The first week of my sixtieth year on the planet did not go as planned. A stack of first world problems—car trouble, boiler issues, post-menopausal nausea (not me)—managed to swerve life at Swipe Towers properly off-axis. The cumulative effect of these little niggles kicked any hint of Christmas joy into the bin.
Yesterday, things began to improve. We now have hot water and warm radiators again. Our beautiful Harvette returns to us from car hospital on Monday, sporting two new doors and a festive glow up. We have been, as my pal Sensei Paul put it, in an upside-down place, unfamiliar and un-nerving. Now, our home is returning to normal. We are nearly at the point where we can look ahead and enjoy the run up to X-Day—
—ah crap, I’ve still got cards to write and presents to wrap.
Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.
Rob is reading…
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. An approachable primer to multiversal theory, wrapped in the long black coat of a propulsive thriller. Stylistically, it’s a little annoying—sorry, not a fan of single-sentence paragraphs—but as a story it’s machine-engineered for thrills to the micrometre. Sheer entertainment, but you’ll find you’ve learned a little bit as well.
Rob is watching…
The War Between The Land And The Sea. The disappointment at last season’s Doctor Who has been washed away by this smart, angry show. Russell Tovey and Gugu Mbatha-Raw ground and centre a story with global reach and urgent messages to send. I am completely behind a proper UNIT spin-off to the Whoniverse. A massive return to form. I couldn’t be happier.
Rob is listening…
To Tom Waits, of course. I love Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis, a story that grows, builds and twists to a bleak but somehow still hopeful ending. Bookmarking it with Silent Night? Yeah, that’s the salt in the season.
Rob is eating…
The Perfect Yorkie According To The Royal Society Of Chemistry.
Look, food is science. You can have your opinion, it changes nothing.
Rob’s Low-Key Obsession Of The Week…
Naturally, this warmly hilarious article had the honkers and blowhards squawking. Tough. Cry more, snowflakes. Sofie Jenkinson is bang-on here, totally nailing everything I love about this goofy, eccentric country. We’re better than the haters, and the easiest and most powerful way to beat them is simply point out how ridiculous they are and laugh at them.
An oral history of a show which somehow embedded itself into our collective consciousness, made a star out of a reputationally damaged nearly man, and reset a genre. These days, it’s little more than a punchline, but I cannot begin to emphasise what a big deal Magnum P.I. was back in the day. Get your tiki shirts on and follow me into the past.
I want to see a movie starring these three titans putting the world of SF to rights. I mean, we even have the script for the pre-credit sequence.
I’ve only comparatively recently become a regular driver, and the weird habits, behaviours and entitlements of my fellow road users never cease to boggle my pore ole brainmeats. How hard can it be to stick to a clearly posted urban speed limit, especially when the benefits in terms of safety are all too clear? It’s more tricky than you think, and the trouble starts up n the wrinkles of the aforementioned slab of jelly sitting there behind your eyes.
Tom Whitwell’s 52 Things for 2025 is out, which means X-Day really is just around the corner. Go on, dive in. Surprises and delights await.
A history of Drive-By Truckers, as preparation for their return to the stage and celebration of their finest recorded moment. I love this band, the solo work of both Patterson Hood and Jason Isbell, and could not be happier that they’re swinging back, in their usual slightly wobbly fashion, into the saddle.
Well-lubed And Swerving Altogether
In which the truth—ChatGPT is an amalgam of formal and informal writing styles from around the world, its output an unholy slumgullion of all those data-sets—comes around to bite the cursed device on its shiny metal ass. We need a corrective to the auto-correct. While we’re at it—I want my m-dash back, godsammit.
How a lesser character from Michael Mann’s magisterial Heat came not only to define the plot of the film, but serves as a sort of mascot to the brand of douchey, entitled behaviour we have all come to recognise and revile. We all know a Waingro, right?
Happy 250th birthday to Jane Austen. Tap on the embed and swipe (natch) for much more in the same vein. She studied in Reading, you know.
Dr Annie Grey presents her notion of an alternative to the usual Christmas table, alongside some other fine examples. It don’t gotta be turkey, kids. Not convinced on the food futurologists notion that we’ll all be darting air-protein picky bits for X-Day 2035, though. Forty minutes long, but totally absorbing.
One last thing, as is traditional at X-minus 5.
Let’s Outro with something we can all sing along with. Take it away, Rowley.
See you in seven for a post-celebratory shindig,.my loves. Be of peace, love and understanding, particularly to yourselves.
EXCUSES AND HALF TRUTHS 
That Royal Society of Chemistry Yorkie recipe is an absolute gamechanger. Totes foolproof, and when it comes to making Yorkies no-one has been a bigger fool than me.
Same. One of those supposedly simple things which I can never seem to get right.