"Monthly" Blog - January and February 2024

The first two months of 2024 have been a bit of a drag, but I had fun in places. The first week, in particular, was a hoot. When I left this blog, I was in Birmingham with Francis. The first few days were chill: we watched TV, wrote, and Francis’s friend came round and we did arts and crafts together.

The rest of the week was spent out on the town, at a trans event, going to the big Waterstones, dicking around with Francis at work, and going to the Red Brick Market. I love shopping in Birmingham but it’s so bad for my wallet. I met a lot of cool people, and the potential for new friends has really cemented that I want to go to Birmingham for my masters. I know this is blasphemous to say as someone who grew up in London, but I like Birmingham. It has a sort of charm usually reserved for Abney Park music, or the Fallout games. 

Outside of Birmingham, life’s been chugging along. I’ve been dividing my time between work, writing and looking after my nephew. He’s the funniest, smartest kid in the world, and he’d just turned two this month! He was so upset when he found out his birthday cake was for the family to share, and not just for him. He loves puddles and mud, and has the strength of a large dog so it’s nearly impossible to keep him clean in the park. We also took him for a ride on a train, because he’s obsessed with trains. As a fellow train autist, I’m so proud.

Mum won some vouchers in a raffle for a cream tea at this cute little tearoom, and she took me along. We had fat scones, with cream and jam, and a pot of tea. I tried darjeeling, which it turns out I’m not a fan of. It’s a good thing we had those vouchers because the place was so overpriced. I also went into an antiques shop and found some cool boat stamps.

I’ve been getting back into baking, which is fun. It’s mostly pancakes; they’re my samefood at the moment. Didn’t end up having any on pancake day, sadly. I’ve been making scones too. My brother wants me to bake “cooler” things, like cookies and baklava, stuff I can bake that he likes. I think my pancakes are pretty cool! I’ve got a good wet-dry ingredient ratio to make American-style pancakes, which are the ones I’ve been fancying lately. I’ve gotten them pretty round, thick, and juicy. Like my ass.

I’ve also got two good scone recipes under my belt: cheese scones and cherry scones. Cayenne pepper really elevates the cheese scones, but they’re so messy to make and breadcrumbing the flour and butter gives my hands cramps. I want to try expanding my baking experience, and try making Palestinian food in particular.

What I wrote

I didn’t write a January blog post because I’ve been working on my Eurovision essay. The first part is up now, go check it out if you haven’t. The second half has been coming along a little slower now that I don’t feel as pressured to have something out, but it’s getting there. I’ve also been working on a bunch of other things, like poetry, plays, and editing my novel. I hope some part of my writing career will take off before uni. I’m entering a playwriting competition with a play on three young trans people who are online friends. One of them lives on a different continent while the other two live in the same country, and how hard that is sometimes (write what you know, I guess). It’s also made me revisit and revise some of my older plays. Seeing my work performed (the one time it happened) made me want to shit my guts out, but I’d like some experience of being a “professional” writer.

Speaking of my poetry, should I put some poems on here? I’ve been having a lot of fun writing new poems, and I’ve been sorting all my poetry into folders based on possible themed collections, and I’d love to write enough poems to fill published collections and see them in bookshops. I’ve written a couple new ones, and finished off some old ones I’d not got round to.

What I Read

I haven’t read that much these first two months, but I don’t feel that much pressure to. I’ve been busy trying to finish my essay and other writing. I’ve started to feel a little pressure now it’s March, so I’ll try to get back to reading.

Several picture books

When I was chilling with Francis at his work he made me read a whole bunch of picture books to see which ones I should get for Nephew’s birthday. I ended up getting ‘Who Will Comfort Toffle?’ because he’s shy around strangers. All the picture books were great – Francis has good taste – but ‘Leina and the Lord of the Toadstools’ by Myriam Dahman stood out to me as particularly atmospheric. It seemed a little dark for Nephew right now, maybe next year?

Good different – Meg Eden Kuyatt

I related to this book a lot. I remember being 12/13 and still into dragons and fantasy stuff while my friends were making the transition into more regular conversation and, not even ~girly~ things, but more teenage topics. It felt isolating at times, like I lagged behind everyone, clinging to primary school life. I mean, I have an August birthday too, so I’m usually the youngest in my year and friendship group, but still. 

    A lot of autistic-led writing seems to discuss feeling like something non-human trying to blend in as a human, and I also relate to that a lot. This is relevant for something I saw in March that I’ll discuss in my next blog.

    I like the verse because it was super easy to get through. I read this book in an evening, but more importantly, it allows for experimentation with the writing and style. It also makes you think what’s relevant, and what a character would realistically add to their poems. I also liked the characters, especially Selah and her granddad, and her friends. I think Addie, though annoying at the start (she’s meant to be), is actually really nice and it’s sweet to see her friendship with Selah develop through communication and mutual understanding.

The Manga Bible – Siku

This fucking sucked. I know hating on the bible is so 2010 and every argument about it under the sun has already been made, so I’ll just say it doesn’t get better in manga form. The art style was awful, too. Any attempts at comedy fell flat (anime slapstick just felt out of place), and you’re kinda just left reading some genocidal, colonial nonsense that feels really gross in today’s… sociopolitical climate. Especially the section on Amalek.

Fifty Words for Snow – Nancy Campbell

This was a cosy book, despite being about snow. Each section featured a snow-related word or phrase in a different language, and a story about the culture or history or the people who speak that language. I’m a big languages nerd so it was nice reading the book and pointing at each section going “I’ve heard of that language!!” like a child. 

The Punishment of Gaza – Gideon Levy

The book is a compilation of essays written by Gideon Levy, an Israeli journalist, from 2006-2009. It’s compassionately written and humanises Palestinians, and is great at dissecting Israel’s policy towards Gaza, and its hypocrisy. Levy also appeals to Israel’s foreign allies to hold the country to account, and simultaneously appeals to the Israeli population to end the bloodshed. The essays touch on Israeli politics, culture and society, and how each reacts to the ongoing seige of Gaza, and how things escalted during those years.

    It has its limitations, and though Levy clearly cares for the people of Gaza, the book and essays are clouded by the fact that he is Israeli: he wants his country to do better, and be better. I mean, I relate to the sentiment as someone living in the UK, but on the whole I’d rather read books by Palestinian writers from now on. And Ilan Pappe.

Cat + Gamer – Wataru Nadatani

A lady who spends all her free time gaming adopts a kitten and uses lessons from video games to raise it, and maybe along the way develop a social life. The cat, meanwhile, is trying to understand his new mother and life. It’s a really cute manga. Not much to say; I liked it and I wanna read more.

What I watched:

…Other people play Poppy Playtime chapter 3. Look, I can’t play horror games, besides Pathologic, but only because that has existential horror instead of jumpscares. Anyway, I did enjoy watching playthroughs of the first two Poppy Playtime chapters, and found the game well-made, if a little derivative. I mean, I can clearly see where it’s taken inspiration from previous mascot horrors. I also like seeing the inspiration for the toys that become the monsters in Poppy Playtime, and how the designs and toys evolved over the decades. Mommy Long Legs feels like a 90s toy a la Betty Spaghetti; Poppy looks like a doll from the 50s and 60s; the Smiling Critters feel inspired by Care Bears. It’s good worldbuilding and I can appreciate it, even if the premise of children’s thing turned into monsters is very overplayed now. 

    But chapter 3… wow.

    First, the stuff I didn’t like: it’s too long. This would be fine if the pacing was a little tighter, and some of the buildings’ levels were a little shorter, and less confusing. The Home Sweet Home level felt like a mess at times, even though I liked the dream sequence. In addition, the final boss battle was really confusing. I had no idea what the player was supposed to do until I watched Dan and Phil’s playthrough, and they took the time to stop and figure out what to do before the battle and spelt it out to each other. The red smoke, though an interesting addition, was also inconsistent: sometimes it worked as a hallucinogenic, other times deadly, depending on what the plot needs.

    Despite all this, it’s on a whole other level to the previous chapters. It was scary, and gory in a boundary-pushing way I haven’t seen since Outlast (I’d say Outlast 2 still went further, though). Catnap was terrifying, especially the hallucination skeletal horror form. Miss Delight also scared the shit outta me. The way she walked, and just stared, and only moved when you weren’t looking at her, so you were never quite sure how close she was.

    And the scene with Dogday, holy shit. This poor creature was left hanging by his wrists, barely alive as tiny toys eat him from the inside out. The tourniquet around his waist shows he is being left alive by design, to stop what’s left of his organs falling out and killing him. He calls the player an angel and warns you to leave before the tiny toys crawl inside him and puppet him. He chases you through the play area in tiny tunnels before you finally escape. As you ascend a lift, you hear distant screams as Dogday is finally put out of his misery.

    The world was cool, and I really liked the video of the Hour of Joy. The grainy, stilted footage really captured the horror well. The fact that it was so low-resolution helped add to the horror by leaving a lot to the imagination. Also fuck that cliffhanger; is Kissy Missy okay?

    The dream sequence Huggy Wuggy was horrifying, but I hope it’s not gonna be a case of BBC Sherlock constantly having Moriarty fakeouts to keep interest. Huggy Wuggy is the iconic Poppy Playtime character, but I hope he’s not constantly added to subsequent chapters just for the sake of it. Then again, if the next chapter is the final one, and there’s callbacks to the previous chapters’ monsters, that’s okay. 

We’re All Doomed

We’re All Doomed is Daniel Howell’s (of Dan and Phil fame) stand up comedy show which toured in 2022-2023.

    I tried getting tickets to the live filmed show, but they sold out pretty quickly. I got a ticket for the livestream, though, which I’m pretty thankful for. No travel, and I could watch in my pyjamas with snacks. I was kinda sceptical about a Youtuber Stand Up Comedy Show, naturally, so didn’t get tickets when Daniel started touring. I regretted that when it got positive reviews, and all the preview stuff looked really good.

    And yeah, it’s hilarious, it’s heartbreaking, it’s hopeful. I nearly cried a few times. I felt very seen. And it’s nice seeing a guy who’s spent so much of his life in the closet getting to make explicit gay jokes to a cheering crowd. The conspiracy theory madlibs were some of my favourite bits.

Bad Hasbara

So I’ve been listening to bad hasbara… and also Matt Lieb’s podcast, Bad Hasbara. Matt Lieb is a comedian I first encountered after he was a guest on Behind the Bastards. I liked how he and Robert could squeeze a laugh out of me despite talking about some truly depressing topics, so I followed Matt on twitter and found his podcast.

    Bad Hasbara (hasbara meaning “explaining” in Hebrew, and generally what Israel calls its propaganda) is great at highlighting just how bad zionist propaganda is, and asking the important question: who is this for. Honestly, having watched some of it, I’m reminded of two things. Firstly, I thought of hbomberguy’s video on climate denialism and why their arguments are so bad. He talks about how there’s not really an argument for climate change not being real, and the arguments climate-deniers try to make isn’t to convince other people, it’s to reassure their audience they’re right. It’s giving the flimsiest excuse to feel like they’re “allowed” to stop thinking about the issue.

    Which brings me to the second thing I thought of: the excuses Harry Potter fans will cling to to justify still liking the series, and buying copious amounts of research. They want to pretend the situation is more complicated, that Rowling made a few poorly-worded tweets 4 years ago and it’s all fine. It’s not. She’s donating vast sums of money to undermine trans rights. She’s constantly posting about how transfems are all secret predators and transmascs are all lost, confused little girls being tricked into “gender ideology”. Her entire world revolves around demonising trans people, but people just want to buy a shitty game and ugly funko pops without feeling guilty.

    Zionist propaganda isn’t made to convince anyone who’s pro-Palestine that they’re wrong, it’s to reassure the pro-Israel people that they’re right, and very smart for thinking so. It creates an iron dome of sorts, protecting zionists from having to wonder if they’re the bad guys, if cheering on the deaths of 30 thousand people is wrong, because they, the zionists, are correct and big-brained and those stupid “hamas supporters” are just a bunch of overemotional terrorism apologists. It’s just a few influencers and government-made nonsense going “actually the situation is complicated and here’s a cherry-picked version of the conflict where Israel did nothing wrong, stop thinking about it”.

    Back to the podcast itself, it’s very enjoyable, and makes me laugh despite everything. I think he and Tadhg Hickey in particular had good comedic chemistry. I also liked Owen Jones’ appearance, and Sammy Obeid’s. The guests and Matt all raise really good points and I end up learning something. The hasbara itself, especially the videos, are sometimes too cringe to sit through, though.