Looking Sideways: 10 Things
Two great winter novels, a brilliantly angry and articulate AI refutation, and the loss of a European winter sports icon.
1. Greetings from a very frosty Normandy. Bonus points if you can spot the two deer I scared off with my early morning frosty footsteps.
2. I read two brilliant books over the holidays.
I’ll read anything by Andrew Miller (his Pure and Now We Shall Be Entirely Free were two of my favourite novels of recent years). And his latest, The Land In Winter, is as great as I hoped it would be. Read it now, while the weather is at its chilliest, for max atmospheric effect.
I also very much enjoyed Seascraper, a wry, penetrative story of an ordinary man literally scraping a living along the bleak shores of his home town, while yearning for emotional and intellectual escape.
3. Related: the 2026 reading list is go here, and I’ve started a brand spanking new Chat thread for 2026 (above).
Hit the image above to let me know what you’ve been reading and what I should wack on the list for 26.
10 Things will always be free, but it takes a lot of effort, love and curiosity to pull this thing together each week.
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4. An end of year list worth reading: Thurston Moore’s 350 (!) favourite records of 2025.
5. Rob Reiner would be an awful loss under any circumstances. For my generation, he was such an enormous cultural influence. We spent the break re-watching This is Spinal Tap and The Princess Bride, and have Stand By Me lined up.
Among the many tributes that followed his death, this piece from Stephen King stood out.
6. Congratulations to Brooke Islam-Roberts on the release of her new BBC documentary, which explores whether ‘AI can power a green fashion revolution’.
7. One of the themes I kept returning to last year was the bogusness of this idea that AI is some sort of tech-evolutionary inevitability, rather than the disaster-capitalism-on-steroids it really represents. It is, after all, being solely pushed by about five Silicon Valley brands who stand to make colossal fortunes from its widespread adoption.
So I really enjoyed Lauren Pope’s ‘Spite House’ zine, by far the most convincing articulation of this idea, and how AI represents the ‘end of the free web’, that I’ve yet encountered.
It’s important. You should read it.
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8. I was really saddened to hear of the untimely death of British freeski pioneer Jamie Strachan, a hugely influential and important figure in European snowsports . I was lucky enough to cross paths with Jamie back at the turn of the millennium, when we were both living in Chamonix, and he really was an inspirational figure.
This Fall Line piece does a great job of contextualising Jamie’s importance to the European scene. What a loss.
9. Remarkably, I’ve never actually visited the north east of England. Which, considering how many friends I have up there, how great the surf is, and how historically and culturally fascinating it is, is a hell of an oversight.
So the launch of the new North East Surf Film Festival is good news for me - could this be the excuse I need to finally make it up there?
10. Finally, news of an important new campaign: Ski Fossil Free, a campaign to end fossil fuel sponsorship of winter sports, and which has the backing of the biggest names in the business. Find out more and sign the petition here.
Which of these stories did you enjoy this week? Let me know ✌️
Number 9. Whaaaaaaaat?!
A humble plea for Ski Fossil Free to target Ineos's sponsorship of Courchevel's club de sport. It's very disheartening seeing frothing kids eeking out diminishing winter returns with a petrochemical firm logo on their gear.
The Spite House zine looks right up my street, ta. On the AI front, I really like this post on the idea of Ethical AI - https://hidde.blog/ethical-ai/