Scrapbook: Week 1

December 30, 2023-January 5, 2024

SATURDAY 30 Artificial Intelligence (AI) has arrived with the same stamp of “inevitable” that came with the worldwide web all those years ago, so it’s something I’ve tried to rub along with, mainly by playing with it. I regularly get AI programs to conjure images and stories, not as finished pieces of creative content but as something I can apply my imagination to and use for myself. It’s fun, obviously, and I will keep at it while the ethical debates and power struggles unfold within the world of AI, as inevitably they will, says the Guardian, in a useful essay giving the subject a bigger context than I can.

📌 An Indian government food inspector dropped his Samsung into a reservoir while taking a selfie, so he got his staff to empty it (the reservoir). They pumped out 2m litres of water so he could get the phone back. The BBC report adds that 2m litres is enough to irrigate 6km² of farmland.

📌 A day out to Las Galletas is always a treat, but this visit was special because I finally realised why our old (now deceased) Brighton friends Eric and Glen loved it so much, and why our current Brighton friends Sue and Lil likewise rate it highly. It is because Galletas has the feel of a slightly faded seaside town doing its best to make the most of itself. It also looks like real people live here and that the ocean (Atlantic) is a real one, with tidal muscles. At the local bus stop it also has a great view of Mount Teide, Tenerife’s famous active volcano.

SUNDAY 31 The last day of the year started poignantly with Kazuo Ishiguru’s Remains of the Day on the radio. The whole WHAT IF? resonance in the story is given a special tension in this adaptation, first broadcast by the BBC in 1990. Every moment of every exchange between Stevens and Miss Kenton is laced with it. Later in the day (evening), the sight of a lone fisherman on the rocks somehow told the story in another way.

📌 Out on the craggy beach the naturists made the most of its natural inaccessibility and bold walkers scrambled to find the best viewing spots. I found a pair of volcanic outcrops that looked like two ancient philosophers locked in an argument about the meaning of life.

📌 One recurring story in my Quora feed is about the footballer Cristiano Ronaldo. I like it so much that I prefer not to verify it in case it’s not true. Here it is… A journalist asks Cristiano Ronaldo: “Why does your mother still live with you? Why don’t you build her a house?” Ronaldo replies: “My mother raised me and she dedicated her life for me. She would go to sleep hungry, just to let me eat. We had no money at all. She worked seven days a week and nights as a maid to buy my first shoes so I could be a player. All my success is dedicated to her and because of her and as long as she has a life, she will always be by my side, she has everything I can give. She is my refuge and my greatest gift.” The story comes with a beautiful Getty Images photo of Cristiano and his mum at some awards ceremony.

📌 The Daily Mash is begging for subscription money, but you can register to get a regular dose of their witty headlines for free…

📌 I enjoyed it for the sound and the smell of the NY fireworks more than the actual display.

MONDAY 1 Earthquakes probably happen somewhere on every day of the year, but New Year’s Day always seems especially popular.

📌 I know some people get a big, buoyant sense of renewal on NYD  but I always find it one of the most miserable days of the year. I go to bed relieved that it is over and tomorrow will soon be here. Also, my reading glasses broke, which is a real bummer.

TUESDAY 2 And right on cue, to blow away the New Year funk comes a new rant on Substack from the New European‘s Mr Knocky Jonty Bloom. Did I use the word “new” enough in that last sentence?

📌 Speculation continues on the likelihood of a Middle East war breaking out in the Red Sea.

📌 The New Statesman has a valedictory piece on East Timor from 1990 by John Pilger, who has died age 84. I’d forgotten what an elegant writer Pilger could be, probably because years ago when I edited his copy for the Guardian’s Weekend magazine I found it badly overwritten and had several tortured telephone conversations with him, one in which he demanded with menaces to know how his 5,000-word masterpiece became 4,000. He ended up thanking me for my efforts.

📌 Darren’s New Year LondonArtRoundup is from Florida and features an awesome Day-glow sculpture called Miami Mountain.

📌 The Knowledge predicts that Keir Starmer will not win a landslide general-election victory. Starmer is, it says, “a man with the blank, startled gaze of a badger in the headlights”, a look, it says, not unlike previous Labour underperformers Neil Kinnock and Ed Miliband. Did they mean rabbit?

WEDNESDAY 3 The whole day has seemed like one long build-up to the Luke The Nuke appearance in the world darts final, with a brief pause to listen to Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart interview Angela Rayner on their The Rest Is Politics podcast and a couple of dopey Charles Paris radio dramas starring Bill Nighy. The Rayner interview was especially impactful, for Tory Rory also.

📌 My wife thinks my new holiday sunglasses (+3.50 magnification) make me look like a drugs smuggler.

📌 Sam’s drawing of two pork chops look strangely like two angry people shouting at one another.

THURSDAY 4 Jonty Bloom’s early-morning rant includes the miserable thought that for the next 40 years Liz Truss will annually turn up at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday. Because as a former prime minister she is entitled to. And she has no shame.

📌 The game of Spot The Celebrity Lookalike we always play on holiday day has so far only yielded two contenders: “Mick Hucknall” in a music bar called The Vault, and “Amy Winehouse” on a zebra crossing.

📌 The Knowledge reports on something called The Trilemma Of The Modern World, which states that…

Governments cannot have all three of democracy, national sovereignty and global economic integration. The more you integrate your economy into the world, the less sovereignty your citizens will enjoy; the less you integrate, the poorer your citizens will be. 

It then points out that Brexit has defined where Britain sits in that uncomfortable triangle.

📌 The 18.22 sunsets rarely fail to delight.

FRIDAY 5 As we boarded the Fred Olsen Express to the nearby island of La Palma I noticed that a large portion of the lower vehicle deck of the vessel is effectively a staff car park. Fifteen minutes into our journey, on the upper passenger deck one man was being violently and very noisily sick all over the ship’s carpet. Passengers (including us) scattered to seats closer to the toilets.

📌 In today’s tapas bar my wife swears our waiter was “Pedro Almodóvar” moonlighting from his day job.

📌 The big festival here in the Canaries is the Three Kings, or Los Tres Reyes Magos. It’s always a fabulous celebration of community and togetherness. From the rooftop of our hotel we got a special window on the street parade in La Palma.

Read all of my scrapbook diaries…

PLEASE MESSAGE WITH ANY CORRECTIONS, BIG OR SMALL.

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