Someone Who Has Become Very Curmudgeonly In Recent Years

The most popular link last time was the pixelated fireplace, with this piece about the age (44) at which millennial women begin to feel old second.

1. Did Jane Austen Invent the Wellness Guy? Yes she did! And there's a whole section in my most recent book (which could still be purchased as a holiday gift, there is time) about this!
2. Almost nobody writes little memoir vignettes as well as Jean Hannah Edelstein, in my opinion. This one — "A silver clutch that I last used at a wedding" — is wonderful.
3. When Secret Santa goes wrong: I still think sometimes about the time, 15+ years ago, when a colleague bought me a bag of penis-shaped pasta seemingly as a way to initiate a conversation about my sexuality at the work Christmas party. If only it was a workplace with an HR department...
4. Spend a week on the Swiss rail system via this video.
5. Some good tips on writing from a former magazine editor. My favourite is: "Learn to think like a fact-checker".
6. This BBC list of "ten of the greatest murder mysteries ever" was surprisingly good, and I say that as someone who has become very curmudgeonly in recent years about the apparent nosedive in people's ability to tell what is good in crime fiction.
7. On Being Interested in Stuff Almost No One is Interested In.
8. It's harder than it might seem for farmers to stop using plastic.
9. When Maga came for Calibri, what did you do?
10. Am I Divorced? A single man wonders.
11. The finalists for the 2025 Comedy Wildlife Awards.
12. Soman Chainani writes global YA bestselling novels. He also writes really beautiful blog posts about his partner's farm in Missouri, such as this one about how their herd took care of an accidental early calf during a snowstorm.
13. This one is for the people who remember when I used to do the "compulsory medieval thingamabob" at the end of every newsletter.