I stand there, staring at the ‘Essential’ range of ‘Chicken Steaks,’ sardines, mackerel, houmous, dark chocolate digestive biscuits; thinking, “none of these are essential.” And then my peripheral vision is invaded by a man in a gilet that communicates that his driver is waiting for him.

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This is not his usual activity and he looks slightly lost, but is clutching a small piece of paper and is on a mission. He looks like he’s been given a task from his children to buy a jar of sauerkraut (found in the international goods aisle) for as little time and money as possible. That piece of paper is being held quite awkwardly; presumably he’s never held a five-pound note before: the denomination is too low and it feels weird.

I had to follow him, because what else do you do in these moments. Something was bound to happen. Otherwise this would just finish here, wouldn’t it?

He’s at the till now talking to the cashier and I hear him catastrophise the interaction straightaway.

“I believe I have a DYE-count,” he says as he pushes the QR code into the personal space of an apron-wearing staff member.

“Excuse me?”

“DYE-count. Rhymes with ‘Viscount’. 20p off.”

He’s never done this before and, supposedly, doesn’t engage with the lowly language of us peasants.

The cashier was caught in a world between the push chairs and spaniels being walked around the shop and the world this man had appeared from; unable to process that a man with ironed shorts and no socks would be attempting this without supervision. She scanned both items and met his excitement and flourish with a dead pan response: “£2.40”

“Erm… are you sure?” You could see the algebra spilling out his flat cap.

“You wanted a bag as well.” The bag, naturally, is a Waitrose priced Waitrose bag; not cheap and never discounted.

“Ah, of course. What a silly mistake.” He handed over the cash from his other hand with a look of relief.

She placed the change in his hand and he stared at it for a moment.

I was afraid that what happened next would include a scene where the manager was berated by a viscount for a discount that caused a miscount.

I never heard ‘MYE-count’ but could see the eyes thinking something in that region as his laceless shoes clopped towards the automatic exit doors.

The cashier caught my eye and nodded. “Yes. I did MYE-count.” She put 50p into the charity bucket.

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I had this odd pain in my left jaw when I chewed. It wasn’t a toothache, but it was definitely something in my head. I called the doctors surgery for an initial consultation. Here’s the immediate pit of despair that is experienced by the medical profession these days: specialism. There are specialists for everything. Knees, bladders, skin.

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Every element of the body is chopped up into chunks for consultants to focus to the extreme in their study. There is highly likely a thumb specialist that I will surely be contacting at some point. We are are flat pack furniture with a penchant for praline.

I get that we need to go deep in everything to make sure we properly fix things. I understand cancer and other serious conditions require specialists to properly navigate these difficulties. That is acceptable. But as I was going through triage, if you can call it that, it became very quickly clear that the health care system has dissected humanity so ultimately that triage is not really a worthy term for what I went through.

“I have a pain in my jaw.”

“Go see a dentist.”

“You’re not going to ask when it started, if it’s inside out or outside my mouth, any other possible lifestyle factors that could be causing it?”

“No. Goodbye.”

That’s that then, I now accept.

There is no other option anyway. And this is causing all kinds of pain that is impossible to avoid. You start with a bit of tiredness and get sent to a neurologist and then some head specialist, then over to an MRI to be viewed by an imaging specialist, and each thing takes triage and repetition and the hand over to the next is like the path crumbling behind you as you venture further into an ancient cave system. You are the Indiana Jones of the system. No going back. You must venture deeper until you reach an eventual void which, finally, is that the thing just kind of cleared up on its own. Or you’re dead. Both of which are considered acceptable.

I could have gone to see the dentist, yes, but it was not a dental thing. The whole process, I have come to see, is to deal with the immediate symptom and solve it. The most often recommendation is: “take some paracetamol.” But no one thought to take a step back. Holistic views in the world of health services don’t really feel like a thing. GPs are generalists, but if we have PTs (personal trainers) who make you feel guilty about sleeping, or SCs (sleep consultants) who make you feel guilty about not-sleeping, why not add PHCs to the list? Personal Health Curators. Own the whole thing and make me a better and more healthy human being. This should come out of the council tax budget.

Slightly tangentially, let me explain what I don’t want:

To be drawn down the rabbit hole of multivitamins or other nutritional supplements that get jammed into my instagram feed between the video of cats on holiday in Tuscany and a kitchen appliance walkthrough. My health should not depend on the strange vertical screen lecture from yet another Dr. Gone Private and his cronies. There are at least five different adverts I’ve seen that are purporting to be full-blown businesses that have ‘cracked’ the food system by putting everything you need into a bullet sized pill. This is bullying by another name. It’s insane to listen to these people monologue and then just bypass the whole food thing to think that you can get nutrients from a button. A plastic button.

We’re not astronauts. We don’t need to be astronauts. We won’t need ultra efficient food intake strategies for a picnic. There are versions of a futuristic world where meal deals are a series of packets and everyone absolutely loves it. I am already wholly against the paradigm of efficiency. Perhaps it is too late and we’re already careening towards a world where we can get 10g of protein from a granola bar and consider this progress. At least, for the sake of the Mediterranean diet, replace this with biting chunks out of a block of Parmesan.

Just listen. I know you care.

The pain in my jaw just kind of went away and I think it was probably stress related. I might have been grinding my teeth in the night or something, but I know that seeing a dentist wouldn’t have helped.

Of course, knowing that now, knowing that the body can be a barometer for the broader episodes of life that are thrown at us, I don’t know that me calling the doctor would have been a good experience if the response from the receptionist was going to be:

“Get a grip.”

Maybe therapy? No thanks. Apparently.

Still haven’t seen a dentist.

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This is a simple statement that sounds so plausible. It is, however, mathematically irresponsible. A bit like oil prices.

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I was first met with this unusual sentiment when a bio of a new senior leader made the throwaway statement “I aim to be a little bit better every day” in their introduction to the department, hiding it amongst their other general interests, pointing ultimately to a health obsession that suggests they haven’t felt a processed carb since 2019 and is very pleased with their Peloton membership.

This is a person based in America, so maybe there is a belief that one cannot have a bad day. Maybe, due to the lack of national public transport, they have never been met with a delayed train or a bus. Any bus. Maybe, due to the limited history, they don’t realise that historical ruins are real, rather than manufactured for a theme park. Maybe, every visit to a downtown high street, the continuous change of retail establishments is seen as “a little bit better every day.”

I’ve lived in London for a decade and a half and can tell you that the “engineering works” that shut down the underground services every weekend are evidence of one thing. The underground continues to run as usual. It has not improved even marginally. The Central Line is the defining experience that keeps you from believing in progress. Treasure it. Without this, you will be disappointed every time you try to justify why you had a day off.

Improvement in London is a zero-sum game. If I get 1% better at my job, the Universe immediately compensates by making the guy next to me on the bus eat a tuna sandwich with his mouth wide open.

If life were a spreadsheet, then, perhaps, this new VP would be happily on row 17000 of their days alive, ticking off another 1% improvement. Yes, there are certainly growth spurts in your life, and sudden gains when, in a sudden moment, you can ride a bike. But to put this in perspective, let me introduce you to (1.01)^365

The 1% Better Club operates without acknowledging that this means that their annual members have to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that they are 37.78 times better than they were at their last membership anniversary. Otherwise, they will be expelled into the dark of reality. ‘Incremental gains’ has a ring to it that is hard to challenge. Maybe this 1% is spread over many, many personal traits that could equate to something, but you tell me one person who is even 10 times better than when you last saw them, and I will bring out my spreadsheet asking for the evidence to be entered in columns B-K.

By age 18, you have lived 6574 days. Your improvement at this rate would result in you being 2.56 x 10^28 (quintillion billion) times better. In the Western world, you may be aspiring to become an entry-level graduate in the next 3 years. But your sights are simply too low. You will actually be an interstellar object with enough force to destroy a moon or small planet.

By age 30, you have lived 10,957 days and have improved 2.23 x 10^47 (quatuordicillion) times. Some would be impressed if you made it to middle management, but you are actually a sentient being with the brain the size of a planet.

By age 50, you might have made it to being a member of a board somewhere, but being 18,262 days of 1% improvement and a multiple of your beginning being 8.25 x 10^78 (trevigintillion), you are now as good as matching the atomic count of the observable universe. You have transcended all existence, far beyond any deity, maybe you can finally look down upon the hustle and grind of the city. But will you betray this 1% club of which you have become so loyal? Is there anywhere else to go from here? Just don’t forget to pay your council tax.

As with all things, words sound great. If something rhymes, we like it and believe it. ‘Better every day’ is a lovely mantra. 1% doesn’t sound like much. Maybe we have forgotten how much we already are. But let’s be honest, human performance is not exponential. This is, perhaps, why we are constantly baffled by HR processes and their ‘performance reviews’ that are systematically document how we continue to do our jobs just fine, as we were hired to do, and make that sound like a fireable offence.

There are clear moments where we hit ceilings. We bang our heads on exposed beams. We get tired. We forget our keys. Productivity culture has weaponised mathematics against the average person. The inverse statement being, “your current self is 99% an anticlimax.”

But the ‘inspiring podcasts’ section was where I was made more aware of something I had merely actively ignored the months prior. The Diary of a CEO podcast was front and centre. Dear Mr. Bartlett, your 1% better goal is functionally impossible.

He has over 50 million subscribers, and this is seen as some kind of great success. An online community, numbering not far off the population of England, is watching this guy who is just really good at marketing, interviewing other people who are classified as ‘successful’ by some arbitrary metrics that boil down to bank balance. 50 million people thinking that listening to voices will somehow make them join the ranks of the super wealthy. No one has cottoned on to the mystery that comes with it.

These people he’s shoved a microphone in front of do not share any special secrets to success. Each one is an outlier. Not one has achieved success. They have merely found themselves to be successful. This is a podcast that praises confirmation bias. This worked, therefore I must have been clever enough to have known what to do to make it work in my favour.

He’s like the Jordan Peterson of capitalism. To avoid any doubt, this is meant as an insult.

Steven Bartlett has convinced us, like a used car dealer for the soul, that life is a code to be cracked with ice baths, cold showers, and refusing to understand what a metaphor is. Rather than what life actually is, a series of varied frustrations that usually involve needing to have a good plumber.

The message reaching 100 million ears is one that makes the person who is having a relaxing break in the Cotswolds feel, not simply guilty for lacking any kind of hustle or drive, but an outright failure and deserving of becoming the next victim of an ITV serial murder drama.

One of the guests, in trying to refute the idea that people can experience burnout, claims that she was told she couldn’t experience burnout because “she is not a candle.” Later in the same interview, she criticises some business leaders as being a bottleneck. If we are not candles, we are also not bottles.

Her use of the “candle” retort suggests she misunderstands (or chooses to ignore) that metaphors are figurative tools, not literal classifications. By saying “You are not a candle,” she is making a literal correction to a figurative concept. However, her reliance on being “rewired”, acting as a “bottleneck”, or undergoing “metamorphosis” proves she relies on the very linguistic device she attempts to discredit.

If she truly adhered to the logic of her “candle” remark, she would be forced to abandon her own vocabulary, as she is neither a computer, a bottle, nor a butterfly. Maybe you should check yourself before displaying to the world that you don’t understand metaphor.

This is a bigger problem because much of the advice given is to glamourously overwork, relentlessly doing activities for the sake of I don’t know what, criticise anyone who occasionally sits down for a wee, and ensure that the board of their start up is made up of only those people who have been diagnosed with chronic stress and anxiety; something that they can quickly dismiss thanks to Bartlett’s entertaining of the pseudo scientists who claim that this is all an imagination and they just need to eat more mushroom based products.

After reviewing much of the content, I really felt like having a nap. Then I realised one of his guests is a sleep expert. I was even doing that wrong.

All of this floods my senses as I reflect on my years of trying to live like a normal person in London. Only to realise that most people in London aren’t actually living in London. I do. I have been living in Zone 1 for a decade and a half and have an internal clock that creates an expectation that if my order in a tea shop isn’t taken within the first 200 seconds, I am immediately on TripAdvisor writing my 2-star review in anticipation of the rest. I have been coached by the lunch chains that have a production line that gives the illusion that I’m not having to wait for my order because I can see them making it. I then, to save time, eat my burrito over a bin because I have six minutes before a meeting. I have bitten my lip. I am now 4% worse than if I hadn’t decided to have lunch. I might cry.

This isn’t really me. I have been asked why I arrive at 9 am and leave the office at 5 pm. My confused answer was to refer to my employment contract that laid this 35-hour week (lunch unpaid) before me as part of the agreement between me and company we work for. They didn’t seem to like this answer. Maybe I was pointing out their own failure to prioritise the reason why they work. I pointed out that honouring my own schedule had no impact on the quality of my work. Because, seemingly unlike all the other employees, I made sure that I delivered the work I was expected to do in the workday I had agreed to.

This. Is. (Apparently.) Unacceptable.

My colleagues are trying to be the equivalent of 1% better every day.

I would like to find a pair of socks without holes.

To make this really stick, we have another pithy phrase forced into the ear drum: “If you’re standing still, you’re moving backwards.” Creating this awful illusion that we, let’s be honest, thought we’d outgrown when we realised that FOMO (fear of missing out) was a teenage peer pressure, and we could do what we like. Nope. If you think you’re finally mature because you can go at your own pace, Bartlett and his network of CEOs are here to tell you that the social pressure of college is exactly how you should feel. Just remember that that anxiety is imagined, and you don’t need to really deal with it.

If I’m standing still, then being accused of moving backwards assumes there’s some finish line to which we are supposed to be moving. What are we moving towards? A meeting about “synergy”? Finally, abolishing emails by building a new way to deal with emails? You don’t have to be accused of losing your position in a race if, to the chagrin of the manufactured audience of this secret audio diary, you choose not to participate. I do not need to be more efficient or productive, because that is not the purpose of life. No matter what is written in the small print.

There is one image that completely shatters the ‘standing still’ insult, which is the picture of the person saying this phrase, then also being spokesperson for Peloton; a community of people pedalling furiously, clocking thousands of miles while staying entirely stationary in their living room, revealing, once they upload this ‘indoor cycle’ to Strava, that they are, actually, quite boring.

We all are.

Silence.

I think I have reached the truest moment that undercuts this with my own version of internal stress: FOBI (fear of being involved). I don’t want to be 1% better, I want to be 100% left alone.

The fallacy that this all misses is that if standing still is moving backwards, and 1% better clubs are springing up everywhere, by trying to move in any direction in a meaningful enough way to achieve the improved high productivity goal, we are actually standing still by moving. And it would therefore be far better to experience some movement in any direction by standing still.

All success is temporary.

Being a ‘successful’ person is all relative and not worth chasing.

If this piece gets any traction, I 100% expect to be invited on Steven Bartlett’s podcast. Otherwise, this isn’t a success. The gauntlet has been laid.

But outside. Where the vape shops give the high street hope of survival.

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Surely, looking into the eyes of another human, you will get a more positive experience. It is true that the amount that can be fixed automatically, means the only parts left to humans, are the difficult conversations. Maybe, we can find a way to make this one more fulfilling. We may only be naming each other because they are wearing a name badge that says ‘Stephen’ Store Manager, and my name is on the screen in front of them, but this does feel like, for a moment, we are two people sharing a common mission to solve something that has caused a distress we could fix together.

Unfortunately, some brick and mortar stores in British high streets do not exist for this purpose. From the outside, as you wander by the water feature that resembles the shapes from a dream you barely remember, your mind contemplating the errand list you should have written, you spot the logo of a company of which that was one of the things you needed to sort today! The illuminated box above the glass frontage giving you a sense of hope. Not only has it reminded you of the thing to do, you could actually get it done by entering the premises.

Or. So. You. Are. Led. To.

I walked into a phone shop, let’s say it’s the Three store, because that’s what it was. I had this dream in my mind. The hope warming my insides as I’d tried to park in a multi-story car park with all the skill that is on display at a school visit to an ice rink; most people are staying close to the sides because venturing into the middle is the disaster zone.

The welcome was on the cooler side of lukewarm. An old cup of tea, left in the sun, as if that was going to help things.

Whether they wanted to or not, I explained the situation that needed the special assistance of real people, rather than the suggested version on the website. I’m not sure they were really listening, but they asked if I would sit down because I was making things look untidy. This wasn’t the exact phrase they used, but it was definitely implied by the way they said, “let’s sit down to sort things out.”

I explained the situation again, twice. The situation itself doesn’t really matter here. It didn’t matter to them either. After the pleasantries they did the one thing I realise now is completely unavoidable. They called customer services and handed me the phone. I hung the phone up and asked why I couldn’t get this sorted by them in the premises of Three by someone with a Three name badge. They looked at me like I’d taken their car keys and thrown them at a sea gull. They were clueless, powerless, friendless. Somehow employed.

Shakespeare claimed that all the world is a stage. Three must have that plastered in the staff room in the back. This whole place is theatre.

It should have always been clear to me, in the same way as when a website has a ‘help’ section that is no help and a ‘contact us’ section that desperately avoids providing this information. This is that. In real life. I had walked into the .com/help section of a company. I had made a journey that I believed had real, genuine purpose. I had a mission and I was going to get it done. This wasn’t what they wanted though, was it? I had made this whole journey as an ode to the high street and been given the wholesome experience of being watched while I spoke to someone in a warehouse. These were the real people. The people who provided the service. The employees that populated the store were there as facade.

I had walked into a place that on the surface should have given me hope. It was as if I had scaled the first peak to see there was a higher peak beyond and someone in a tent at this initial summit had given the impression that they were a guide, only to point me into a void.

I persisted with my need to resolve my issue while in the shop. I was, at minimum, going to take up space and do it in a raised tone, except when divulging personally identifiable information. The tables had turned. I was now the actor, and the staff were the audience. All the world is, truly, a stage, and this performance was exquisite. The store manager was aware of things because I had clocked him at a moment of hold music and caught his attention. As I left, I made the point to question why this had to be like this and he made the ultimate statement that haunts me.

“I don’t care. I’m just an employee.”

A true manager.

Maybe we should have two doors to these shops. One is to the normal shop, where you can pick up an unoperational phone and play pretend with it for a bit to see if that feels nice under your fingers. The other goes to the warehouse where all the helpful people are. The normal shop has ‘just employees’ wandering about, collecting dust. The warehouse has employees+. The ones you really wanted in the first place, but hadn’t earned.

Maybe there is this other door and I never found it and, after I’d left, all the normal shop staff sniggered at my foolishness to perform the entire process over the phone when I could have just gone through the other door.

The true customer experience for a brick and mortar shop presence in a high street needs fixing. And, according to Three, that fix is:

* Entry is only allowed by entering an unknown 4 digit code. You can have as many tries as possible, because you will be given clear hints that you’re heading in the wrong direction by one of the employees reading out various responses, like “I’m sorry that’s not an option, press star to return to the main menu.” Once successful you will be handed a clipboard to provide them with all the information they need to make sure that you will see the right person once entering the shop.

* An ante-room. A lobby where, once you gain entry, you will be given a number in the queue, while a 4-piece band will play indistinct jazz. They occasionally stop for a person to pop in, holding an ice cream, telling you there’s no one available right now.

* Sit in this room and stare at a blank wall for around 90 minutes. Do not make eye contact with the jazz-four-piece. They will send you back outside to try again.

* Welcome to customer services! You will be introduced to a teenager who is happy to help and get things solved for you today. They will then ask you for your name, why you are here and you will inform them that this is on the clipboard information you gave earlier. They will inform you this has been destroyed as is the process and to provide all the information again.

* Routing: on providing the full query, this teenager will helpfully point out that they can’t actually help you and you need to speak to someone else. You will be sent back into the ante room for a few minutes.

* Welcome to account management! You will be introduced to a friendly lady who will ask you for the information you provided on the clipboard again. She will apologise and make it feel okay that you have been repeating this query both aloud and in your head for a number of days.

* Solved! Eventually. You will spend around 55 minutes with this lady who will fully and completely resolve all your issues including some useful tips for what would make a good Mother’s Day present. On leaving you will be led into the…

* Survey room! You will be handed a clipboard that looks remarkably like the one you were given at entry and asked how the service was and how they could improve things. Answer this honestly and then place it in the large mechanical bin by the door in order to exit.

* Daylight has gone. As you step back onto the street, the sun has set. You are exhausted. Your problem is solved, but your soul is slightly smaller.

A future we can all look forward to. Please hold.

April 27, 2026

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The Vision vs. The Reality

What was meant to be a straightforward 26.2-mile marathon through central London yesterday has instead become the subject of an ongoing investigation by three separate insurance companies and a strongly worded letter from the Port of London Authority.

The Thames Valley Running Club’s “Whisky Marathon” promised participants an unconventional experience: replace the standard 17 water stops with 17 single-malt whisky tastings. The organisers called it “a celebration of Scottish heritage and British endurance.” The insurers are calling it “a catastrophic lapse in judgment.”

The Setup: Ambition Meets Hubris

“We thought it would be fun,” explained event coordinator Marcus Pemberton, speaking from his home on Monday afternoon. “We had safety briefings. We had medical staff on standby. We even had a sponsorship deal with a local distillery.”

What the organisers did not anticipate was the cumulative effect of 17 whisky stops on the navigational abilities of 342 whisky snobs/amateur runners. It was one of the proposed activities from a collective Whisky Advent Calendar that the large WhatsApp group had completed over December.

The Divergence: When Runners Went Off-Script

By mile 8, the first “inadvertent course diversions” began to emerge. A group of 47 runners, having sampled the Islay single-malt at Stop 3, somehow ended up in Hammersmith instead of continuing toward Kensington.

“They were very committed,” said one bewildered local shopkeeper. “They asked me for directions to ‘the next whisky stop,’ and when I told them they’d gone the wrong way, they just kept going. I think they thought it was part of the course.”

By mile 15, the situation had escalated. A subset of 23 competitors had achieved what race officials now reluctantly classify as “ultramarathon status”—having run approximately 34 miles through a combination of the official route and several creative detours through South London.

The Thames Incident

The most serious incident occurred at mile 18, near Hammersmith Bridge, where the official route crosses the Thames via the pedestrian walkway.

“Several runners interpreted this as an invitation to complete a swimming leg,” said Thames Valley Running Club spokesperson Jennifer Walsh in a statement. “This was not the intention.”

The Port of London Authority was less diplomatic. In a letter dated Monday morning, they formally requested that the club cease and desist from any future events that might “encourage aquatic participation in a major shipping lane.”

The club’s insurers went further, issuing a directive that the River Thames must henceforth be referred to in all official documentation as a “water hazard”—a term typically reserved for golf courses and military installations.

“It’s absurd,” Pemberton admitted. “But apparently, there’s a specific clause about ‘encouraging unauthorised water activities in protected waterways.’ Who knew?”

The Finale: The Lime Bike Uprising

The event reached its surreal crescendo around mile 22, when approximately 18 runners—having lost the official course entirely and consumed roughly 12 whisky tastings each—commandeered a fleet of Lime bikes from a ‘docking pavement’ near Vauxhall.

“They were very organised about it,” said a Lime spokesperson. “They actually scanned the QR codes properly. We didn’t realise until later that they’d taken 18 bikes in a coordinated fashion and were using them to complete what they called ‘the cycling leg.’”

The resulting route was, by all accounts, “frankly quite serpentine.” Security footage shows the group weaving through residential streets, across three different parks, and at one point, through the grounds of a private school.

“They were singing,” reported one witness. “Very loudly. Scottish folk songs, I think. They seemed happy.”

The group eventually reached a finish line—though not the official one. Instead, they arrived at a Tesco Extra in Peckham, where they apparently believed the event had concluded.

“They were very disappointed when we told them this wasn’t the finish,” said store manager David Chen. “One of them asked if we had a medal. We gave them a Clubcard instead.”

The Aftermath: Counting the Costs

The official post-race report, released Monday evening, catalogues the damage:

* 342 registered participants

* 287 official finishers (those who completed the actual course)

* 47 runners who finished in Hammersmith

* 8 runners who are still missing (last seen heading toward Croydon)

* 18 runners who completed an accidental triathlon via unauthorised swimming and cycling

* 11 Lime bikes added to the growing canal bike population

* 3 insurance companies are now in active dispute

* Countless confused Londoners who witnessed the chaos

The Fallout

The Thames Valley Running Club has announced that next year’s event is “under review.” Preliminary discussions suggest several options:

* Returning to traditional water stops

* Switching to a different beverage entirely (IPAs have been suggested. The Club is looking for a BrewDog sponsorship.)

* Cancelling the event indefinitely

The impacted boroughs have requested a meeting with club leadership to discuss “event management protocols and public safety.”

Pemberton remains philosophical about the disaster. “Look, we set out to create an unforgettable experience,” he said. “And we did. For most people.”

Epilogue: The Missing Eight

As of press time, eight runners remain unaccounted for. The club has issued a statement asking anyone who spots runners in Thames Valley Running Club bibs to “gently redirect them toward central London.”

One runner, identified only as “Derek from Croydon,” posted on social media Monday morning: “Still running. Not sure where I am. The whisky was excellent, though. 10/10 would recommend.”

His current location remains unknown.

The Port of London Authority has declined further comment but will not press charges.

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This topic comes up in gatherings that people like to refer to as “parties” during the tradition or practice of ‘small talk’. I do not do small talk. Sometimes I will tell people I’m a stand up comedian. This may sound like a lie, because claiming this suggests it’s a full time thing, when it isn’t and won’t ever be in this economy.

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It’s like a casual runner who does 20-30k a week in the midst of their usual weekly commitments saying “I’m an athlete.” According to the email newsletter from runningfordummies.com, they definitely are. I will not take that away from them. Because I don’t want them to take my dreams from me. The difference between us, however, is the follow-up question. If they claim “athlete” as their primary answer, the next question will undoubtedly be, “what events are you competing in next?” To which the answer would be Battersea Park Run.

The follow up question for me on claiming ‘comedian’ is, “tell me a joke.” To which I can gracefully transition into a diatribe about that being a very one-dimensional understanding of ‘comedian’ vs. ‘joke writer’ and while there are certainly jokes I tell throughout a stand-up set, I wouldn’t be able to do it justice in this current setting due to...

And now we have gone from ‘small talk’ to ‘medium talk’.

Medium talk is when one party is dreadfully interested in the topic and the other is realising their mouth is a little parched and wondering if the free bar is still open. Your outfit portrays an invitation to light-hearted interactions thanks to your fun cat meme design on your tote bag, but this has betrayed them, and they cannot comfortably escape.

I use my own version of a ‘skip intro’ button in a new introduction by providing the recent weather reports in a 15 second sound bite, show them a picture of my cat and a recent holiday, and my latest LinkedIn post from 14 years ago so we can get on with an actual conversation.

The conversation in question? Big talk. One could refer to it as large or perhaps extra large talk, as a way to t-shirt size the experience, but let’s be real: t-shirt sizing anything that isn’t a t-shirt is incredibly annoying and I will not entertain that as an action item to estimate something for a work meeting.

This short guide should help to cut through the crust of pretense.

You will quickly find out who is worth being in the same room with, and who is there for the bottled beer. An odd trend will appear that, in the main, those that are there due to some close relationship with the person who was actually invited to the thing is probably going to respond better to this method than the core party-goers. This is intended.

If all goes to plan, you are now standing alone by the hummus; exactly where you wanted to be.

At some point, in order to capture the imagination of the emerging generation, somebody somewhere was the first person to utter the words “living your/my best life”, and this is now the reason why everyone is depressed. Because this sounds like a target, something to aspire to or something that is possible. Now it is possible, but not the way that people who attest to it want you to understand.

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Here is the ultimatum: You are already living your best life, because that is what your life is. You have already subscribed to the other idiom “You only live once” and have not done the logical alignment to realise that if you only live once, then the life that you have, without any effort in particular, is your best one. And you are, admittedly, disappointed.

I’m sorry to have pointed this out to you.

It’s also your worst life, if that’s any consolation.

That is how lists work.

But when I say to my only parents that they are the best parents I’ve ever had, that is a true statement. There will be some who may try to point out where they could have done better, but I am not that person.

The generation that I belong to (Millennial) is powered by affirmations:

* Live your best life

* You only live once

* Good vibes only

* Self-care

* Living your truth

* That’s how I’m wired

* Trust the process

* Life is short

All of these are excuses for why this person feels friction in general society.

I am encouraged to “be myself” and then invited to a fancy dress party, derided for turning up as myself. I could argue that I am being ‘authentic’, but the reality is I’m exposing everyone else as turning “fun” into additional work that shouldn’t be impacting my work-life balance. I get invited to parties less often as a result.

We hear “YOLO” over the hubbub, but when we look, it’s being used as an excuse to have another Krispy Kreme on a Friday. And they’ve taken the best one again.

But you can say almost anything that is merely useless logical calculation, and then take up smoking or buy a dog.

It used to be that we had some strange observation that would justify behaviour; “you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs” is used to excuse aggressive people who can’t just take a breath. But that isn’t heard as often these days, and is replaced with “trust the process,” “it is what it is,” “all my chickens have hatched, and I’ve got no eggs, so try making an omelette now, you peanut.”

Before I leave that axiom alone, I think it worth highlighting the use of eggs is specifically for omelettes. Other things yes, but omelettes make the list. Without digressing too far into whether a vegan would approve of this as a metaphor for their latest campaign, I’m pretty sure someone on the opposite side of the picket line would have a sign that read “You can’t make an omelette.”

The very notion of eggs is they will be broken. Either for food or their more productive options: chicks. This does defeat the object of the phrase’s use. By all means, “move fast and break things” if you must, but do not make an excuse that those things were supposed to break and part of the ingredients, rather than the actual result; collateral damage.

How are we supposed to define things as “eggs” in the world outside of a metaphor that is literally a double negative framing of something? If I do the appropriate linguistic algebra, the phrase is literally saying “you make omelettes with eggs.” Now try to justify that to be why you “disrupted” the industry, but not fully being honest that your old business partner is now alone and on the verge of becoming the next Walter White. The ex-CEO of Brewdog probably had this sewn into every t-shirt he wore and had it tattooed across his chest. But in this case, it’s being used to suggest that “success” is made with the ingredient of destroying other people’s lives. An omelette folk metaphor should not be able to carry the weight of silencing dissent.

The millennial adjustment to ‘move fast and break things’ at least didn’t point to objects that undermined the underlying intent. We seem intent on building our lives on proverbs of five words or fewer.

I agree. Life is short, when compared with the infinite passage of time, but it’s taken ages to get here, and if we are speeding towards death, let’s be mindful of others along the way, please.

I cannot abide “Good Vibes Only” as a concept. This doesn’t work. If I got a phone call, as I once did, explaining that the vet had found an untreatable growth in my cat and she would need to be put down, I can’t just scream “GOOD VIBES ONLY!” at him and hang up. It doesn’t work.

There are people that claim they can maintain said “vibes” with “breath work.” Since when was breathing work? Only in the most stressful of situations, otherwise known as a panic attack. If we have a generation that are experts at breath work, we must be in an international health crisis. Every member of Gen Z are hiding their constant state of panic behind an oversized hoodie slogan.

And so we have got a population of people living through their screens, showcasing their life with captions to affirm their life choices, without just actually inhabiting them. Only made worse is we have too quickly passed this onto future generations, who have had to find ways to live ‘authentically’ and make sure that that is also captured on social media so people can approve of it.

Just approve, please. Approve of my schedule. Approve of my job. Do not be silent.

There’s a world of concern that people are only sharing their curated life online. But there is silence when it comes to just getting people to live.

What this doesn’t mean is find ways of captioning your life through a t-shirt that says “GAME ON” or “I WILL GO PLACES” or “ADVENTURE! Assembly required.” Be careful of these.

I have a hoodie that reads, “The Wilderness Awaits”, which sounds edgy and cool, but is probably the most terrifying thing to consider. You believe it’s going to be a scenic hike in the New Forest, but suddenly there’s no 5G coverage, and Waitrose is replaced by a SPA. No Gastro Pub in sight. I like the wilderness as long as there’s a proper facility to ensure I can have a suitable bio break and eat tasty things in the midst of experiencing said wilderness. I do not want the wilderness subjected to me. The idea of adventure might be fun from the outside, which is easy to imagine when binge-watching Netflix mini-series. But imagine that actually happening to you.

They say be careful what you wish for, but in this case, you have either brought incredible disaster on yourself with zero prep, or, as hacked to death in the preceding paragraphs, stated things over yourself that contain no actual meaning and your single solitary life is winning and losing at every ranking you can place on it.

Stop it.

Here are some alternatives that you can utilise to make yourself more tolerable to the incoming generations:

* One life is already too much responsibility

* I have settled for a good life, my apologies

* Be your many selves. Embrace your inconsistency.

* Check you’re still breathing. This is enough.

* Do not disturb

* Be authentically difficult

* Life may be short, but please do explain in more detail your life-changing sourdough starter

Remove all vibes from your activities. Strive instead for a life that is logically sound.

“I’m so sorry, but my office is currently struggling to do 50 on the inside lane of the M2,5 and I needed to concentrate.”

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I think it’s technically referred to as a ‘mobile office’ even though that is quite a stretch. But there you go, the world was listening, in the form of my Google search history informing Amazon what I was in the market for, and an ad popped up for a complete package of “Office: Stationary.” I figured it was a typo.

That would make a bit of a change; I can tidy up all the various cables that seem to congregate in front of my computer screens after a ‘big tidy’, and I can rely on the things that require literally no battery power at all.

I must have misread the description. The doorbell rang, but it wasn’t DPD; it was a site safety engineer asking me to briefly leave the spare room so that he could install the stationary office. I had signed on the digital dotted line for an office that was legally required to never move. I’m not quite sure how to explain this to the landlord.

All the paperclips I’d recovered from the living room cupboard in preparation were now, ironically, stapled to the carpet in a fun navigable pattern, as if this immovable office needed to provide a topographical experience.

I feel quite stupid now. I hope I didn’t make the same mistake for when the standing desk comes next week.

(Next week came, and you’ll be pleased to know that it’s just a regular desk, which made me recheck the ‘sitting desk’ which, it turns out, is a desk in the sitting position of a dog; so utterly useless.)

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On reflection, smoking could well be better, proverbially speaking, than vaping in a post-pandemic world; the newish normal. The normal that has not had a chance to collect dust due to the earthquakes and dropped bombs since.

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Smoking is, by design, a finite act. There is a beginning in the lighting and an end at the filter. The conscious decision by the consumer is to increase nicotine intake by a measure that is defined by the stick they have retrieved from the crushed box in their bag. Fire and a pause, outside, away from anything flammable and signs prohibiting the people group “smokers.”

Vaping is not this. The dosage is an uncertain liquid from a tiny bottle that was designed by the White Rabbit for Alice and exported to the urban streets. An intake of breath from one of the contraptions is not equivalent to a single drag, and there is no definitive end aside, obviously, from the chemicals inserted or battery capacity. But these limits are not equivalent. A vaper vapes for a single breath, but then, a few breaths later, takes another, and a few steps more, then another.

While it is supposed to be a tool for quitting smoking, the ease at which such a tool can be used to ‘quit’ it becomes itself, not merely a replacement, but a higher, more constant, more incessant need for the user to have. It is, by all accounts, worse than social media algorithms. I look at my phone every seven seconds, thankful that I am only addicted to that. The smoker observes the vaper, who is deceiving themself, believing they have the higher moral ground than those addicted to cigarettes, knowing full well that they are better off in so many ways.

For one, they have already accepted their fate: a seven-year life reduction. They can now factor this in and proceed with this as an expectation. But there are other benefits to smoking. They have a single cigarette break (which could theoretically be multiple cigarettes, but at least it’s a controlled dose), and then they can return to their responsibilities and function with a routine that means they are a contributing member of society. The Vaper does not know how this works. They will step away from their desk; however, more often than not, the work-from-home world means that they can take the occasional drag on their tiny pink electric test tube throughout the day and not know that this is becoming a dependence until they leave it at home while they pop to the shops and are unable to concentrate in the car after three minutes.

The smoker knows their limits and areas of operation. The vaper has found themselves unable to operate without the comfort of the glow-in-the-dark USB pacifier in their pocket. The aeroplane is moments away from leaving the gate on time, and fourteen people have to leave and have their luggage retrieved because they cannot figure out how they will last a moment longer before their flight takes off on its 45-minute flight to Amsterdam.

And let’s not forget, if you had to choose between inviting a smoker or a vaper to a summer barbecue, you would choose the smoker every time. They will be aware that to non-smokers, smoking is difficult to handle, and they will find ways to control their habit. And they will also have the right paraphernalia to solve any potential issues, should the barbecue fail to light, for example. Also, if it’s someone’s birthday, candles are already an easy decision.

Nobody wants a cinnamon bun-flavoured smoked salmon at a barbecue.

Now, let’s go back to reality, because I do not wish lung cancer on anyone, and would suggest that those who do smoke try to quit the addiction, as you will see real benefits. Vaping is the absolute definition of the intensity that is demanded from our overstimulated world. It is a never-ending practice that is only further entrenched, as every other high street shop will attest; you can no longer buy a range of lined paper notebooks, but you are definitely able to find the flavour for your next vape: Thai Red Curry. While there is an implicit impulse to leave vaping as an option and find something else, there is still an overhang of nervousness that remains from the airborne virus some of us were lucky enough to survive.

Which is why I would like everyone to at least be vaping while in public so that, where possible, I am able to see your breath clearly and avoid breathing the same air as you.

Thank you

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I can only imagine—from my far-removed position of childless privilege—that the politics of the playground have been entirely replaced by the overspill of “The Algorithm.” Why is “6-7” such a phenomenon to parents and teachers? Because it is a physical overflow of the social media code, being channelled by the very toddlers who will one day control our oxygen supply. Everything is now a mere comment on the thing that should be happening; to pretend otherwise is a form of parental psychosis.

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If your child’s school is not actively combating this, you must immediately remove them from the establishment. The only acceptable curriculum is a rigorous education in developing and producing a podcast. Just as we were once expected to possess a ‘2000’ suffix in our email addresses, the current generation must learn to transform the tuck shop into a multi-part episodic exploration of small talk to be recorded and published for a world that simply must hear the critical debate about the price of a Freddo.

When I was finishing school, the expectation was that every other person would head to University simply so employers wouldn’t have to deal with anyone under the age of twenty. By 2030, the government will surely mandate that every school leaver possesses a podcast. You must get ahead of this. If your child is asked for their handle, the only acceptable response is a link to their RSS feed and a guest appearance schedule for the first eighteen months after education has ceased.

I know this to be true because of my nephews and niece. I innocently thought their constant huddling was a game; it transpired to be the rigorous pre-production planning for a Spotify deal that doesn’t yet exist.

To save your child from contemporary playground pressures, you must ensure they are the subject of a very specific type of bullying that can be rebranded as ‘content.’ If you are at a loss, simply hand your offspring a tiny microphone.

The Instagram Pivot

When your child is asked, “Are you on Instagram?” they must respond: “No, but I do have a podcast. Like and subscribe.”

Here are the necessary responses to the other algorithmic horsemen:

TikTok

The ‘For You’ page makes it sound as though the app was expecting you, curating a selection to address your exact soul-needs that were present when opening the app. In reality, it is a bunch of generic trends happening in your general microbiome. This must be ditched. Challenge the consumer with an important response to their dwindling attention span.

* The Response: “I find the short-form video format lacks the structural integrity required for my personal brand. Please see my YouTube lecture on the Geopolitics of the Climbing Frame.”

Snapchat

How can a child make a difference if every moment of their life is a disposable Polaroid lost in the ether of a disintegrating universe? They will not matter, but “eventually” not matter. They must, right now, believe every step they take is an act to celebrate. Ground their self-worth in documentation; show them that a tactile experience can be monetised.

* The Response: “I’ve moved to a subscription-only model. My archive includes a selection of the childhood photos my parents shared openly on Facebook. You can embarrass me for just £12 a month this year.”

Twitch

Other people having fun on your time is, frankly, disrespectful. Watching a sponsored teen attempt a jump-scare-free run of Five Nights at Freddy’s unfiltered is going to backfire when they make a sudden movement that dismantles their entire home studio—lighting rig and all. At what point do we escape? Learn from yourself, not from someone else’s mistaken activities passed off as wisdom.

* The Response: “I don’t do real-time. My current project is a reboot of the toddler years. The next episode drops after double Science.”

WhatsApp

You cannot leave a WhatsApp group once you’ve been added. I’ve tried. If you attempt an exit, you are immediately re-added with a message saying, “Looks like you left by mistake.”

* The Response: “I recently started a podcast called ‘The Rest is a Meme.’ Your group messages are going to be excellent source material.”

Pinterest

A niche is carved out for those creative few who really like gingham. They have a vision board for every extra-curricular activity. This is not enough. The dreamer remains a dreamer; they must be coached to think about “goals,” not “dreams.”

* The Response: “This week’s montage for scrapbook building is accompanied by a Mediterranean recipe and a reimagined version of Wonderwall by Oasis.”

LinkedIn

This is the fountain of all knowledge, provided you want leadership lessons from a recycling bag. The LinkedIn energy is unique; one must be “thrilled” to start a job, “thrilled” to be doing the same job year after year, and “thrilled” to post unflattering pictures of oneself under networking-event neon.

* The Response: Produce a series of interviews with well-to-do children who describe the “obstacles” they overcame to enjoy their protein-rich lunch box and high-end gadgets. Ensure there is no mention of parental help. Sponsorship must be sought exclusively from Steven Bartlett.

Facebook & Discord

* The Response: “I only do unboxing videos.”

I trust this helps you navigate the strange future where the new generation cannot date someone sitting right next to them without first checking their digital pulse. Some children will fall through the cracks and live a disconnected life, which will, naturally, form the basis of the content produced by their peers. For the rest, you are now equipped to pivot your child away from screen anxiety and toward a vanity so profound it elevates their every mundane thought into self-induced therapy.

Salad is my fridge’s nemesis. Massive bags of air with a few leaves floating around inside. The fridge shelves are the wrong shape for this stuff, and they don’t squish like they should.

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Don’t get me started on Superfoods.

I’m entering a Waitrose (because that is where I shop and you can judge me for it; I bring a Lidl shopper, just to confuse the other patrons), about to tackle to vegetable aisle and the superfoods stand there, sizing me up. It has better branding, a higher moral ground, and a cape made of kale.

I have a number of issues with this. They creep up in many sections. It’s not just spinach. It’s nuts. Also, it’s nuts. Superfoods in supermarkets. Why couldn’t we just get regular foods in regular markets, like in the old days I’ve heard about? If you want an affirmation to swallow, just grab a handful of blueberries. Do they have a mild-mannered identity that they had been hiding behind until the 2010s?

Well, it’s time to lose weight. And I cannot bring myself to go to the gym because they represent everything wrong with city life: gyms. I have visited Los Angeles on a few occasions, and there are long stretches of outside space along beaches and waterways that are being enjoyed by athletes on the second-storey, mindfully taking in the view through floor-to-ceiling windows on row after row of running machines. You could be doing this outside, folks.

The one good thing about salad is if you eat salad, you don’t have to go to the gym, do you? Because eating salad is exhausting.

I have this pile of leaves in front of me, and now we enter a forty-five minute interval workout. Why did I choose a fork? In fact, what cutlery is even appropriate for this cuisine? A salad is the only food that actively attempts to avoid being consumed; it’s a high-intensity bicep workout involving a piece of watercress. Maybe this is why they call some of these ingredients “super” foods. Regular foods, being too easy to consume, make us feel like we’ve nailed mealtimes. Salad is there to teach us to put us back in our place. These leaves look harmless when you step all over them during a hike, but place them in front of me as a starter, and my main course is delayed indefinitely.

I thought I’d ordered a salad, but I’d actually ordered RSI.

I’ve been trying to eat this green mess for 45 minutes, mouthful after mouthful, working out my jaw with zero warm up and no guidance provided in the à la carte menu. I look down at the bowl, and it’s all still there.

45 minutes of this chewing endurance and you’re in better shape than you ever have been. They say you are what you eat, but I’d adjust that slightly to, “you are what you attempt to eat.” My jawline is incredible, and I now have an Unstrangleable Neck. There are nutrients in the foods I’m raising towards my mouth, and the bicep curl involved in a clump of spinach is adding definition to my limbs. I cannot overeat because the salad is already calorie deficient, and, on top of that, it’s impossible to finish anyway. The food waste bin was specifically designed because nobody ever finishes a salad.

Maybe the problem is “super” foods are for “super” people, and they’ve been banished to pocket universes. And maybe that’s where all the food waste goes.

The salad is an infinite gauntlet placed in front of those who desire a healthy lifestyle. And these people, who are dragged in front of us by the thumb activated interface of Instagram or TikTok reels, are forcing the rest of humanity to consider their flawed selves, while the truth dawns: they’ve been outmanoeuvred by a vegetable with a superior prefix.

What am I to do? I’m in better shape, but I’m in calorie deficit because I haven’t managed to finish a full meal in 10 days while ensuring my heart rate is in zone 4. It’s just too much. Or not enough. Do I go back to Penguins? Even with the ‘chocolate flavoured coating’ now matching the quality of the jokes.

I suppose you have two options.

The Gym option

You are required to immediately tell everyone in your WhatsApp history that you have joined a gym and post a “before” picture. You have to adjust your musical taste to enjoy the soundtrack of incessant beats that accompany you as you tour the apparatus. Lose focus on one sport. This is not going to help you. You must now gain deep and rich insight into every single sport that could be televised at any moment during your time in the gymnasium.

You must then film a series of reaction videos to various creotine shake brands while you select the wrong kettle bell continually. Your next task is to, over a period of 10 days, take post-workout selfies in awkward places that inadvertently show that you haven’t wiped down the equipment carefully.

If you must, you may use YouTube to learn how to properly use the rowing machine. You are allowed three total occasions where you sit on the rowing machine, but get distracted by unboxing videos.

After an approximate six-month period, you can either post a #gains Facebook story or be forcably removed by the cleaning staff.

The Salad option

Live a life intimidated by cherry tomatoes and pine nuts.

I entered through the solid glass entry (modern architecture demonstrating to the historic cobbles that the future will be paved soon enough and any vexation to the pedestrian’s saunter will speed it’s own demise) to a corridor coffee bar with the juxtaposition of exposed brick and mounted LCD screens displaying the static menu with unfinished prices. Americano | 2.8. 2.8 what? Are we versioning Americano’s now? A bargain (some might say), but a confusing bargain. Because what is “2.8” in money? Apparently “money” is not wanted in this cashless experience.

The far end had three stools and a circular, I suppose you have to call it a, coffee table with two low down seats that curled into themselves. A couple of suspended planks lent against suspended planks while they each in turn made some remarks to each other and then nodded as if they were listening. The furniture was arranged in such a way to send a clear message: “We welcome you to stay for our vibes, please kindly exit the premises.”

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There were two large and expensive, and clearly well-functioning Italian espresso machines, the sound of coffee beans grinding continually, while espressos poured from the tiny spouts into cardboard takeaway cups on a frankly too frequent basis for the sustainable judgment I had been met with on my transit. Considering all the varying marketing that promised net zero across the entire ecosystem of Nando’s, not a single patron had bothered to bring their own insulated flask. There was one or two, but if you were to use the far end of the bar as a true data point for citizens interested in moving the needle on air quality, the answer you would be met with would be less than a percentage point. It’s not the only proof point, I grant you, but it is a useful virtue signal.

This particular establishment had positioned itself strategically opposite a WeWork that would happily pay the prices it had made up. This name was doing a lot of work for the shared “collaboration space” when it was very clear that the people belonged to a collective known as WeDoNotWork, but rather join a long queue for the arabica blend. They wore varying degrees of smart casual that showed that they did not know how to actually collaborate, but merely shared a long communal table while they worked on their ‘pitch decks.’ These people had superficial chemistry, meaning they would laugh loudly and joke about nothing in particular, but they were all secretly elsewhere, enjoying their wealthy lifestyle in a damp city.

The staff, in contrast, were students. The collective noun for this is a ‘slavery of students.’ My generation of the newly graduated unemployed would find work in bars and pubs. This new generation is not subjected to the unsociable hours of this, and have found their 9-5 (though in this case it is probably 6-6) fuelling the office politics and can still go out in the evening to their book club. They were all in a production line, essentially performing a coffee-themed interpretive dance while singing in perfect harmony the song of the day. I did not know this song.

I couldn’t concentrate properly until I had ordered my flat white, which took a turn before I’d even paid my virtual 4.3 to the iPad. They asked, because they felt it necessary for me to out myself before passing down the imaginary conveyor of customers, “dairy flat white?”

“Erm… yes. The OG milk, please.” Bewildered. (Confession: I only thought the OG bit.)

I paid and walked on.

Hold on. What just happened? That’s not how it’s supposed to go. A flat white is coffee with milk. Special ways of preparing both elements, yes, but a dairy flat white is not a variant; it’s the original. Almond milk, or soy, or, heaven forbid, oat are options that a customer is granted to customise, but dairy milk is the original milk. It’s… well, it’s milk, isn’t it? Don’t make me out to be some monster because it’s the first. Don’t make me answer difficult questions about farmyard conditions for the dairy cows.

I don’t want to have to apologise for ordering a standard version of a thing. Have I just been outed as someone from the 20th Century?

I looked back at those behind me and in front of me. The slow dawn of this next moment made me nervous about where exactly I could lean. I was surrounded by matcha drinkers. Matcha does not belong in a coffee shop. This building had a sign over it that literally said “COFFEE” in it. I can just about forgive you for also serving tea, because we’re in the UK and tea & coffee break is just a normal thing. ‘Coffee’ is not a collective term to encompass ‘turmeric’ and ‘matcha’, and anything else you fancy putting with hot milk and adding latte.

“Matcha latte for Jean!” I heard a shout from the far end of the bar, where completed drinks were being lined up to be collected. My eyes slowly saw, one after another, the green foam-moustached clan waiting for ‘Jean’ before they all wandered back to the WeWork.

Matcha is not a drink. It’s a botanical performance. It is, if anything, ‘swamp-adjacent,’ and it really looks like these people are only allowed back into the WeWork if they have the strong work principle to endure the thing.

It looked like this entire group had been on a team-building excursion to have their morning spent face-down on the grass. It’s a distress signal of the generation entering the working world and hasn’t found out how to cope with saying “no” to things yet. That’s probably where it started. They were asked if they wanted to try the “new” matcha latte, didn’t fight before realising it isn’t coffee and won’t perk them up until lunchtime, and now it’s too late and it’s their ‘usual’ and they can’t go back on their word now, like when you’re 45 minutes into a conversation and you realise you don’t know the person’s name. Just roll with it and hope they tell an anecdote where they switch to third-person for a bit.

I stood there, carefully checking my phone every 7 seconds, not to look out of place. But I was dreading that moment. I had ordered neither a matcha anything nor a drink with an alternative milk. I was doomed. Judgment would fall, and I would be whisked away into the lobby of the head office of some corporation that sponsored Aston Martin.

They should all adopt the method spearheaded by Starbucks. They have figured out that the complexity of coffee ordering has become such an infinite wormhole, the only way to fix it is to give the customer the ability to carefully run through all the options, so when they do order an extra-hot caramel cappuccino, extra foam half caff venti with cinnamon and chocolate powder with full fat dairy milk from real cows, they don’t have to say it, nobody needs to hear it, and when you go in to pick up your preordered monstrosity, the only evidence of your order is the size of the cup. We are all safe.

I don’t think getting coffee will ever be safe.

Before the brand police took over the marketing department, I clearly remember someone saying that O2 didn’t want ‘customers’ it wanted ‘fans’. Since then, there has been a drive for every business “serious about its future” to ensure that it created something called “loyalty.” Loyalty is a dangerous and slightly absurd term to be used in commerce. I was loyal to my local dry cleaners, whom I dropped in on regularly on the way home, welcomed his new wife to the business a few years later, and even their first child. And then we moved, and I never went back because I could get my dry cleaning closer. I was loyal in a very loose, transactional sense that would be defined by most people as ‘not loyal.’

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And now I have the digital graveyard equivalent of my derision. 83 loyalty apps. I am the most faithful man in the United Kingdom. I have not paid full price for a baguette since the Jubilee. Although, and this may surprise you, the folder on my phone containing these loyalty apps is labelled…. “Poly-loyalty.” Loyalty cannot be defined by stamps; otherwise, the post office would not have been put through what it has been.

The problem with these apps, or the little cardboard emblems we carry more carefully than our own driving license, is that they make me wonder whether any of them really know the truth. I have a punch card from Press that sits snuggly next to the half-finished Caffé Nero one, and I think they are communicating with the Mafia of organised grime. I live in perpetual fear of waking up to a horse head, rendered in high-contrast latte foam on my pillow. Some data analyst working from a bedsit in Shoreditch is highlighting my name because I haven’t bought a cinnamon bun in three weeks with a three-word message: “Send the Guys.”

Are they rewarding my return or, as is my experience at Gail’s, carefully monitoring my activities and treating me accordingly? The adulterer.

The only reason I got the app in the first place was because of the free coffee at the other end. What does that say about my loyalty? Is that what loyalty is now? A transaction? Why can’t we call it something else? We have this, or the membership thing. Which is basically pre-buying coffees. “I know I’m going to be tired next Wednesday around 1pm. Have my oat latte ready.”

Ok, let me be honest, it was the free coffee and the opportunity not to have to queue. The greatest thing to become a motivation for businesses is the ‘frictionless experience.’ I can finally reach a flow state. Flow state, in my case, is seamlessly drop by a Starbucks on my way to a Gail’s to seamlessly grab a cinnamon bun on my way to a thing. I have left the perfect amount of time and do not have capacity to deal with speaking an order and then waiting for it.

This is the ideal.

The reality is that the frictionless workflow that millions have been spent on designing and deploying has been entirely ignored by the staff. I walk in with an order number, and they stare at me with the look of a person who wonders why a poodle has gained sentience and is expecting microfoam in a cup.

They can see the professional courier with his large insulated cube on his back like a human escapee from Tetris. I am not a representative of the social equivalent of the barista, the gig economy community that supported this invisible visitor through lockdowns. I am also not a ‘real’ customer, despite my brandishing of the app that says I am “valued.” If I am valued it is by people that have expressed the words from afar and failed to consult the local shop staff who would choose another term; e.g. an interference, an irritation, a scab.

But is this not why we secretly love the local Gail’s? Hostility is the premium service we must receive. In a city obsessed with “Good Vibes Only,” their neon sign has a large red line through it; a sanctuary of indifference. I stare longingly at my Free Birthday Croissant email, don protective clothing and head over to the till.

Am I loyal. Yes. I have the proof. The data. The QR CODE!

Do they care?

No.

In a world where every brand is trying to be your friend, where every app is trying to personalise your experience, where every barista is trained to remember your name and your order, Gail’s just wants you to buy bread and leave.

I once found myself queuing at a Pret right behind the CIO of the company I was working for. In that moment we were the same. Almost. Because I have the firm opinion that avocado does not belong in a baguette or a tortilla wrap; it should only be on a guacamole station. But we both got a can of ginger beer. I wanted to fist bump as I replaced him at the front of the queue, but he didn’t see me. Later on, I choked—as I often do—on the fiery fizz, and I think he saw me then. It’s probably for the best I didn’t try the fist bump.

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We were the same, and the power was in the hands of the staff. They have their own ecosystem happening. At a Pret, the CIO and I (a lowly reporting analyst at the time) were equals. At a Gail’s, we would both be equally irrelevant.

This really comes into its own when an Executive Assistant is part of The GQ (The Gail’s Queue). They do command a certain amount of respect because they remember numerous different coffee types, and the barista is doing their best to hide their admiration. They’re also juggling two iPhones and an iPad, clearly trying to manage a hostage negotiation. This has brought the staff back to the healthy disdain that every customer deserves.

This EA, on this day, was obviously in a hurry. (When are they not? It’s not their fault; their employers believe that their time is somehow able to expand into extra parallel universes to achieve what is being expected of them.) There was a seven-minute grace period in the board meeting and he’d been sent to restock with bespoke espresso drinks, rather than let the VIPs upstairs use the coffee machine. He had met his match with what I assume is the “Lid Custodian.”

The frantic assistant has met their opposite: the barista’s assistant. Their sole purpose is the ‘integrity of the cup seal.’ Each cup is a different size requiring a different lid and, to the normal observer, this is anarchy. The EA has a choice: return to the chaos upstairs and wait for the £5 flat white to become a dry-cleaning disaster in full view of the mahogany, or wait for the plastic visa that would allow him to return to normal society—where the rain drizzles at a slight angle and your meter reading makes no sense.

Visiting these artisanal bakery chains is supposed to be an escape from the stressful world of sitting in front of a 24-inch monitor. We are reminded the “hard work” is being done elsewhere—namely, by the member of staff in the fisherman’s beanie and heavy-duty dungarees. His appearance is that of someone who has just stepped off a North Sea trawler, while his demeanour is one of surgical precision, carefully removing the most deformed and smallest cinnamon bun for the next customer from the game of ‘Pick-Up-Cinnamon-Bun’ laid out before him. This combination of raw trawler energy and the hyper-focus of medical service intimidates all who enter the sacred space.

There is something deeply grounding about being less important than a loaf of Good Earth. It’s the only place in London where the ‘Customer is King’ mantra goes to die, replaced by the quiet, truth that the bread was here before you, and it will be here after you leave.

If Pret is a functioning democracy, Gail’s is a flour-dusted autocracy. And like every autocracy, it is governed by a set of unshakeable, top-down decrees that prioritise the regime over the citizenry. While the boardroom are trying to adjust their brand to be seen as less evil than the competition, here we find The Gail’s Manifesto:

* Grain over people.

* Remember every loaf, forget every face.

* The sourdough starter is older than you; respect it and its children.

* Treat sourdough with more tenderness than your own children.

* (If you don’t have any children: a spaniel or cat will suffice.)

* We wait for the bread to prove. The customer can wait this long or longer.

* The Barista is a protected species.

* Beware the laptop.

* (Unless it is a MacBook.)

* Work at the speed of patience for pastry.

* In here, a customer’s 9:00 AM meeting is meaningless.

We have heard the question many times: what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? The classic image of Batman vs. The Joker. But philosophers have long thought this to be a mere thought experiment. These philosophers have never drafted their latest theses in a Gail’s Bakery. The unstoppable energy of the hustle and grind that the city of London bows to in reverence is met with the immovable passive aggression of the staff hired to ensure this chain is a consistent experience on every street corner.

Our importance is irrelevant in light of the—and I don’t mind saying this—utterly fantastic carrot cake.

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For forty years, I have been a front-row spectator to the Great De-acceleration. What used to be a window into a vast world of intricate wonders has morphed into a “visual radiator”—a glowing rectangle we sit in front of to stay warm while the world ends. The pinnacle of human creativity has devolved, and nobody seems concerned. The global state of affairs and the chaos we are subjected to through this medium seem immune to the true problem that this global community is experiencing.

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I speak, of course, of the medium of film and television. The Great Pixelated Betrayal.

This may be Google’s fault. YouTube should not be considered as ‘quality programming.’ YouTube, a platform once reserved for blurry videos of cats falling off pianos, is now the primary medium for podcasts. I don’t know how the rest of you consume your “content,” but I’ve always viewed podcasts as a necessary medical intervention—a digital morphine drip to numb the sensory horror of the walk between a delayed Thameslink train and an overpriced sourdough bakery. Now, I am expected to watch two men in hoodies talk about their morning routines. I am expected to watch people talk about nothing rather than my step. This isn’t natural selection, it’s artificial selection in reverse. We’re actively choosing the inferior product. With ads.

1999 saw the peak of TV in Aaron Sorkin’s “The West Wing.” This can be summarised as ‘competent people walking fast in corridors.’ This should appeal to any Londoner; we are a people whose only shared religion is the brisk, aggressive pace of someone who is three minutes late for a meeting they have no desire to be in, but it is definitely more important than the child they have just obliviously knocked over.

Contrast that with our current era of “Peak Content.” We recently witnessed the release of Melania, a documentary that reportedly cost $75 million and features a scene of the former First Lady performing “Billie Jean” in the back of a car. It received a 7% critical rating. Seven percent. And one star from The Guardian. The production was so catastrophic that members of the crew reportedly lobbied to have their names removed from the credits, a level of professional shame usually reserved for people who work in unpaid internships for payday loan companies.

This follows the trail blazed by the Kim Kardashian divorce drama, that, in a review by The Guardian, on a scale of 1-5 stars, received zero. It implies that these shows didn’t just fail to entertain; they actively sucked the existing joy out of the atmosphere like a cultural black hole. The review for “Melania” went a step further. After the original piece was published, a correction was issued: the editors decided they had been far too generous and stripped away its lone, solitary star. These projects pass through writers, producers, and executives - entire committees of people with degrees and expensive spectacles - and they all looked at the finished product and said, “This is fine.”

The rich dialogue of Sorkin’s Jed, CJ, Toby and Josh has disintegrated into a woman crying that her entire life was on a “pocket-sized slate” that has fallen in the Thames. And nobody from the House of Lords has done anything about it. The Metropolitan Police do not care.

I am not suggesting we return to the era of harrowing documentaries. I hate documentaries. Why would I watch a ninety-minute exposé on the collapse of the bee population when I can just look out the window at a pigeon in a puddle?

I am suggesting something far simpler: we stop pretending that sitting in front of a screen is a cultural act. It is not. It is just light hitting our eyes until we fall asleep; our brains surrendering to the void. The algorithm has won not because it is smarter than us, but because we have collectively agreed that warmth—the comfort of the radiator—is worth more than the view from the window. And perhaps that is the real mathematical impossibility: that we knew better, and chose this anyway.

There are still the brave few who look out at this world and challenge the status quo, and this results in post-modern dark comedy dramas that, if anything, result in a frank discussion with your wife about why you shouldn’t be allowed to control the viewing schedule during our Christmas break. Those brave few. I tried to join them. I failed.

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But I remain confronted by the simple challenge; being asked if I want to “make the world a better place.”

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I find myself frequently trapped in a conversation I did not initiate—usually outside Moorgate’s new Elizabeth Line entrance, where my pathological inability to make eye contact is interpreted by clipboard-wielding activists as a silent plea for interaction. It is here, cornered by a youth who mistakes my social paralysis for consent, that I am asked the same question.

The question is terrifying. It is raining, and they seem entirely unaware that the weather has already disproved their premise.

To answer it requires a level of teleological optimism that I simply do not possess. We are told history is an upward curve, a linear ascent toward a “best life” powered by rhyming affirmations. We are instructed to “reach for the stars,” ignoring that the sun is a star actively attempting to incinerate the planet.

I watch people make stationary choices, and I feel a grim responsibility to intervene. Starting with my aversion to paper diaries, given that it is now 2026 and we are still slaughtering trees to record the fact that we have a dentist appointment in Croydon. If progress is a machine, it is currently making a very expensive grinding noise.

Arthur Dent famously said, “I’ve gone off the idea of progress. It’s overrated.” I am channelling the Arthur Dent in all of us—the man lying in the mud because he has realised that the “path of progress” is usually just a very large bulldozer headed for his front door. It is a position of principled, albeit damp, defiance against a movement that refuses to explain its destination.

We have built the Elizabeth Line—a multi-billion pound bypass through the crust of London—simply because the circular logic of progress dictates that “you’ve got to build bypasses.” It doesn’t matter where they go or whose house they remove; the machine requires the movement. We are building bypasses to reach the places we only visit because there is now a bypass to get there. It is a closed loop of logistical futility.

We have permitted Andrew Lloyd Webber to convince us that “Any Dream Will Do”—a fallacy that has eroded our standards to the point where we now tolerate feature-length movies of Mrs. Brown’s Boys. We are told we are “prodigies” for producing twenty songs that sound exactly the same, when in fact, we are just nailing our mediocrity to the door of The Palladium. Aren’t we, Andrew?

The audit is necessary because the data does not match the brochure. We were promised a crash of drums and a flash of light; we received a zero-star review of a Kardashian divorce. We were promised that hard work is a superpower, ignoring the reality that our ambitions are dictated entirely by the Historical Tombola of our birth. We mistake our luck for talent, forgetting that a dream of being a corporate lawyer is only possible if you aren’t currently trying to avoid the plague in a swamp.

In the coming weeks, I will be dismantling the various pillars of our collective delusion, exploring themes such as:

* The Physical: Why self-improvement is a futile exercise in bicep-curling a piece of rocket.

* The Cultural: How Darwinian evolution failed to account for the algorithm and the “Dish of the Day” pig that wants to be eaten.

* The Linguistic: Why “living your best life” is a mathematical redundancy.

* The Deterministic: Why ‘Hard Work’ is a luxury for those who won the Geographical Lottery.

* The Social: Why we trust three-word nursery rhymes more than science.

* The Ethical: Why “Any Dream Will Do” is a security risk.

I do not expect these audits to spark a revolution. I am a man who gets visibly flustered when a self-checkout machine asks if I’ve used my own bag; I am in no position to lead humanity out of the woods. We are all deeply disappointing, and everything we produce will inevitably fall short of even our own low expectations.

But cataloguing the decline is at least a hobby, and it might pass the time until the sun finally decides to finish us off. If the machine wants to keep grinding until the gears fail, I’m game. “We’ll see who rusts first.”

What follows are The Progress Audits.

When I usually walk into a shop, I see a queue and understand that that could be where I can join in for a while. The Brit in me has a great understanding of queues. There is a severe respect that I believe other nationalities don’t fully understand. Not the forced queue that you experience the moment you land in Orlando, that snakes all the way from the airport to Cinderella’s Castle at Disney World. There is a collective consciousness that you join when you are ready to submit. Of course, there is an equal respect expected from the retailer to enable the people to transition in and out of queue membership without the frustration level getting above a 6. (6 is a normal level of frustration for a Brit.)

Gail’s has created a special version of this that forms a queue that is the collective consciousness of beige and entitlement. If you fall into that Venn diagram, the convergence of the circles is the Gail’s Bakery queue.

It’s a special entity to observe. This privileged organism becomes an unimportant rendering of NPCs or movie extras. With no lines or independent thought. The GQ (Gail’s Queue) consider the food behind the glass simply as scenery, and will do the usual idle animations of checking their phones every 7 seconds or taking a selfie. Contrast that with the Cockapoos that have taken the role of a high school reunion of the most positive and most encouraging school leavers group you could ever imagine, no comparison, no strutting, all praise. And I have no choice but to imagine that as a possibility because there is no way to enter the Gail’s thanks to the blockade.

The blockade in question: The Fortnite fortifications of prams. The challenge is presented: “Can you spot which buggy doesn’t have the brake applied? No touching.”

Before the spell can be broken, one of the members of staff has to notice that there is a queue. It is critically important that baristas are treated with the respect they deserve, and Gail’s does at least achieve this by ensuring they know their responsibilities are behind the espresso machine and no further. They may notice that the queue is expanding like a slowly growing pile of flour from a ruptured pack. But they aren’t allowed to engage with the queue at all. The staff will eventually look up from their conversation with the fridge, but until then, the stasis is set.

“What can I get you?”

Utter confusion as the background extra suddenly becomes the protagonist. They don’t know who they are or where they are. They don’t have any idea what they came in for, and it is only at this moment, despite staring through the glass for a full 6 minutes, do they finally see the products available to them.

Now comes the careful dance between server and customer. The customer names an item, and the server will put it in a bag. They then ask, “Would you like anything else?” And the process is repeated ad infinitum. At some point, the loop is escaped, maybe a “yap” from a Pomeranian or a call from the bank that their loan is approved, so they can confidently purchase the items they’ve selected, and they’re asked if they want a coffee with all of their sourdough.

“Yes, please”

It has to be a combination of disparate elements that justify the barista’s next action.

“Name for the coffee?”

“I call it the … Extra dry dirty flat white… -uccino”

“No, what’s your name?”

In the first essay of this series, I mentioned the name-amnesia that strikes at the counter. But observing it from the back of the queue is a different experience entirely. Our protagonist—let’s call him Sebastian, because the universe has already decreed it—doesn’t just forget his name; he seems to undergo a total existential collapse at the sight of his own driving license.

He stares at the plastic card in his wallet as if it’s a relic from a lost civilisation. Car ownership? In Zone 2? The concept is as alien to him as a sourdough loaf that costs less than seventeen sterling. He isn’t just a customer anymore; he is a man trapped in a loop, unable to process his own identity.

This isn’t the life he thought he had, and tries to flee, but his exit is now a mess of interlocking wheels and blankets from the White Company. As he makes progress towards the door, a woman in a body-length puffer jacket asks him if he’s “done with the sugar”, and this causes a set reset, and he has to join the queue again.

I avoid the queue entirely by ordering via the app. But the staff didn’t know that was possible. We’ll do more on them another time.

What was served to us was proudly declared as “curly kale.” I have since been told that, similar to sprouts and cabbage, how it is prepared is crucial. For example, sprouts are great with bacon, because bacon. More often than not, the reason a food isn’t palatable is because the food itself is unpalatable, not because of preparation. If it doesn’t work on its own, you’re merely hiding the actual flavour with something else.

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My dear mother prepared curly kale for us once—which at the time was a cutting-edge foodstuff. You only hear of kale now because of celebrity nutritionists, but in the 90s? Nobody knew what it was. Trying to explain to classmates what kale was... well, it was as traumatic as eating the stuff.

In short, I couldn’t swallow it.

Unswallowable.

It wasn’t just me, and it wasn’t my mum’s cooking. It’s the ingredient itself. None of us could swallow it and have been safely inoculated from the obsession that has emerged in the last 5 years. Thankfully.

Thanks mum.

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The problem with Gail’s isn’t the price. There’s nothing surprising about a £6 croissant anymore. What it has naturally created through its presence and atmosphere throughout London is an expectation among both the clientele and the staff. Gail’s has, I expect, inadvertently recruited both in a peculiar collaboration that makes every visit a predictable source of writing material.

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* The queue

It is full of people who have absolutely no idea how a shop works.

They get to the front—after waiting ten minutes—and look at the pastries as if they’ve never seen flour before. “Oh, what’s that?” Bread. It’s bread. Ignore the labels; a San Francisco Sourdough is exactly the same as a Gluten-free Sourdough, a Good Earth, a Challah or a classic Gail’s. Just get it sliced and get out.

Oh dear. Now they want a coffee. And the way they express this is, “Can I have a coffee?” This is London, not a diner in Bakersville. You cannot ask for a coffee. The barista will not know how to do that. It has to be a dirty flat white, extra dry, with pea milk, served neat.

And they never know their own name. The barista asks, “Name for the cup?” and they freeze. They look at their ID. “I think it’s... Sebastian?” Of course, it’s Sebastian. We’re in Farringdon. Nobody with less than four syllables in their name would dare enter a Gail’s. Oh, great, now they’re asking how to spell it, and of course, this Sebastian is spelt with a silent and invisible Q as in rhubarb.

* The employees

Usually, when you walk into a Gail’s, the vibe is strictly “Art Gallery where you are the trespasser.” You ask for a ham & cheese croissant, and now they don’t know what’s happening as they look dumbfounded at baked goods they have apparently only just realised are part of the job.

You ask for a flat white, and the barista looks at you like you’ve just asked to borrow their toothbrush. That is the social contract: I pay £4.80 for a coffee, and in exchange, someone in a fisherman’s beanie judges my hairline. It keeps me humble. I am paying for the privilege of being an inconvenience.

But this morning? Total anarchy. I went to the counter, braced for the sigh, and she just looked me in the eye and said, “Hi there! What can I get you?”

My fight-or-flight kicked in immediately. I didn’t know what to do with the lack of hostility. I panicked. I started apologising. “I’m so sorry for bothering you with my commerce. I can leave?”

It was the first time I’ve left a bakery without feeling like I needed to go to confession for buying a croissant. I probably won’t go back.

I got brave once. Stole a toy figure of Buck Rogers (the green Bugs Bunny). I think about the moment of my Mum finding it. After a brief lie that I’d been given it by an imaginary friend, I bottled it. Left the thing in a hedge on the way to school. It turns out my moral compass wasn’t calibrated for justice; it was calibrated to avoid a slightly uncomfortable chat.

Of course, I got caught eventually. Two blokes in plain clothes bundled me into their car – a Fiat Cinquecento, of all things. I genuinely wasn’t sure if I was being arrested or just given a lift by someone’s dad. The whole thing was so underwhelming, I could’ve been kidnapped and nobody would’ve believed me. Nearly wrote ‘noticed’ then realised that would reveal more about my self-perspective that I’d care to admit.

I wasn’t. Kidnapped. Here I am, still around. Still addicted to Citrus Polos. The struggle is real.

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“Fishing is awful,” I thought. I experienced it once when a German exchange student wanted to practice his hobby at a local Dyke one weekend. We collected some of the equipment and went to one of the riverbanks. My memory is hazy beyond the moment when he threw (is that the right term) one end of the line into the water, and it got caught on something, I think, so it snapped. He then tried to fix it by tying the connected line with the snapped bit and the hook together. When he cast out again, the hook just flew clean off, and that was our 20 minutes by the water. We went home, and I thought about getting a fishing rod for two whole days.

Apparently, it’s called ‘fly fishing’. Surely it’s ‘fish fishing’.

Though the practice of fly fishing includes the art of fly tying. Not quite sure what that is, but when a friend (Gary) suggested we go ‘Fly Tipping’, I just assumed it was another part of the outdoor pursuit. Like a microscopic version of ‘cow tipping.’

Cow tipping is, let’s be honest, bovine harassment for people who find the effects of gravity, entertainment. Fly Tipping sounds like this, but performed by Ninjas. I grabbed tweezers from the cupboard and a leftover pack of cocktail sticks.

This is one hard task. I have seen my cat successfully catch flies on a few occasions, which shows that this is not something that can be done with ease. It takes four nimble limbs to isolate and trap them in a corner. Flanking a creature with compound eyes is not something that can be achieved by a human.

Wanting to improve my form in the outside world, Gary suggested a lay-by on the outskirts of London off the North Circular. He said it was the perfect spot for practising the craft, away from prying eyes and with plenty of space. I agreed without asking too many questions.

When I arrived, Gary was there. But he wasn’t dressed for what I assumed was an ancient martial arts ritual. He had the France ‘98 T-shirt on that he had promised he’d thrown out to Sandra, but had turned out to have been stuffed down the back of the sofa. The very sofa section that had clearly lost the custody battle that morning. He’d lugged this thing in his Fiat Multipla and invited me to watch the council-sponsored ceremony where ‘tipping’ wasn’t finding the ultimate tilting angle for an object to gain its own momentum.

Stunned by the stark reality of fly tipping, and the severe lack of finesse required to consider it a ‘practice’, I did what any Londoner does when reality dawns: I extracted my wallet so I could pay for it to go away.

Gary, grateful and confused, took my £20 note. I walked away, cursing myself that I’d probably over-tipped.

I guess I’ll give up the whole tipping concept and take my neighbour’s new course in raising money for a new garden. He calls it a “Beginners’ Guide to Hedge Funds.” That should be much less criminal/stressful.

I went to see the new Superman film at a cinema in California during a work trip one evening. This isn’t meant to sound like a humble brag. When I’m on a work trip, I’m working. But when I’m stuck in a hotel room staring blankly out the window at air conditioning units, I think being out in a dark room somewhere else—where the floors are slightly less sticky—is a reasonable thing to do. I chose to see it in the US because I didn’t want to contribute to the global box office numbers the UK might be tracking.

Walking out of the movie, it was clear. Between this film and his other DC film, Suicide Squad—which I nearly walked out of after 40 minutes and later regretted not leaving—I was subjected to a heavy-handed monster in a failed attempt at studio self-awareness that was simply poorly executed. The only successful character was Peacemaker. The rest of the productions were essentially rejected ideas from Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy films crammed into every available moment, and when things couldn’t be explained, a pocket universe was invented to fill the gaps.

The world-splitting finale in Superman was, I hope, a direct result of Gunn realising that subsequent films couldn’t handle this kind of treatment, and that things would improve now that he’d purged all this absurdity from his system. Unfortunately for us, by the time Peacemaker made the TV debut, Gunn had decided season 2 was going to be the same experience as every other idea; parallel, half-baked, two-dimensional universes that show what Marvel have escaped.

Since James Gunn took over DCEU leadership, these productions have moved in the opposite direction from James Bond. Where Bond featured lighthearted moments and matching villain names, evolving into Daniel Craig’s 3-hour epics that seemingly ended 007, we’re left with Reeves’ Superman as the remaining standard—one that only Cavill could have salvaged given the ongoing battle with audience expectations. Those films were undermined by Zack Snyder’s inability to conclude a story without making world destruction the only thing he thought audiences wanted to see stopped.

But if Superman wasn’t enough evidence of Gunn’s tone-deaf direction, his handling of Batman proves it’s not a one-off failure. Robert Pattinson did a decent job reintroducing the character after Ben Affleck’s ego trip. He’d earned at least another outing. Yet Gunn, having put his name front and centre by insisting on writing all the scripts, apparently lacked the humility to let The Batman continue. Instead, reporting suggests Pattinson won’t get a second chance—Gunn found some old post-its containing rejected ideas from his Marvel days gathering dust and decided Pattinson had the wrong haircut anyway.

The pattern is unmistakable. Where Reeves (not Christopher or Rachel, Matt) understood that Batman needed continuity and restraint, Gunn sees only an opportunity to impose his own vision, consequences be damned. It’s the same heavy-handed approach that sank Suicide Squad and Superman, just applied to a character who’d finally found solid ground.

Between Snyder’s predictable escalation and Gunn’s relentless refusal to edit himself, I don’t think we’ll get a good Superman reboot until Dean Cain repents.

The winner of the original game is designated ‘Gatekeeper’ and now holds the “special responsibility” of not allowing their conduct to impair genuine, undistorted competition. They built a monopoly; now they must divest it. This is enforced through ‘Divestiture Zones’. If a player lands here, the rules state they must ‘unscramble the eggs’ by selling a stand-alone business unit to a rival to restore market structure. The runner-up is assigned the ‘Monitoring Trustee’ token, which requires a salary payment every turn from the Gatekeeper’s assets and follows them around the board like a Facebook troll. Other tokens include the Whistleblower, who moves backwards around the board, and the Forensic Accountant, who is the only player allowed to enter the ‘Offshore’ zones to retrieve hidden cash.

When you pass GO, you must submit your compliance report. If the Gatekeeper tries to buy a new property, it is classified as a ‘Killer Acquisition.’ They must prove they intend to actually develop the site rather than just boarding it up to keep rent prices high. Since they cannot prove this, the asset is frozen. The only player holding any liquidity is the Gatekeeper, effectively stalling the economy. To restart the flow of capital, they must pay 10% of the annual turnover to the bank under the “Abuse of Dominance” ruling. If funds are required, assets must be sold at a fair and reasonable (competitive and financially viable) price. If no player agrees to the price, the asset is liquidated at the Gatekeeper’s expense.

Rather than ‘Chance’ and ‘Community Chest’, there is a “Discovery” deck, where you either produce documents or pay the equivalent legal fees. Other possible cards include Fixed Penalty Notices and broken social contract scenarios. ‘Free Parking’ is now ‘The Cayman Islands.’ Any cash placed here is technically yours, but you cannot use it to pay fines or buy bread because it is locked in a complex trust structure. You sit there, rich but functionally insolvent. Old Kent Road has been gentrified to within an inch of its charming former existence. Rent starts at £400, or you can try to purchase an artisanal sourdough loaf instead. Mayfair is inaccessible, thanks to being rezoned as an Offshore Holding Company requiring Non-Dom status.

If a player rolls a double, they can take another turn – known as an aggressive expansion. If they roll three doubles, this is known as “Market Foreclosure” and they go to jail. Jail is a Discovery Order. It requires the player to untangle the “Spaghetti Structure” of shell companies they created in the first game. The game pauses not because of red tape, but because nobody can figure out who actually owns the Water Works. Considering there is not enough cash to pay the bank, everyone is bankrupted in solidarity and we reach Total Market Dissolution.

We set up Settlers of Catan. As the board fills with little wooden roads and settlements, the atmosphere shifts from predatory to productive. We remember what a market is actually for: I have too much wood, you have too much wool, and we swap. It is a simple, agrarian exchange based on mutual need rather than coercive extraction.

As we roll the dice for sheep, the mood lifts. The “Regulatory Aftermath” was a necessary slog, but it served a purpose. It revealed that the dopamine hit of bankrupting your family is short-lived, while the structural damage takes years to unwind. We had confused accumulation with success. My brother would say he was “good at it” while others would argue, “that doesn’t make it ‘fun’.” The board is now clear, the assets liquidated. We are no longer Gatekeepers or Trustees, just a family trying to trade wheat for ore, agreeing implicitly that it is much more sustainable to build a village than to own a city.

Anyway, holiday’s over. Back to work everyone.