Hi team,
Welcome to the thirtieth(!) installment of Furloughed. Maybe it’s a newsletter about things I’m doing while furloughed, things you can do, or both.
Tiny internet friends! Tiny IRL friends and family! Hello my babies! Sorry about the rubbish photo above. I haven’t been out taking arty panos.
This week has been very sombre. There is a list of things to do to support on the tweet thread embedded below. You can write to your MP too.
Things to watch
Short things
From Afghanistan.
And this video essay on Bo Burnham
Series
Mainstay recommendations are City of Ghosts and Waffles + Mochi. And We Are Lady Parts.
While all of Gen Z (and a few millenials) have been watching Love Island, I’ve been watching Grace and Frankie and Shrill. At 34 I am old AF. Imagine.
Documentaries
I have been watching some of the Netflix Explained series. I watched the one about cults this week, which was pretty dark. My partner and I watched the one on Astrology before I left. He will be here in a bit, which is exciting.
Films
I actually didn’t watch a movie this week either! Imagine that. I think I’ve finished Netflix.
Things to read
“I’ve been silent for a while. I’ve been silent about Afghanistan for longer. But too many things are going unsaid.
I won’t try to evoke the emotions, somehow both swirling and yet leaden: the grief, the anger, the sense of futility. Instead, as so often before, I will use my mind to shield my heart. And in the process, perhaps help you make some sense of what has happened…” — Sarah Chayes
Books
Feel good
Scientists discover Stonehenge is constructed from a nearly indestructible material
Behold, Carbon-Free Steel Now Exists
Things to listen to
Podcasts
Mainstay recommendation is this Blindboy podcast with Emma Dabiri. And more Blindboy - How to Solve the Housing Crisis. And a podcast about doughnut economics.
A lovely colleague recommended this listen on GDP — how it forgot to cover unpaid work at home and the environment and stuff. I saw this report about Gross Domestic Wellbeing (TM, honestly) the other week that might pair well with it.
Music
I was listening to Radio Free Brooklyn this morning via the Radio Garden app and they played this.
Join a union and find your local mutual aid
You can join a union to help protect yourself and others. And your local Mutual Aid group.
UK government ‘failed to consider gender’ in its response to Covid pandemic
Sustainable Suppression
Avoid the three Cs - Confined. Crowded. Close-contact settings. Mask up.
Here’s Independent Sage’s vaccinations FAQ, if you or people you know have vaccine questions. They have also put out a document about the continuing need for support measures.
A video on how to ventilate a room
After two million deaths, we must have redress for mishandling the pandemic
People to listen to
"If I survive and come out of Kabul one day, I will write about what happened today and in the coming days. I will write for the world to read how in the 21 century, they left us alone. " — journalist Maryam Mehtar, 15th August 2021
Things to do
Find out why people hate New Labour
Find out how normal you are with AI. I come out at best as a 6.2 attractiveness-wise (if I move my head around) and as a man (68% - the AI is 91% sure I am not a woman). I also have a current life expectancy of 81
Sign this petition: Ban urban and garden pesticides to protect bees, other wildlife and human health
Make a Corsi cube to filter a room/ set up a crowdfund to make them for classrooms
Send me any fun things to do or look at you see so I can include them!