Hi! Happy Saturday! Have some microfiction by yours truly, courtesy of @templeinacity.bsky.social. I started this a lifetime ago in a @kathyfish.bsky.social Flash Fiction Extravaganza - so pleased it's found a home. Will share a photo of the OTT Christmas lights that inspired it if you ask nicely.

Kate Bush appreciation thread. And here's the working link to the Mojo article: www.mojo4music.com/articles/the...

This crosses over with my old gripes about math: teaching quality (I had mocking teachers, curriculum-obsessed teachers and disengaged teachers, none prioritising curiosity over test scores) and that other pervasive '00s sentiment ("STEM degrees are for boys"). Probably lucky I have no time to rant.

I seem to have entered a '90s Eurodance rabbit hole. Blaming it on watching the figure skating and drinking coffee after 3pm today. BUT! The autoplay suggestions I'm getting are so spot-on, 13-year-old me might as well have recorded them herself off that long defunct local radio station she loved.

Given time, I always do the things I say I'll do. "Things" being the white chocolate & miso cookies I made for a baking club I'm going to later; "time" being easily 10 years since the first and only time I ate one before. Forget inbox zero: recipe stash zero is the challenge (it'll never happen).

"The boxes are lying" has to be the most perfect sentence I'll read today. And you know who's also lying? My mother, who follows the timing on the box and then insists it's still too raw. I was last summer years old when she admitted the problem is her, not me - she actually likes it overcooked.

This is who runs this account

January reads on @thestorygraph.com: I'm in the middle of two slow-burners, so for now, all you get is the fast-paced mysteries I picked up when I needed breaks. The literary hardbacks I piled up over the past two years and still not started keep watching reproachfully from the shelves.

Not trying to up your expectations or anything, but a little bird told me a micro by yours truly is going to be in here. Insert eyes emoji, in the absence of an emoji that signals "I'm a big child and can't keep my mouth shut about exciting news".

My day has been quite the shitshow, but an earworm from a song I love just gave me the idea I needed to fix a thorny sentence in a short story I'm translating, and I'm feeling so proud right now. So yeah, now I have to share the song with you, you're welcome.

Some days it feels society is forcing people like me on one of two career paths: withering away in jobs that have no use for the things we enjoy about ourselves, or becoming LinkedIn life coaches to scam the people who are tired of withering. And come on - surely there's got to be a better option?

I'll try doing #CookJan even though I'm not in the mood for daily photos. I always love seeing what everyone makes, and would hate for it to stop because no one's joining in. Also, I need to shout about the cookbooks that made my meals better last year, should anyone care to listen. So let's go!

I never make new year resolutions, but in 2025 I tried. Turns out that starting Asako Yuzuki's Butter (yesterday) is the only one I kept. Back to a resolution-less life, then. Though maybe my goal should be learning to not bite off more than I can chew. Tricky when I want to change the path I'm on.

I lived and worked in Notting Hill for years without ever seeing anyone famous. My colleagues saw David Beckham around Westbourne Grove multiple times, including at a bar round the corner from the office we all often went to. A friend once served Noel Gallagher at a pub. Me? Not a single sighting.

I had a St. John mince pie at the new cafe they have inside the London Review Bookshop, and it was so good, I don't want to get mince pies from anywhere else next year (also must return with two willing companions for a sharing plate of 6 freshly baked madeleines, make it a resolution for 2026).

Christmas lunch for 2 (with plenty of leftovers for the coming days): @sabrinaghayour.bsky.social's Khoresh-e Fesenjan, because we're big Persiana fans in this house, and I've wanted to try the recipe for years. With the food I've made so far, I don't regret not flying home for the holidays one bit.

Merry Christmas from me and the cats, who are all set for a day of relaxing in the ways they most love (Lena: kneading on humans with razor-sharp claws; Poppy: giving Partner a heart attack by leaning too close to the TV screen). Wishing you a lovely chill day too!

My 1st year of uni, in a hellish houseshare with 5 girls that drove me mad, one of them said she saw me as someone she could talk to about anything without fear of judgement. Also, from my Mum (who doesn't do praise): "you notice things other people don't". Still remember where and why she said it.

Today's adventure in cookbooks I rarely use: the Sfiha recipe from the first Honey & Co. book. The pastry feels like bread (love it); the filling is mushrooms, onion, leek, ricotta & cumin. Merry Christmas to whoever dumped the book at a Hampstead charity shop in May, we thank you for your service.

My holiday challenge is to finally use the Dishoom cookbook I got in 2023. The ingredients for this bean curry took a lot of prep, but the final dish tasted like something I'd actually want on their menu. Happy with the chapati recipe too. Next on my list: Chicken Berry Britannia (maybe next week).

Just got reminded that I took this 11 years ago. Setting: Mum's kitchen. Medium: my first smartphone, which was awful at photos. My baker's little helper was 14 then. Going by the muffin tray, this must be when I tried making florentines to gift at Christmas (Very Not Fun thing I won't do again).

Partner put on Don't Look Back In Anger to get rid of an earworm, and suddenly I'm 13 again, discovering foreign songs I'm too young to remember on a mixtape a classmate got from her brother. It delighted me that someone would share music with me. Even 20+ years later, remembering that feels nice.

We've been hit with a flurry of deliveries this week. Poppy is having the time of her life with the boxes.

Felt smug about planning all 4 of my family's Christmas presents with time to spare. Hadn't reckoned with the fact that Dad's would require creating an Apple account without an Apple device. Am now elbow-deep in the tech support equivalent of the bureaucracy scene from The Twelve Tasks of Asterix.

Throwback to last year's pet portrait gingerbreads, because I've been racking my brain for a recipe that sounds as fun and challenging and couldn't find one. So I think there may be no Christmas baking this year, which makes me a bit sad, but knowing me, I'll change my mind by the 25th, won't I?

An extremely short horror story I wrote, set in the future.

1) Seeing Operation Mincemeat at the theatre 2) "Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory" by Raphael Bob-Waksberg, which made me feel seen like few books did in my adult life, and made me want to write down all the weird short story ideas that cross my mind even if no one ever reads them

"Lovely" is just the word for this book - one of my few 5-star reads this year. It made me want to visit Japan, made me long for the skill to write my own stories of immigration and belonging, and made me wish the author and I were friends. All in a space shorter than 200 pages!

Just did a double take and thought "hang on is this the Latymer Community Church", because that's exactly the sort of hilariously unhinged billboard we knew them to be capable of when we lived nearby. Photo evidence incoming - be ready.

November reads on @thestorygraph.com: many hits and one miss, as I found my favourite fiction read of 2025, and trudged through a book that had very little to offer me (it's all good, I suspected that going in). You'll have to read the alt text to find out which is which, if you're so inclined.

My friend went to Malaysia, and all I got was this lousy* postcard. *so perfectly chosen, I'm making this the happy post after yesterday's thread of misery.

Felt bitter, might delete later: I'm having a shit time at the job that nearly laid me off, and all I want is to not work in tech (as if I knew how) or retire (lol). Also can't tell anyone who might help, because I work with those people. Remembering how positive I felt in January breaks my heart.

Do we think she knows about the knot of stress I've had in my stomach all week, and how if I could choose just one thing to do this morning, it would be sitting right here listening to her purr?

There's no way you'd have found a single homemade treat in the house I grew up in. On the other hand, I eagerly waited for November every year of the '90s, because it was when the fun fair hit town, and I'd get the rare chance to stuff myself with ludicrously blue jelly dolphins and cola fizz candy.

On a long train journey home, I felt like music with "evenings getting darker" vibes, and landed on Muse's Origin of Symmetry, which I hadn't played in ages but still believe to be one of the best albums ever made. Funny it had to be right now: 22 years from this gig, almost to the day.

If I ever become the president of something, make sure the Honey & Co. Baking Book is the holy book I get sworn in with.

October reads on @thestorygraph.com, picking up right where I left off last month (i.e. books that made me unspeakably sad). I turned to mysteries for a palate cleanser, and The Missing Cryptoqueen was just as good as I'd hoped from listening to the podcast.

New career path: Telling everyone that I use generative AI for everything (and then just half-assing it with my own brain) so people I don’t respect throw piles of money at me and are cool with the final product being bad.

In July I got Anna Jones's A Modern Way to Eat for £2 at a local library used book sale. It's been the gift that keeps on giving. The other day we made the loveliest red lentil dal with sweet potato and coconut; this morning it's maple and blueberry ricotta pancakes. In this house, we eat well.

are you okay babe you’ve barely touched the novel your author bio says you’ve been working on for years

Breakfast in the morning. Black coffee straight out the moka pot within minutes of getting out of bed; food I enjoy made just the way I like it; happy cats in the sunny spot on the floor; a chat with my partner or a book for company when I'm on my own.

Heading to the office with one defined goal for my morning, which is not to figure a way out of my current Serious Work Predicament, and is, in fact, getting Rilo Kiley tickets in the presale.

Okay, for the folks who asked: here's the majority AI view, writing up the reasonable, thoughtful view on AI that the vast majority of people in tech hold, that gets overshadowed by the bluster and hype of the tycoons trying to shill their nonsense. anildash.com/2025/10/17/t... Please share!

They think they're getting treats. Instead, we're playing a Conor Oberst album from start to end while I make dinner. This is going to be our routine for the entire next week, they just don't know it yet.

Today's challenge: reading this beautiful novel that sounds just like what I want mine to be, and thinking "if they could do it, so can I" instead of "shit, I could never". That, plus cracking the "15-minute homemade Nutella" recipe that is taking 1h and counting and looks nothing like the photos.

People who think the idea of "give me ideas" is something genuinely creative people want have literally never experienced the absolute EUPHORIA of a brainstorming breakthrough, either solo or with a human collaborator. They don't understand what is happening when artists create, on a basic level.

September reads on @thestorygraph.com. A month of big emotions I tried to sum up in the alt text. One of these books drained my heart of all hope and filled it with despair, and it's not the one about the IRA (that was no piece of cake either, but it's also the best book I've read this year so far).

Your Italian friend is back to remind you that you should never underestimate the power of a cup of espresso and a little treat from the bakery. The power multiplies tenfold if the treat is a custard bun from Tetote Factory. This is the rule, which I just made up and completely stand by.

Always a joyous day at work when I have to send a Slack message with the @ channel tag, several bolded sentences, and a flashing siren emoji that means YOUR COMMENTS NOW (which I'm ready to bet people will either not read or take a week to reply to).

My mum's dubbed cassette of Simon & Garfunkel's Concert in Central Park, which somehow was in his car while they were separated. He won't remember the rainy night he was driving me home from Germany and we got lost on Austrian back roads, but I do - it's when I heard The Boxer for the first time.