The Problem With Trying To Make Something New Look "Old"

The most popular link last time was this one to Sabrina Bockler's paintings, with the minute cryptic game second.

1. The "looking back on myself in 2016" trend of recent weeks has convinced me that the confessional online personal essay is back (if it ever really went away). Here's a great example of the form.
2. Someone in the thick of the AI-obsessed tech sector writes: I miss thinking hard.
3. 1000 days of being Covid-free: an account of 2+ years spent "being stubbornly and publicly covid cautious".
4. Of course Wallace & Gromit's new font is called "Buttered Crumpet".
5. The best Super Bowl take: what it was like to be a bush during Bad Bunny's half-time performance.
6. This site where you draw a little horse and watch it frolic along with other people's little horses is oddly mesmerising and enjoyable (via reader Robin).
7. 12 Reasons Why February is Actually Awesome.
8. "Afghanistan’s first romcom" sounds great and I hope it comes to a cinema near me soon.
9. Speaking of cinema: Mark Kermode's review of Melania is a great piece of criticism. A sample phrase: "It's a heist movie about a crime family breaking into the seat of power and stealing the cutlery whilst destroying democracy."
10. An interior designer reviews Kendall Jenner's new mountain home and explains the problem with trying to make something new look "old".
11. I am a passionate fan of the Dutch track athlete Femke Bol. It's nice to know that Geoff Dyer is too. He explains what's so magnetic about her better than I could (via my husband Guy).
12. Miss where you used to live (in the UK)? This site lets you generate accurate-sounding rail announcements for specific routes and stations.
13. A literary agent thinks about what ambition looks like now that publishing and so much more about the "old world" is breaking down.

"Here’s the truth: you’re not stuck because you’ve lost your ambition; you’re stuck because the dilapidated model for ambition you’ve been working with since childhood is broken beyond repair. I’m sorry. I’m doubly sorry because my industry, book publishing, did a lot of work to foist this shoddy model onto you in the first place. For a long time, my colleagues in nonfiction and I elevated mastery as a moral good, rewarding the people who swore they could explain the whole world in a single argument. These people promised us optimised futures full of clarity and control, and we platformed that nonsense."