Jen Bites

Day 1 of being on a job in England means Worcestershire Sauce crisps at lunchtime. Walkers has one good flavour per county and for England that's the one.

Nah someone is trying to save face because he actually solved the mystery.

Also wtf at having confessionals in St Giles. What's the point in making such a big deal of filming in Edinburgh only to turn it into a backdrop as generic as this film's score? And could they not even find room for one single, solitary Scottish accent?

We're watching the del Toro Frankenstein and about 30 minutes in I can say with confidence that this was not worth closing the streets for. Overwrought yet underwritten, cartoonishly silly without being fun. What a waste of an abundance of resources.

an older man wearing glasses and a striped shirt Alt: Hugh Grant in Heretic

Having drained Shudder dry, we're now revisiting Heretic. I enjoyed the hell out of Hugh Grant's performance when we saw it in the cinema, and it's holding up on rewatch.

Pumpkins 2025.

with @jenbitespeople.bsky.social. ...

HAPPY HALLOWEEN everyone. ...

#Halloween #Pumpkins

It does specify that it's a wicked pumpkin.

I'm a monster. This is me.

two men standing in front of a cloudy sky Alt: The Smokestack Twins, their backs to the camera, watching the sun set under a moody sky.

Ever since I saw Sinners back in the summer I've been looking forward to re-watching it in the run-up to Hallowe'en. We're watching it tonight and it's SO GOOD. Brilliantly made, instant classic, one that I know I'll revisit again and again. 2025 has been a banger of a year for vampires.

Giant skeleton looking like it’s tipping over a house.

My friend’s neighbor’s house fell off its foundation (old steel structure collapsed), and they just did the funniest thing.

It sounds so good! I'm sad to miss it.

Also, I've yet to change my mind and when my hysterectomy happens I'm going to make an artwork with the discarded organ and my press cuttings, which I will dedicate to you.

Theatrical equivalent: In the 15th year of my directing career, on my way to the final touring venue for my fourth sell-out show this year, I'd like to say a massive LOL You Were Wrong to the tutor on my undergrad who told me there's no point training women as directors as they just have babies.

I'm already not thrilled about the official policy being that if you were on the priority lists before but you're not actually old then you should crack on with dying and decreasing the surplus population, but to waste my time on top of that was just so unnecessary.

This is after taking time out of my schedule to turn up for my NHS winter vaccines (note that plural) appointment, only to be interrogated and told off for thinking I might be eligible for a covid jag just because I had been specifically invited for one. I'm under 75 therefore can just fucking die.

I picked up some extra work to cover the covid booster, went to book it and found out that the one that's available is one my immune system doesn't respond to. As in, not a bad response, just no response. The one I need is £200, not £100, and nobody knows when it'll be in stock, so I'm just fucked.

I truly hate the way Scotrail handles Glasgow Queen Street and Glasgow Central. If I ask for trains to Central I only want to see trains to Central, not to "Queen Street but we'll call it Central because you can walk/bus to Central from there". I'm disabled. It's not that simple. Just be accurate.

And perhaps occasionally deciding that I'll spend my train journey unproductively is part of it. I'm already dreading the catch-up I'll have to play to make up for this stolen half hour. But life is so short, and sometimes you just can't answer one more fucking email. /13

So how do we socialise when we're time and energy-poor? I wish I knew. Chronic illness and freelance schedules killed my social life years ago. But I am holding on to the things I can, like insisting on spending as many Sunday afternoons as I can watching films with my husband. /12

Is a return to greater social media use part of the solution? I don't think so, at least not in its current form. People like me (forged in the flames of the webrings and chatrooms) will always use it, I suspect. But more widely, I think the solution is not social media but socialising. /10

They'll gradually start to care if/when the wide lack of leisure time impacts your capacity to be a good consumer, unless they can think of things to sell you that aren't impacted by or even exacerbate your time/leisure issues

*cough*AI*cough*

/9

Class and privilege come into this, of course. Wealth insulates you from this (to a greater or lesser extent). The situation benefits those to whom wealth flows, and for the most part they don't care if you have no peace or leisure - at least not yet. /8

The rates of pay I'm being offered these days are lower than three years ago. Not just adjusting for inflation, actually smaller numbers. Makes it necessary to take on more jobs, more demands, and hacks away at leisure, community, family time. Me and everyone else I know. /7

...and I'm trying not to make life harder than it needs to be for all my over-busy, under-leisured collaborators who need responses from me, or of whom I need to ask things. This constant scrabbling to make ends meet and relentless pressure devalues us all. /5

I'm writing this on a train to Paisley to open Poisoner there. There was a time when I'd have seen a train journey with patchy WiFi as legitimate social media noodling time, or reading time, or music listening time. But the tasks don't stop coming, because I'm over-busy and under-leisured... /4

It feels like "if you've got time to lean you've got time to clean" but applied to *everything*. Taking a second to let my brain shake itself out is a different demand from replying to your in-depth question that needs an attentive answer - I'm not ignoring you, I'm just on a different task atm. /3

I find myself not sharing thoughts/observations/jokes I once would have because I know if I raise my head above the parapet on socials I'll get flooded with messages from people who notice I'm online. It's not ill-intentioned, they're just trying to get things done, but it's exhausting. /2

I keep seeing thinkpieces about why people don't post so much on social media any more and yes, some of it is toxicity and fear and greater awareness of our digital footprints - but it's also being over-busy, under-leisured, and subject to constant time pressure on everything. /1

It's 13c, not warm but not actually cold either. I have thermal leggings, 2 pairs of socks, thick jumper, compression gloves and scarf on, and I'm sandwiched between a hot water bottle and a heated blanket with another blanket on top. Yet my hands are icy cold. Thermodynamics is not the boss of me.

Amidst all the enshittification, there are still the wonderful people who have been diligently uploading otherwise unobtainable episodes of 1970s TV horror onto YouTube and for these intrepid souls I will always be grateful.