EXCUSES AND HALF TRUTHS

Well, it’s not like we weren’t warned.

As our life slides to a gently liquifiying halt thanks to the red temperature alert (including conferences both pro- and anti-net zero, because the sun doesn’t care about your petty human concerns), let’s find some amusement and pleasure in our newly-found status as a Mediterranean country. I’m advocating for siestas, amaro hour and a general shrug of the shoulders at the laughable idea of doing any work in the face of all this. When asked to drag your asses to your desks simply point at the pitiless blue sky and say ‘bof, c’est impossible.’ Them continental types had it right all along. We just weren’t built for these times.

We must adjust, adapt, reset but with a wary eye to the inevitable urge for humanity to exploit any emergency for the sake of money or clout. A lot of the safety and stay-cool advice out there is, unsurprisingly for ideas gleaned from the internet, tosh. Even the saintly Hannah Fry’s fluid dynamics lesson for dropping the temperature of the inside of your car down quickly doesn’t really work, I’m sorry to report. Yes, I was that numpty flapping his car door about in a car park on Tuesday.

The only advice that works is the obvious stuff—stay hydrated and out of the sun. In other words, be more goth. Draw the curtains, crank up The Cure or The Lost Boys and dream of Halloween. You know it makes sense.

Thoughts and prayers for those of you who don’t have a choice and have to work in this heat. You are the heroes we don’t deserve. Have a drink on me.

Also—it’s forecast to be rainy and damp on Sunday, apparently. That’ll bring the climate change deniers back out of their caves. At least until the next red alert.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.

Continue reading The Swipe Volume 4 Chapter 23

World Cup 2026 is a go! The world gathers in celebration of its greatest sport, nation joining with nation in a spirit of unity, community and mutual understanding. You know, of course, that your Soaraway Swipe is the place for all the goss, chat and hot takes around our national obsession and hahahahahaha who am I kidding?

I will not yuk on another person’s yum, but holy craparoni this stuff gets tiresome. It’s not as if we’re short on footbollocks for the rest of the year without it taking over the TV schedules and practically every aspect of our lives for the fallow six weeks when you’d like to hope for a bit of peace and quiet from the constant tribal honkathon.

No chance. The pubs will be unbearable. The telly will be unwatchable. Is it coincidence that C and I are abandoning ship for a bit and retreating to a shepherd’s hut in a field next week? No, Readership, it is not. I urge you, if you find the balls as interminable and dull as we do, to find your own moment of calm away from it all. I’m sure the Tour de France is on somewhere. Let’s not talk about Wimbledon, that’s a whole other circle of hell.

Gods, I miss the Olympics.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.

Continue reading The Swipe Volume 4 Chapter 22

New glasses this week, following a big change in prescription and a catastrophic fail of the old frames—one of the hinges simply gave up and fell apart, an example of fatigue I can only empathise with.

Sticker shock unfortunately comes with the territory for me at the opticians—I have astigmatism, need varifocals and anti-glare coatings on the lenses, all of which add up quickly. I have to view it all as an essential purchase I simply have to suck up. The financial bite still rankles, but then I am now seeing more clearly than I have in—well, years, frankly. Is that necessarily a good thing, or was I better off living blissfully in a hazy blur? We’ll see, if you’ll excuse the pun.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.

Continue reading The Swipe Volume 4 Chapter 21

I was deeply amused by the Enhanced Games last week, an event which served as a crazed mirror image of modern athletics competition. It was put together to prove a point—that allowing athletes the full range of advantages in chemistry and equipment would herald a new frontier in sport.

For those of us expecting a Judge Dredd Lunar Olympics-style spectacle, the results were massively underwhelming. One world record was broken, barely. Most amusingly, the three athletes who chose to complete clean won their events, causing a mad scramble to check their body chemistry and ensure they were telling the truth—something of a reverse ferret from the usual testing regime. Ultimately, the organisers of the event managed to generate a conclusion directly inverse to the one they’d hoped to demonstrate.

A sidebar–it’s interesting to note that one medallist in the pool won by using a banned  ‘supersuit’. The guy who so convincingly won the London Marathon earlier this year did so wearing shoes with experimental sole construction. Perhaps it’s tech, rather than chemistry, that the authorities should be worried about.

The Advantage Is Unclear

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.

Continue reading The Swipe Volume 4 Chapter 20

Busy weekend ahead, so I’ll keep intros brief. Hope your longer break contains more than the usual amount of joy and delight.

This week: two songs which define me, an excellent last meal and more than you ever wanted to know about fanfic.

Avanti!

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.

Continue reading The Swipe Volume 4 Chapter 19

International members of the Readership may have noticed their British friends complaining with more than usual intensity about the weather this week—in particular how following a lovely warm spell temperatures have plummeted and rainstorms swept the country in a most unseasonable manner.

Turns out, a cold snap in the second week of May is entirely predictable. People have griped about it for hundreds of years. No-one quite knows why it happens, and it seems to catch us by surprise every single time. Traditionally, though, this has been the week of The Ice Saints. Flag it in your calendar for next year, particularly if you’re a gardener with tender seedlings ready to go out. Maybe give it another week.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.

Continue reading The Swipe Volume 4 Chapter 18

We have a bee’s nest in the garden. It looks like we had one hidden in the base of an old raised bed that a badger or fox discovered and dug out (badgers looooove bee larvae). An emergency evacuation took place. The ball of bee potential (presumably with the queen snug in the middle) was moved out wholesale and relocated to a sheltered corner between the back of the house and the fence. The new colony is busy rebuilding, weaving a new structure out of vegetable matter. It’s fascinating to watch.

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If undisturbed, white-tailed bumblebees are completely harmless and will move on by the end of the summer. We’ve moved some pots around to give them a bit more privacy—although it’s impossible to resist a peek in the mornings. We’re delighted and honoured they chose to share our garden. Hello, little frens.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.

Continue reading The Swipe Volume 4 Chapter 17

I learned an important lesson this week about anger.

Just before I was heading into work one morning, I spotted a message on internal comms which unfairly accused me of a mistake I hadn’t made. This filled me with rage. As I drove in, I built up a narrative of what had been said and how I should respond. On the approach to our facility, the car suddenly pinged up a low fuel warning, and I realised I had planned to take a slight detour to be able to fill up at the cheapest place in town (no secrets here, it’s Costco). I’d completely bypassed that, so had to refuel on a much more expensive forecourt.

In this case, then, anger had a genuine real world monetary cost, apart from the added stress and general bad mood. As I watched the gauge on the fuel pump tick up, I knew I had been taught something valuable, and I couldn’t help but smile.

The work thing? Turned out to be no big deal at all.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.

Continue reading The Swipe Volume 4 Chapter 16

It’s become clear to me as I slip towards The Big Birthday that nothing is more important than the pursuit and discovery of joy. Even in the simplest of moments, I find myself aware of how every moment holds the capability to bring a tiny glimmer of wonder.

With that intention at the forefront of my mind, joy seems to present itself more easily. Like when you’re buying a car and suddenly you see the make and model you want on every turning. Finding joy can easily be like that. Seeing the way sunlight kindles the inner glow of a flower. The scent of woodsmoke or charcoal when you light a barbecue. Even the tapping of a keyboard on a bright April morning, with the sun just above my eye line.

Yeah, I know, all a bit woo, but I never said I didn’t have hippie tendencies.

Yesterday brought us to Oxford, to a joyous union with friends old and new, under dreaming spires and a flawless blue sky. It was a moment which could have been tinged with sadness, but instead was an utterly beautiful day. A celebration, an affirmation of life’s endless capacity for delight.

This chapter of The Swipe is dedicated to Kate and Bryan. Onwards and upwards, my darlings. Joy awaits.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you find joy, welcome to The Swipe.

Continue reading The Swipe Volume 4 Chapter 15