He was a proper old-fashioned London geezer (cringe word, hate it, can't think of a better one, worst of all it's the correct word), kind of East Endy, kind of Real London, the kind you don't really meet but if you do it always feels like an uncanny immersive theatre experience. They're anachronistic. They only belong in the London collectively imagined by people who don't spend any time in it.
so at the end
the textwall is as much for me as it is for you
but it is in my head and am i compelled to realise it, so it is my silmarillion, my tempelos
Thu, 04 Dec 2025 11:31:03
wow, you are the first stranger to write a textwall to me
okay this is interesting because pedagogies we have rn are not proper models
Thu, 06 Nov 2025 23:18:46
Lift Analysis
propensity within someone
to work in time to get to the timeless, perfection thru chaos
Thank you, Jack
The only real Londoner remaining is old, bitter, kept around for entertainment, defined by tropes from 30+ years ago. They play gangsters in films, or they work in a pie and mash shop, or they go on Business Insider's YouTube channel to tell you about their crimes. And they somehow still find the time to spend all day hanging about cafes and pubs for you to bump into, to remind you of Real London.
I imagine that some lab-grown 29-year-old from Woking with a mind honed to identify individuals who fit the profile of Real Londoner (as conceived of by 50 opinion-polled racist builders and their wives in the Midlands) picks a stubborn local who can still somehow afford to live here and passes him along to some creative studio.
Mon, 03 Nov 2025 08:38:49
there is a distinction between western-modern pedagogical systems that's like text-based as in a legal method but there is an idea of "pathshala" or "guru shissho"/ "porompora" i mean how masters relayed knowledge to the student by (oral) transmission often by memorising books. so what was taught was always interactive. knowledge was interactive, you spoke with people rather than read texts.
I'm sat out the front of a cafe in Hatton Garden. I've just eaten a brie and bacon panini, and I'm rolling a cigarette. Feeling very London. An old man comes up to me and asks for a roll-up. I oblige.
Mon, 03 Nov 2025 08:27:13
We look out over the river to a block of luxury flats built on the site of some old docks. It would be nice to live right there. Yes. The conversation drifts to the pleasantness of warm lighting and whether anyone needs a smart home. I interrupt her to make a joke about the French Raj as he runs up the causeway. We stand there laughing. The fireworks go off behind him.
i got bored though because i knew all of the different arrangements of it. i probably needed to stick at it longer to get it dense enough to feel navigable in a way that was engaging to me
It's
dusk
in a snowy forest and I'm playing with a fox.
I'm in a crowded lift and a girl I've never met tells me she thinks she might love me.
The lift won't stop at any floor, and I can't talk in front of all these people.