Looking Sideways: 10 Things
The wonder of Moby Dick, a dazzling Elliott Smith clip, and why you need to attend next week's SAS paddle outs.
1. Yes, I know I spoke about this last week. But if you’re a swimmer, surfer or recreational water user in this country, you REALLY need to show up and support one of the forthcoming Surfers Against Sewage paddle-out protests on May 16th. There are 46 happening around the country, and they’re a chance for us to make the following demands:
Public health must come first – profit from sewage pollution must end.
The Government must end the current privatised water industry
The Government must take back control of water companies, and restructure them, removing the profit motive, to ensure they operate for people and the environment. No option, including public ownership, should be off the table.
Find out more here.
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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2. If you want to understand the full extent of the water scandal in the UK, and why you should care about it, my recent Looking Sideways episode with Julie Maughan and stalwart campaigner Chris Hines (below) is a good place to start.
The death of Julie’s daughter Heather Preen after she contracted e-coli from raw sewage was the focus of recent Channel 4 series Dirty Business (click here for an interesting analysis of DEFRA’s appraisal of media sentiment around that show).
In this episode we discussed Heather, Dirty Business and the very real human impact of this scandalous situation; the baffling apathy among water users and the public-at-large; and, above all, how our water industry has been systematically and ideologically filleted in the name of corporate profiteering.
I’m really grateful to all the listeners and readers who continue to get in touch to tell me how much this episode impacted them, as Simon did above. Listen to the episode below:
3. As a card-carrying Moby Dick stan (I read the novel in my 20s, 30s and 40s; and will be re-reading once more when I turn 50 in June), I loved Joel Snape’s piece (above) on the eternal wonders of this funny, profound and unremittingly bonkers reading experience.
Not least because Joel’s piece also introduced me to The Power Broker, Robert Caro’s biography of Robert Moses (and modern New York). I’d never heard of it, but soon learned it is considered to be one of THE great post-war none-fiction masterpieces. As regular readers might expect, I’ve never bought a book more quickly.
The verdict after I raced through the first 100 pages? This magisterial, elegant study in politics, power and, er, urban planning could not be more up my particular Manhattoe boulevard (to coin a classic Herman Melville-ism).
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4. Speaking of book recommendations - I finally finished Band of Brothers author Stephen Ambrose’s lengthy history of D-Day this week. As ever with this type of thing, every page contained a proper WTF moment - like the gang of Allied paratroopers who were dropped behind enemy lines armed with only a gramophone and some flares. Their mission? To wander around broadcasting a fake battle recording, to convince the Germans to send reinforcements away from the area the landings were actually taking place. It worked as well….
A quick reminder - buy any of my recommendations from my Looking Sideways book store (and plenty of you are doing so!) and you’ll be buying directly from independent UK book stores (which means your money won’t be helping to finance the next ghoulish Bezos-sponsored Met Gala, for one) as well as helping support Looking Sideways (I get a 10% commission) in a really simple and (I humbly propose) righteous way.
Get involved here and you can also join my Chat and share your own reads below. We’re racking ‘em up! Come and join us…
5. Anybody else watched the new HBO Dean Potter documentary? I thought Katie Arnold’s companion piece (above) helped add useful nuance to the story told in the series.
6. Definitely the strangest and most poignant clip I watched this last week - Elliot Smith firstly being patronised by, and then emotionally flooring, a zany gang of presenters (and a Zig and Zag-style puppet) on a mid-90s American breakfast show.
If you click any link this week, I implore you to make it this one.
7. A new Anthony Bourdian biopic? Can’t say I’m persuaded this is a good idea.
8. Ditto the new Christopher Nolan Odyssey, if the trailer is anything to go by. (Yes, I will watch them both anyway).
9. I’m not ashamed to say that the original James Brown and Tim Southwell-helmed version of Loaded was a huge influence on what we tried to do at Whitelines back in the innocent old 1990s.
Personally, I learned a lot from the way people like Brown, Neale Haynes and Bill Borrows approached their craft and forged their idiosyncratic media careers.
Anyway, Bill has just launched a new podcast with fellow Loaded alumni Ben Marshall and Tim Southwell - listen above.
10. Finally…epoch-shattering news for fans of achingly beautiful, slightly sinister pastoral folk-techno, as Boards of Canada release their first new music in 13 years.
Listen to their latest above, and click here for an in-depth Clash Magazine piece that fully contextualises their importance and brilliance.
Ta for the link (you'll probably finish the Moses before me) AND for the Potter recommendation: I spoke to him once, and his story about plummeting into the Cave of Swallows remains one of the most insane things I've ever heard. I hadn't heard of the doc, I'll definitely check it out.