Reasons To Be Cheerful, 2020 pt #2

23Dec20

For reference if you’ve come to #11 – #20 before #01 – #10.

#11 The picture above detailing some spirographic automotive fun on the top deck of one of the multi-storey car parks at the Bluewater Shopping Centre (as noticed by @Commonor_Garden). Obviously I don’t approve of such behaviour but it does make for an oddly interesting take on a largely dull location.

#12 This fascinating story of the many treasures found at Oxborough Hall in the remnants of “two massive and ancient rat’s nests”, unearthed while it undergoes a £6,000,000 restoration and repair programme. I should I suppose be most excited by the sixteenth century book found beneath a piece of wall-plate, however it’s the handsomely preserved empty Terry’s Gold Leaf Chocolate Assortment box that initially drew me in.

#13 Radio Lento, “A podcast service that provides places to escape to.” through immersive field recordings. 

#14 Marcus Rashford.

#15 The Tripping Forecast by L_o_n_g_w_a_v_e (which is “mostly Rob Manuel – with thanks to David Ault & Chris Barker”): “It’s 1989 and you’ve taken a pill in a club; it gets too much and you wander into the chill out room and the DJ is playing a super mellow set of Radio 4 classics – This was mixed to play quietly in bed, to do the washing up to or maybe some light tidying.”

#16 The BBC have left all three series of Detectorists available to view over on the iPlayer – which quite frankly has done more for my wellbeing than anything the government has managed in the last twelve months – however it’s Landscapes of Detectorists I’m highlighting here, a book that considers “the programme’s engagement with landscape, its ecological resonances, and its attention to place and identity”. I don’t think there are many sitcoms (no idea whether that’s the right category to place the programme in) that have inspired such thoughtful writing, but I suppose it’s perhaps no surprise that if any of them were going to it would be Detectorists that did.

#17 Tweet of the day. It’s pleasing to note that the best programme on Radio 4 is also the shortest, coming in at under two minutes each morning (before things take a turn for the (much) worse with the Today programme). This episode presented by Samuel West (yes him again) on the eider duck was a particularly fine example of it.

#18 The govbins.uk Instagram account, which I was proud to contribute to earlier this year.

#19 Being woken at 1.30am one morning in June by what we thought was a car alarm, but on further investigation was the barking of a muntjac deer. I stood outside in the road, in the warm morning air, listening as he/she slowly disappeared into the distance.

#20 Paul McCartney talking about Homes under the Hammer on The Adam Buxton Podcast.

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Tags: Bluewater Shopping Centre, Chris Barker, David Ault, Detectorists, govbins.uk, Homes under the Hammer, Landscapes of Detectorists, L_o_n_g_w_a_v_e, Marcus Rashford, Oxborough Hall, Paul McCartney, Radio Lento, Rob Manuel, Samuel West, Terry's Gold Leaf Chocolate Assortment, The Adam Buxton Podcast, The Tripping Forecast, Tweet Of The Day