occasionally sweary, but that’s fine). Tied together Jimmy Carter and Global 2000, Captain Planet and consumerist environmentalism, false consciousness, the aura of trinkets (no mention of Gramsci etc, but no mind) and polishing it off with some JG Ballard. Really invigorating stuff. On Captain Planet, see here [AOY]. Also, this:
Volts – The Energy Transitions 5 supervillains and 5 superheroes. You can’t really go wrong interviewing Michael Liebreich, and David Roberts doesn’t – smart questions, lets Liebreich speak, adds value himself. A must-listen for those “into” the energy transition and its tragic trajectory/velocity. And who knew (well, probably everyone) that Liebreich and Naomi Oreskes have a podcast called Cleaning Up: Leadership in an age of Climate Change?
Novelties – I actually recorded a voice memo to myself so I wouldn’t forget to look up the following –
- Captain Planet episode called Two Futures, set in 2025 (Captain Planet fandom page; TV Tropes here)
- Captain Planet episode in Belfast, (title “If it’s Doomsday, this must be Belfast”) involving a “Broken Arrow” (i.e. loose nuke in play), which was never shown in UK and Eire thanks to RTE and BBC saying “nope”
- JG Ballard The Drowned World – what was the cause of the climate change? Ah solar radiation changes – Wikipedia; The Drowned World (1962), by J. G. Ballard, is a British science fiction novel that depicts a post-apocalyptic future in which global warming, caused by increased solar radiation, has rendered uninhabitable much of the surface of planet Earth. The story follows a team of scientists who are researching the environmental developments that occurred in the flooded city of London. The novel is an expansion of the novella “The Drowned World”, which was first published in Science Fiction Adventures magazine, in the January 1962 issue, Vol. 4, No. 24. In 2010, Time magazine named The Drowned World one of the ten best novels about a post-apocalyptic world on Earth.[2] In science fiction literature, The Drowned World is considered one of the founding novels of the climate fiction sub-genre.
- JG Ballard short story from 1968 “Why I want to fuck Ronald Reagan” [wikipedia] And this seems to be an online version.
Other things to do –
- have two ibuprofen ready to neck as soon as I get back home (though this will deprive Dr Termagant of one of her favourite sounds – that of her husband grunting and groaning and complaining about his advancing years).
- download enough podcasts lined up to last the whole yomp (I had as many as thirteen minutes at the end of having to actually listen to myself think. Oh the horror).
- Buy a new daypack for bricks so am not doing my brachial plexus a mischief
- Gradually add weights to that backpack (and get some more coins into the weighted jacket), rather than distance (it being strangely and inexplicably quite hot for this time of year)
- Consider (only consider mind you) having credit on my satanbox so I can text Dr Termagant at Home Minus Ten asking her to run a bath for my old bones/muscles
marchudson.net 
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