Every bad thing of 2020 ranked
For better or for worse, the pandemic-themed films are starting to make an appearance. The first movie off the rank is Locked Down, a romantic heist starring Anne Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor as a couple who planned to end their relationship just before London was plunged into a full lockdown. The jury is still out on whether films about the pandemic will be just as annoying as the pandemic itself
How to change people’s minds
The Great Gatsby is now in the public domain – here’s a list of free versions you can download for various e-book readers (you can also read it online)
Plug your Spotify info in here and an AI robot will judge you on your music taste. Do you dare??
To post or not to post? (“This year, it seemed like no matter who you are, whatever you posted, you had a high chance of getting it wrong in some way, because many of the values we’ve come to expect (and enjoy) on Instagram feel incorrect for this moment: Narcissism, flexing, even the forgivable human cry for validation seem crass in the face of so much social discord. Being so flagrantly, publicly self-involved just feels extra-weird and inappropriate right now.”)
Ottolenghi making stuffed aubergine in a curry and coconut dal may be the most relaxing cooking video we’ve ever seen
One of Vanessa’s favourite recipe blogs, Dinner A Love Story by cooking writer Jenny Rosenstrach, is now being published as a regular Substack newsletter. Here’s the first issue (with a recipe for pasta in creamy artichoke sauce), and here’s the blog if you’d like to go back into the archives
Stories of dating and sex and relationships in some of the most high-risk Covid cities in the world
This week we became obsessed with Luke Millington Drake on Instagram (his bio: “Actor, Writer, stuck in a flat..”), who does the most brilliant impressions of Keira Knightly and Huge Grant and his midwest mum and his British dad and ridiculously spot-on film scenes. Start here, here, here and here, and then just watch all of them cos you know you will
Will humans ever reverse climate change?
A sharply observant piece by a US writer on rediscovering the idea of “fun” in the midst of a pandemic (“All routines had been disrupted — schools were closed, offices were done, grocery stores were minefields, toilet paper was out — and everything was terrible, but at least fear was a novelty. Now nothing is new — even the news is not new, so much as it is escalating variations on the same ghoulish set of themes. To be lucky, now, is to have all the days feel like all the other days.”)
Aussie readers (especially Sydney friends): Here’s a list of places to buy face masks that support Indigenous artists and migrant communities
Tune into the sounds of different forests from around the world over at TreeFM
