Good Things #14
In which I wonder what happens to my iCloud photos when I die and I find pink mushrooms growing in the garage
Dear friends,
Ready for some good things?
Food: Pink Oyster mushrooms found growing in my garage
As the cost of living crisis deepens and we have less and less cash, I’m very happy to save money anywhere at all. And while ‘pink oyster mushrooms’ is a luxurious item not usually on my shopping list in the good times, let alone the bad, I was delighted this week to discover them growing in my garage. Now, please don’t worry. This was all planned. My boyfriend has grown these on purpose using a “process”, so I must reassure you we haven’t just resorted to eating mushrooms we’ve found emerging from our garage, although at this rate that might not be far off.
I know you don’t need me to say this but I still feel like I should - never ever ever ever eat mushrooms you find in your garage unless you are 100% sure they aren’t poisonous. Happily, on this occasion we were sure and we ate them and it was very cool. Plus, apparently they will keep on mushrooming out of these bags up to thrice! Also, if that’s not good enough for you wait until I tell you that Tom bought the mushroom spores from a guy on eBay called “Spores Direct”.
To read about how to grow mushrooms in coffee grounds, head here. And to visit Spores Direct, it’s here.
Articles: “Ctrl, Alt, Delete: Why We Need To Talk About Death In The Digital Age” by Dr Eliza Filby
So, what happens to our iClouds when we die? You know how our parents had photo albums in the loft? And all the grainy images of our childhoods are contained within? But the current generation (which Google tells me is going to be called Generation Alpha) has its childhood photos stored digitally and the collection is vast. Where I have about 200 photos of myself as a child, my children have hundreds of thousands. Often there are multiple photos of them eating the same sandwich. And I want to preserve this treasure and safely bequeath it all to them when I die so they can see what great sandwiches I used to make, but how?? Well, sorry I don’t have the answer to this today. But because somehow the internet listens to your thoughts, this week I stumbled across this article, and now Dr Eliza Filby is my new writing-crush. Everything she writes is interesting. She’s also a speaker, podcaster and generations expert, and in her newsletter this month she’s written about death and the digital age. Here’s a bit of it:
“Back in 2019, researchers at the Oxford Internet Institute calculated that profiles of the deceased will outnumber the living by 2050 rising to 4.9 billion dead profiles by 2100. Forget election tampering, Zuckerberg is set to become the Grim Reaper CEO of a mass digital graveyard.”
And here’s another bit:
“In growing recognition of this, all the major tech companies now have policies in place, but the data remains theirs, not yours. It’s long been said that if a service is free, then you are the product. Now comes a new caveat: whether you are alive or dead. If every business is now a tech business, then every tech business will very soon be in the death business. And the data of the dead will be as valuable as the living, particularly with no regulations in place.”
Feel better now? No, me neither. But it’s still an interesting read.
|Read the article here and visit this website for loads more fascinating stuff.
TV: Misha and the Wolves on BBC4
If you’re one of the millions cancelling their Netflix subscriptions to save cash, here’s a documentary sneakily tucked away on BBC4 that would be quite at home on the Netflix Originals grid. It’s the harrowing tale of a con-artist who claimed to have survived the Holocaust. Misha Defonseca said that as a 7 year-old in WW2 she was separated from her parents and walked hundreds of miles through forests towards Germany to find them, befriending actual wolves and surviving in the snow. An incredible story. They wrote a book about her and everything. They even made a movie! She was due to be on Oprah and the book was set for Oprah’s lucrative book-club list, but strangely she refused to appear and then… well, it turns out the whole story was made up. But more than that, the truth turns out to be even more bonkers than her made-up story.
|Misha and the Wolves is available to buy on Sky Store but it’s currently on BBC4 catch-up as a ‘Storyville’ episode.
Podcasts: The Ezra Klein Show: This Conversation Will Change How You Think About Trauma
The Ezra Klein Show is a New York Times spin-off where, each week, American journalist Ezra Klein talks to someone interesting about something important. Tick and tick. There are loads of episodes to enjoy trawling through, covering everything from Ukraine to cryptocurrencies. But this week, I listened to Ezra’s chat with Bessel van der Kolk (who wrote the best-selling book The Body Keeps the Score which is about trauma). “Trauma is much more than a story about something that happened long ago,” writes Dr. Bessel van der Kolk in the book. “The emotions and physical sensations that were imprinted during the trauma are experienced not as memories but as disruptive physical reactions in the present.” I’d recommend the podcast and the book too.
Treasure from the internet: Richard E Grant
Actor Richard E Grant lost his wife of 38 years in late 2021. He calls her his “compass” and on Twitter this week he sums up how I’d imagine such grief feels (in this lovely tweet with terrible audio) when he refers to himself as “an old turtle without my shell”. He says his wife told him: “Find a pocketful of happiness in each day”.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s “Good Things” newsletter and I hope that you find at least a pocketful of happiness somewhere in your day today. Please “like” this with the little heart and share it far and wide.
See you next week,
Love, Emily xx
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More stuff by me:
In my job as a TV writer, this week I spent probably at least two hours making up this Selling Sunset Drinking Game which is an absolutely ridiculous thing to have been paid to do, but is living proof you can turn your hobbies into your job.
I write a monthly column in my gorgeous local Cambridge magazine, Velvet. This month it’s about the war in Ukraine.
You can find me on Twitter @emilyincam.
Very entertaining and amusing as always
My luxurious item this month is a tube of Nando’s Perinaise sauce. If you could offer advice on how to grow my own that would be appreciated.