I’ve long admired Annie Ernaux’s writing for its relentless honesty—her refusal to flinch from the rawest corners of human experience. That fearless openness drew me to The Use of Photography, co-authored with journalist Marc Marie and translated by Alison L. Strayer. It’s a brief, piercing book, documenting an unlikely intersection in the early 2000s of two intense experiences: Ernaux’s chemotherapy for breast cancer and a passionate affair with Marie.

The book’s central device is strikingly intimate: photographs depicting the aftermath of their encounters, typically showing clothes discarded around their apartment or other settings. Each photograph is paired with independent reflections from both authors, exploring the memories and emotions these snapshots evoke.

Ernaux and Marie beautifully intertwine two contrasting experiences: the deeply challenging reality of cancer treatment, usually viewed as purely negative, and the exhilaration of their affair, typically seen as positive. The intermingling of these experiences felt profoundly true to life—highlighting the complexity of our emotional landscape, where joy and sorrow coexist in constant interplay.

As ever, Ernaux’s writing is exceptional. Her prose remains reflective, vivid, and emotionally honest, making the book not just insightful but deeply moving. The narrative flows effortlessly—I found myself eagerly turning the pages, absorbed by the nuanced interplay of reflection and vulnerability.

I found this both compelling and poignant—an exceptional exploration of intimacy, memory, and life’s contradictory beauty.

I recently overheard two younger people talking on the bus. One said to the other:

I really struggle to use it: I don’t know how to use circle time.

At first, I assumed they meant some strange new productivity technique, or perhaps a revival of the classroom ritual where children sit cross-legged in a circle to share their feelings. But for some reason, my mind jumped to the Spirograph. I was simultaneously intrigued by this modern rebrand as Circle Time and not a little perplexed that teenagers would be discussing it with such gusto.

Weeks later, I read some idiotic commentary about smartwatches. Seeing the phrase mentioned again, I had an epiphany: ‘circle time’ was a baffled teenager’s term for reading an analogue clock—a face with hands, if you will. A concept once so basic it was used to teach toddlers, now esoteric enough to require translation.

And I realised: perhaps I’m not moving with the times. I spend a large proportion of my life at a desk with a tiny digital clock in the corner of several screens… and yet, I also have a little analogue clock sitting on my desk. If a meeting is approaching, I find it much easier to intuit whether I have the time to complete a task beforehand with a glance at an analogue clock than at one of the many digital ones. I’m from a different century.

As I wander around these days, my eye is often caught by civic clocks—at least half the time, they’re showing the wrong time. When society at large has given up on proper clocks, can we really blame individuals for no longer understanding them?

Perhaps it’s not just that we’re losing the ability to tell time, but that we no longer expect time to be told to us. It’s become something we interrogate individually, pixel by pixel, rather than something shared. The clock tower becomes ornamental. The watch, decorative. Time dissolves into digits.

Accurate, but only twice a day.

But there is one bright side in all of this: the aphorism ‘he has more faces than the town clock’ makes a whole lot more sense when those faces are saying different things.

You win some, you lose some.

The photos in this post are all my own.

This recently-published novella seemed to arrive with little fanfare, which is odd given that André Aciman has become something of a byword for wistful longing. I only came across it by chance, in a newspaper review, and couldn’t find a copy in any of my local bookshops. As often happens with favourite authors, I approached it with a touch of trepidation: I’ve enjoyed several of Aciman’s previous books, and there’s always the risk that a new one will be a pale retread of earlier triumphs. Happily, Room on the Sea stands proudly in its own right.

The novel follows two professionals approaching retirement, summoned for jury duty, and the unexpected relationship that develops between them. It’s set in New York, but it felt like a Neapolitan novel to me. Naples features in several evocative descriptions and discussions, and the emotional tone—sun-drenched, slightly chaotic, soaked in feeling—seemed more Italian than American. This is something I enjoy: there’s a particular warmth to novels with an Italian sensibility, and Aciman leans into that here. It’s a short book, with just 158 large-typed pages, but one which transported me completely.

The central characters are older than in many of Aciman’s previous novels. That change in perspective gives the book a slightly different quality: still emotional, still romantic, but with a more nuanced and complex edge. This is not a tale of the aching intensity of teenage love; rather, it’s about the unsettling, joyful thunderclap of connection that can strike even in a settled, middle-aged life. There’s something especially affecting about that.

The narrative spans just five days and focuses on the relationship between two fully realised characters, rounded out by the lives we glimpse beyond the page. Aciman draws a world that feels vast despite the narrowness of the story’s window. The effect is a little like listening at a door: we can only hear fragments, but the richness of what lies beyond is palpable.

There is, as you might expect, a good deal of wistful longing and bittersweet reflection—Aciman’s stock in trade—but it never feels overwrought. In fact, there’s a quiet joy at the heart of this novel: a sense that love, even when complicated or fleeting, can still be life-affirming. The open-endedness of the conclusion struck exactly the right tone. We don’t know precisely what happens next, but we’ve understood enough to feel its emotional truth.

I thought this was as good as anything Aciman has written. It’s short enough to read in a sitting and resonant enough to linger for much longer. Even if it’s not quite your thing, it won’t detain you long—but for me, it packed a slightly melancholic, slightly joyful, and more than slightly reflective punch.

I’m writing this while sitting in an airport lounge, awaiting a flight currently estimated to arrive one hour and twelve minutes late.

Flighty tells me that, over the last sixty days, this flight has arrived early 84% of the time, and within fifteen minutes of schedule 14% of the time. That’s a 98% ‘success’ rate—and yet here I am, still on the ground.

The last time I took this flight—same number, same route—I was also delayed. I’ve taken it seven times in eight years, once even on the same ‘metal’ I’m catching tonight. Three of those trips were more than fifteen minutes late.

This seems… improbable. Wendy and I have a long-standing theory that we have terrible travel luck. My record on this route seems to support that. But is it really a curse—or just confirmation bias?

Looking wider: of my last 150 flights, 66 were delayed by over 15 minutes. That’s 44%. RyanAir tops my personal leaderboard of shame: 75% of their flights have been late for me, with an average delay of an hour and nineteen minutes. British Airways and KLM share second place, both clocking in at a 45% delay rate.

And that really is extraordinary. Across Europe, roughly 80% of flights arrive on time; some airlines manage 90% or more. RyanAir, ironically, is often cited among the punctual. My personal stats are double the industry average.

So, what’s going on?

One theory: I disproportionately fly in the evenings, when aircraft have had all day to accrue delays. That’s certainly true today—my plane started its morning late out of Schiphol, and it’s been playing catch-up ever since.

The obvious solution is to fly earlier. Except… no one wants to be at the airport at 5am unless they’re being hunted. And besides, this particular flight is always at roughly the same time—and yet I’ve managed to take a 98% reliable service and turn it into a coin toss.

Perhaps I am cursed after all.

The image at the top of this post was generated by DALL·E 3, as you may be able to guess from the weirdly misshapen plane in the background.

Can a building make you happy—or quietly chip away at your mental health?

That question caught me off guard when I picked up Alain de Botton’s The Architecture of Happiness from the library. I’d recently read On Confidence, from his School of Life organisation, and was reminded how much I’ve enjoyed his previous work. This volume caught my eye—partly through familiarity, partly through curiosity. Could architecture really shape our emotional lives?

De Botton argues that the physical environment—buildings, homes, public spaces—does far more to shape our mood than we typically acknowledge. This isn’t a book about design tips or architectural history; it’s a gentle, probing exploration of how our surroundings reflect and influence who we are.

It made me reconsider how Wendy and I make decisions about our home. We tend to ask, ‘Does this look nice?’—not, ‘Will this make us feel more at peace here?’ We’ve recently used a lot of Mizzle, and even at their most florid, Farrow & Ball’s copywriters don’t mention an impact on mood. But perhaps they should. If de Botton is right—and he makes a compelling case—then colour, shape, texture, and proportion aren’t just aesthetic flourishes; they’re part of the emotional architecture of our lives.

I was particularly struck by his critique of brutalism. It’s a style I’ve long admired—solid, unapologetic, defiantly ugly in a way I find rather beautiful. But this book unsettled that affection. Would I really want to live with exposed concrete walls? Could I stand that level of severity every day?

There’s a difference, I realised, between architectural admiration and emotional sustenance. Striking buildings might please the eye or stimulate the mind—but they don’t always nourish the soul. De Botton argues that beauty isn’t always bold or dramatic. Sometimes it’s quiet, human, and oddly hard to describe until you step into a space that just feels right.

That was the shift for me. I’d thought of architecture as something to look at, or photograph, or analyse—like sculpture on a civic scale. But The Architecture of Happiness reframes it as something intimate and daily: the backdrop to our moods, our habits, our lives.

It’s a gentle, intelligent, and quietly radical book. I’d recommend it to anyone curious about how the spaces we inhabit end up shaping us in return.

The algorithms of streaming music services are funny old things, especially when—like me—your musical tastes have a lot in common with a puddle: broad but shallow.

On Saturday, as I was digesting the English local election results, two tunes cropped up.

Akala’s Find No Enemy from—incredibly—fourteen years ago. So much feels like it could have been written last week, which doesn’t feel like progress.

And, erm, well, this—which resonated differently, but no less effectively.

I picked up Hunchback out of curiosity—it’s a hugely successful Japanese novel by disabled author Saou Ichikawa, translated by Polly Barton—and it turned out to be unlike anything I’ve read before.

The story revolves around a profoundly disabled protagonist residing in a care home, whose primary outlet for self-expression is writing and publishing erotic fiction. Over the course of this short, engaging novel, the central character begins exploring sexual fantasies with a care worker, a premise that immediately raises complex ethical and philosophical questions.

Ichikawa handles these sensitive themes deftly and with nuance, inviting reflection on the nature and philosophy of sexual desire, the boundaries of consent, and the societal norms that shape our perceptions of sexuality, especially within the context of disability. What’s particularly striking about the book is its ability to balance depth with humour—there’s an undeniable comedic undertone throughout, which enriches rather than detracts from its exploration of challenging topics.

Despite its brevity—I read it in a single sitting—the book left me with plenty of food for thought, and I’ve continued contemplating its themes since finishing it. This is a refreshingly original novel, one I’d wholeheartedly recommend for its thoughtful yet human exploration of rarely addressed topics.

A year ago, I wrote a post about the cost of the cheapest 500g bag of plain white flour at supermarkets near me. If that’s not top-drawer blogging, I don’t know what is.

With perhaps en even greater sense of scintillation, here’s an update:

Well, I wasn’t expecting that. The flour-based economy remains resilient.

The photo is ‘top view of baking background with flour and cooking supplies’ by Marco Verch licensed under Creative Commons 2.0.

Having recently enjoyed On Confidence, I decided to delve deeper into the writing from The School of Life, and this charming little volume immediately caught my eye. Physically, it’s delightful: slim, cloth-bound, beautifully designed, and thoroughly pleasing to handle and read.

The book comprises a series of short, reflective chapters, each addressing aspects of emotional maturity, personal development, and growth. Rather than adopting the didactic tone of self-help guides, the writing is thoughtful and gently philosophical. It’s less about prescriptive solutions and more about offering insightful reflections.

While I enjoyed reading this, I didn’t encounter many novel ideas. Instead, its strength lies in how clearly and engagingly familiar concepts are presented. It serves as a valuable reminder of the importance of emotional growth, mindfulness, and self-awareness.

One aspect of the book that gave me pause was its critical stance towards formal education—an inherent theme of the book, suggesting schools overlook essential life lessons. Though I appreciated the book’s viewpoint, I found myself partially disagreeing. Schools might not prepare individuals comprehensively for every emotional or practical challenge in life, but it’s unreasonable to expect they fully should. Personal development is, after all, a lifelong endeavour extending far beyond the classroom.

Overall, What They Forgot to Teach You at School is a thoughtful, attractively presented book that I’d readily recommend. It may not revolutionise your worldview, but it might remind you of valuable lessons worth revisiting.

I was reminded recently of a line from The West Wing:

Toby, the total tonnage of what I know that you don’t could stun a team of oxen in its tracks.

This is almost certainly true in the context of this blog, too. You, dear reader, know an awful lot of things that I don’t know.

When I wandered passively into the V&A’s exhibition on The Great Mughals, I couldn’t have told you the first thing about them. And, to be honest, the explanatory text mostly went above my head. It was only roughly half way through that they explained that one of the Mughals was behind the Taj Mahal, and that they used to be referred to in English as Mongols, that I began to get my bearings a little. Even so, it turned out to be one of those encounters with history that leaves me quietly uncertain about what I’ve taken from it.

The exhibition is beautiful. It’s hard not to admire the level of craftsmanship in the miniature paintings, the jewellery, the manuscripts. There’s a kind of serene intensity to the objects on display, each one a product of unimaginable labour, precision, and—often—wealth. The story of the Mughal Empire is told largely through the lens of splendour: the grandeur of architecture, the opulence of court life, the flourishing of art and science. It is all, in a word, impressive.

And yet, I found myself struggling to settle into the experience, and not just because of my disorientation. I moved through the exhibition more quickly than I’d intended, glancing rather than lingering, admiring rather than absorbing. I often find it difficult to look at exquisite objects created for emperors and princes without also thinking about the systems that made them possible. Who carved the emeralds? Who was pressed into the service of empire so that an emperor might commission a manuscript in gold leaf? These aren’t questions the exhibition ignores, exactly—but nor do they sit at the centre. The narrative is one of cultural flourishing, not of domination or inequality. That’s understandable, perhaps, but I came away feeling that the absence of discomfort had left me a little uncomfortable.

I don’t mean to sound overly cynical. I’ve ranted at length about the British Museum’s insistence on interpreting stolen artefacts from a British perspective, and literally plastering ‘British’ over display cases containing objects which are anything but. I didn’t feel that here: the focus on design dampened the potential for cultural insensitivity, somehow. The objects on display are extraordinary, and there is joy in seeing them up close.

Yet, I wonder if the framing of exhibitions like this one leans too heavily on admiration—at least for a visitor like me, prone to squinting at power structures. I’m left wondering whether I’ve simply failed to meet the exhibition on its own terms.

Still, I’m glad I went. There’s something quietly humanising in grappling with a past that doesn’t neatly align with contemporary instincts—especially one rendered in so much turquoise and lapis. Even if I didn’t quite connect, the effort of trying to felt worthwhile. And perhaps that’s enough for an afternoon.

The photo shows an image of the construction of the Agra fort from a manuscript illuminated in about 1590. I took it quite furtively, as I wasn’t completely sure whether photography was allowed. Nevertheless, the exhibition continues at the V&A until 5 May.