“Aren’t you bored yet?” is a question I’m sometimes asked by people who know I’m in “Early Retirement”. Well, honestly, I have my moments, but by and large I am filling my time quite well. Here’s some of the things I’ve been doing, watching, listening to, reading, buying and generally passing the hours with this week.
As a blogger, I found this TED talk by Jon Ronson interesting and unsettling in equal measure. It’s about “online shaming”, but is also a big warning to watch what you post on social media.
I’m always interested in things I could maybe post about Death on this blog, and came across this rather touching podcast by Oliver Saks on Radiolab. There was some interesting songs featured during it, which led me to check out Ponyhof. Not too sure about what I found, to be fair, but maybe one or two tracks will go on my Sonos playlist for late night listening.
Poets are big on Death, and I watched the BBC documentary on Ted Hughes, which was just about worth the ninety minutes I spent on it. He could well be the poster boy for my blog, Sex, Health, Money and Death – with a particular emphasis on Sex and Death.
Book wise, this week I’m currently reading Paul Theroux’s latest travelogue. I’m a bit of a fan of this author and big fan of the American South too. I’m about halfway through and it’s….just okay. Which is slightly disappointing for me.
In terms of buying stuff, I splashed out this week on 50 aluminium cooking trays which, in my experience, are the best things to store all kinds of food in, largely in the freezer. If you batch cook, get these on your shopping list. I filled four of these trays with this recipe for Spanish Rice with Chicken and Chorizo which I tried in my pressure cooker. Thanks to Thrifty Lesley for leading me to it via her Pinterest Board (and M at There’s Value for the link to Thrifty Lesley).
sex health money death 
You’re welcome Jim. Good old Lesley doing her finest once again.
I used those aluminium trays last time I was pregnant – we made 2 weeks’ worth of meals for when the baby came, it was really handy. Am going to do that again soon…
Why the obsession with death?
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As Ian Faith explained to David St Hubbins on the launch of the legendary Spinal Tap Black album: “Every, every movie in every cinema is about death; Death sells!”
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I get why death is up there in the blog title. Maybe something about age and witnessing it more frequently in friends and family…I’ve recently read Atul Gawande ‘being mortal’ which was beautifully written and captured well the dilemmas of medicalised ageing and dying, and the ultimate loss of control which they entail. I was also briefly fascinated by the concept of ‘death cafes’ which I read about in the FT of all places! I definitely think we could do with talking about death being less taboo. So I hope inspiration for blogposts strikes soon 🙂
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I used to work in a pub nicknamed “Death Bar”, as it was the only place in town with a two a.m. licence. The clientele did stagger around like zombies, to be fair.
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Nice TED talk—thanks for that pointer. I had never heard of the victim in questions so I Googled her and found https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/02/24/twitters-rage-mob-should-be-stopped-but-justine-sacco-is-the-wrong-poster-child/
Interesting counter-counter argument.
What I find about life today, thanks to Twitter, Google, cameras, the NSA (here in the US), etc. is that you cannot expect privacy anymore. EVERYTHING you do or say can be made public, to millions of people. Think about that the next time you want to get angry at the clerk, or go a bit nutso at your child’s football match, or pick your nose in the car—you may wind up as the next YouTube trending topic! (And thanks to drones, we may even believe we are alone when the filming happens!) Gose, do I sound paranoid?
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In the same way that many of us FIRE followers think about buying something and then wait 24 hours before we do, the same thing applies to public postings.
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Your blog is very good. Keep going. That’s the hard part
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Thanks for the positive feedback, much appreciated!
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As Ed says, there is no privacy any more.
I find this constant stream of social media and constant misjudged tweeting bad. It is a global school playground full of bullies and nasty people out to just make fun of someone …because the victim of the ‘joke’ is faceless.
I know a student who has been told as part of their college course to be careful about social media and what effect this can have on your job prospects. One of the first things a potential recruiter will do is google you – OK, they may be looking for your linkedin profile but they will find any other social network you are on too. Even the ones you don’t want prospective employers to see.
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I was reading some stuff about shaming the other day, all very interesting. There is a book on it but I can’t remember what it was called 🙂
It really does amaze me at what people post online, but then I am sure I have said some silly stuff in the past on facebook before any of this public outrage stuff started to happen regularly! (I don’t use it anymore and profile is private so hopefully that is enough to keep me in the clear!)
The aluminium trays… aren’t they really hard to wash and resuse? And non microwave proof? Why not just get some decent tupperware which will last you years and you can stick it straight in the mic to reheat?
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Googling your own name can be a frightening experience! Even if it’s only to discover how many aluminium tray orders you’ve put in over the years.
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