Peter Hewitt

For anybody who needs it, the last word on how to light for spectacles was published on Strobist nearly twenty years ago.

strobist.blogspot.com/2006/04/ligh...

It's not its significance where my perspective differs, more its age. For me the emergence of the Soulslike and the revival of run-based games are fundamentally modern developments; on those grounds, "contemporary" games start at about Spelunky and Demon's Souls, and "historical" is before that.

I tried BoI but ended up giving it a miss because it just seemed to me like Smash TV but a bit tonally confused, from which you may reasonably infer that I am Old.

(On the other hand I love Enter the Gungeon, but find it hard to think of it as historical!)

"when you're young"

I've just checked how old I was when Enter the Dungeon was released, and now I'm off to crumble into dust.

They should be called Tautology Rubbers.

Yes, that's what an O is. Also: yes, that's what a ring is.

I strongly believe O-rings constitute an affront to logic, to language, and to life itself.

Leak. LEAK, dammit. And I found a big hole I hadn't spotted, which accounts for not fixing the second leak. Spare parts ordered; we continue.

Well, I've fixed one peak and made the other slightly worse, and tbh that's not bad for an evening's worth of amateur plumbing.

This weekend's drink: St Clement's French 75 (3:1:1:0.5:5 gin:simple syrup:orange juice:lemon juice:sparkling wine). Excellent: zingy, fragrant, beautifully balanced, properly grown-up. I think this will be my festive season go-to this year. 8/10

FILM REVIEW: Frankenstein (Guillermo del Toro, Netflix, 2025). Extraordinarily beautiful realisation, with great casting, marred by the occasional Garth Marenghi moments in the script - "YOU are the monster, Victor, YOU" - and the absurd am-dram saccharine staginess of the final quarter.

(walks into a room, sees a blonde man called Brexit frantically stabbing for four years a twitching near-corpse called British Productivity)

"Well, the Resolution Foundation has a *lot* of explaining to do"

Lads the mint is a bit overgrown I think it might be mojitos tonight

The continued presence of the forces that gave us Brexit in the first place - the electoral interests of the Conservative Party in a media/social media environment dominated by the hard right, along with the dynamics of FPTP - have also given us the ever-more-extreme purity drive ever since.

What I always wonder about this kind of thing: is it being pitched earnestly by people who are emotionally unwell, or is it being pitched cynically *to* people who are emotionally unwell?

"As of 2020, 75% of American teachers are using three-cueing". This whole topic is... pretty mindblowing, to be honest. Do read the long APM article just down the thread.

Counterpoint: no it didn't, you credulous muppets.

I'm not even sorry.

With all due respect to Sam Freedman, it is a serious problem if the governing party is getting its information from Substack (it is of course even worse if they're not even doing that).

The greatest accomplishment of American marketing is surely turning a really mediocre oversweet gypsy cream into the world's best-selling biscuit.

Basically they listen, and want to talk about the lyrics, and I am too much of a coward to want to explain what certain things mean to an 8yo. So maybe we'll not do Lily Allen just yet.

I've been viewing it as part of my responsibility to teach mine The Classics, one album at a time, to give them a working knowledge of music history starting roughly four hundred years ago with Gregorio Allegri. My "adult content" threshold currently permits Gorillaz but not Amy Winehouse.

Tonight's drinks: French Pearl (2:0.75:0.5:0.25 gin:lime juice:sugar syrup:pastis, shaken with mint leaves). Delicious, fragrant, zingy, lethal; a truly great drink, lacking only the last degree of alchemy that distinguishes the very best. 9/10

When forced to choose, the BBC in particular prioritises impartiality over accuracy. This was the crucial insight of Vote Leave, and explains quite a lot of the last decade of British politics.

Ah, the "perpetual darkness" half of the year again, marvellous.

Ball x Pit is a deep, delightful rabbit hole Balls everywhere.

To the Northern Irish eye it is unfortunate that they decided to call their game "ballix pit". www.theverge.com/games/805022...

I can't vouch for the provenance or context or whatever but I can promise you that this is one of the funniest things I've seen for ages.

Noted. Though I have a list of things I want to try out - amongst other things I'm planning on putting a bottle of PX sherry to a variety of uses over the next little while - so it'll have to join the queue.

Tonight's drinks: Negroni (1:1:1 gin:Campari:vermouth). 10/10, no further discussion needed; and Breakfast Martini (3:1:1:0.5 gin:triple sec:lemon juice:orange marmalade). 7/10, pleasantly sharp and zingy, gin-forward enough to pass as a Martini of sorts, first time trying, will make again.