2024 has receded far into the rear-view mirror and we’re ploughing full steam ahead with 2025 and it’s only the 11th of January! There’s something about the first week back after Christmas that always hits as something of a shock and lots of things that hit pause in December all un-pause at the same time. The pace change can be quite something.
In other news, I’ve been continuing to teach my self snowboarding and have reached a milestone in being able to link my turns (on beginner slopes at least) and I feel inordinately pleased with myself. The key was learning how to squash the bug, open the door and commit to the turn. Everything has its own lingo, metaphors, jargon. Reminds me to watch mine at church.
If you’re interested in these sorts of things you can see my movie diet (a lot of superhero movies it seems) and my reading diet for 2024. Maybe less of one would translate into more of the other.
You Should Read These
- Dawkins’s Gender Dilemma by Carl Trueman
- One Cheer for Christian Civilization? As something of a fan of Paul Kingsnorth I was interested to read this response by Trevin Wax. Pair it with Trevin’s related article: Is Eastern Orthodoxy the Next Big Thing for Young Men?
- Is The Sea of Faith Coming Back In? Or is it a Spiritual Tsunami? Stephen McAlpine hits a related theme here on the search for transcendence.
- Jesus and the Wasgij on seeing Christ in the Old Testament
- Sweden’s Christmas tree piles
- Massive Space Debris Crash-Lands in Kenyan Village. That would shock your walk to work!
- 2025 Taxidermy Fails Calendar. If at first you don’t succeed…? HT: Mark Meynell
You Should Look At This
These are incredible. Drawings! Seriously, drawings!!! HT: Kottke
You Should Listen To This
Meditative beauty for the start of the year
You Should Watch This
A wonderful behind the scenes look at the making of the latest Wallace & Gromit film
This Week’s Postings
I’ve kept writing!
From The Archives
Did you know that there is an Emoji Sub-committee? There is an organisation that (Unicode) which is responsible for approving all new emojis and makes sure the symbols are compatible across platforms. So that what you send on your Android phone is the same as what your friend sees on their iPhone.
So there is a sub-committee. Naturally. And these little symbols and images, billions of which are sent each day, are more important than you think. They are little culture setters, each telling a little story. They might be gender-neutral but they’re not value-neutral. But creating gender-neutral emojis is easier said than done. They kept coming up against a significant problem. Hair.
I hope you enjoy your weekend. Do let me know if there’s something here you appreciated or if you see something you think would be worth sharing, let me know!
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