Gordon Baird

It is certainly a club of which I am happy to be a member and having now met a few other members in person, it feels even more like a club.

I have never understood the “blokeish” concern. It has always struck me as the opposite. I have listened to some “two dudes talking” podcasts. It is nothing like them. For new listeners it may occasionally veer a little too “inside baseball” (North American idiom), but it is certainly not blokeish.

Whether you are in the “intended audience” seems to arise more in music than literature. Do podcasts fall in the middle? Does Backlisted seek a specific audience? I expect not, but it may have found one anyway. It is interesting when listeners out themselves as being younger than the apparent core.

A belated good morning.

This one really connected. I have been enjoying CMAT’s music since you made me aware of it, but have had many of the same thoughts about me as a fan. Somehow being a banking lawyer takes it even one step further than being a writer and podcaster to remove me from any possible intended fan base.

We once had one that turned into a stained glass window as the doors opened which you could mount on your own window for full effect.

I have a different jamvent calendar from Bonne Maman. Blueberry Maple Syrup spread for today.

First up from my “spreads” Advent calendar - Blueberry Maple Syrup.

Books read or listened to November 2025. A slow month after a busy October.

I am envious of those who found it so early. It didn’t cross my radar until episode 32 about 15 months later.

Attempting for the nth time to correct to Advent calendar.

Sunday reading, Sunday listening and current audiobook. Fittingly on the 10th birthday of @backlisted.bsky.social I am reading a book I would never otherwise have read and listening to a book that is challenging my tastes.

I know I have said this many times, but happy birthday thank-you so much for starting this and, of late, persevering with it through so much adversity. The episodes are a constant delight and have entirely changed how I read and how I think about what I read. 🎉

Please pass on birthday greetings to Andrew (I can’t reply to him).

December will be toast month. I am looking forward to starting into my “spreads” Adventure calendar.

I gave up during the Casino Royale piece when the author failed to recognize that a movie from 1962 predated a movie from 1967.

COVID played a big part. The disengagement from traditional learning processes that resulted from being solely on-line caused problems. It isn’t just AI. Technology has reduced the need to put things in your own words. Verbatim note taking and being able to just copy/paste is eliminating thinking.

Peatzeria was unexpectedly good when we went in June. Enjoy your lunch

Happy birthday. Based on the last six weeks, 61 is survivable.

That has not worked for Nmbr14 today which has remained defective all day.

I stopped because it was not making sense and went back to it later and by that time it had been corrected.

It is difficult to believe, but Inventory just keeps getting better, even when tinged with a bit/a lot of melancholy as is case this week. Sign up to the @backlisted.bsky.social Patreon to get these moving and insightful musical interludes from @iammilliam.bsky.social and improve your Wednesdays.

I listened to the audiobook and that really worked for me. Perhaps the repetitions tied to the length of my commute, but the flow seemed quite natural. Of course it may also be that it worked better for me because some portion/much of my attention was devoted to driving and not listening.

The best part is that the article on AI slop starts with an AI summary of the article on AI slop.

This is what @backlisted.bsky.social do so well. A fascinating discussion (to which I have now listened twice) of a book I have never heard of and still may never read.

That is brilliant.

The cover of the current Penguin Classics edition of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights.

The cover of the album “On This Day” by Tony Molina.

The cover of the Canadian audiobook version of Rachel Cusk’s novel Outline.

Sunday reading, Sunday listening and current audiobook. Both the book and the audiobook fall into the “I would never have read this without @backlisted.bsky.social” category. One I am enjoying, on the other I remain undecided. The music is from an @iammilliam.bsky.social recommendation.

A sunrise is lighting the tops of a group of trees, with the trees reflected below in a perfectly still lake. There are bare tree branches in the immediate foreground.

Good morning.

Even when the music is not for me (I did listen a few times before deciding that in this instance I was a prisoner of my taste), I still enjoy these. The Tony Molina, however, has been on repeat.

I have to thank you for two excellent recent watches that I believe you were at least partly responsible for. In A Lonely Place and The Earrings of Madame de ….