Today is August 1st, and we enter the eighth month of twenty-twenty-six. It feels as though this year has scarcely started, yet autumn already looms beyond the dusky horizon. Plans for this month are largely concentrated on the local book festival and local comedy festival. Spouse and I are fortunate to live a short journey from both, and so have maximised our final year of ‘youth pricing’ eligibility and purchased a good chunk of interesting talks to attend. In particular, I look forward to World Cup Fever and the Taiwan Travelogue event.

Once again, I return to crystal-blue with after several weeks of silence. One of the things that’s been slightly putting me off blogging is the slight loss of anonymity assocaited with recently linking the URL to a domain I use for Mastodon. I am not under any delusions of grandeur - I’m very aware that this is an exercise for myself only and I’ve had, cumulatively, ten non-bot visits in the last thirty days (does Cloudflare count your own visits? Have I visited my own blog ten times this past month? It certainly doesn’t feel like it…) and so it’s not really something I should let myself get put off by. And yet, there is something about knowing someone might read your posts, associate them with your idenity, and form opinions on them that is ever-so-slightly off-putting.

Whilst I intended to blog fairly regularly, I’ve rather neglected this space of late. This is partially due to general busyness, and partially as I’ve successfully self-hosted a quiet little Mastodon instance where I can freely fling short pockets of thought into the void. Nonetheless, it is a useful exercise to sit and force myself to sit down and focus on a longer form piece of reflection, if only to see what spills out.

The theme of this blog, if there was such a thing, seems to be a meandering tangent only vaguely related to the previous post. In keeping with this, today’s blog is a short ramble on lifelong learning and learning for leisure. I feel that the current schooling system (though I am of course, particularly speaking to the particular system I grew up in) focuses more on achieving KPIs and rewarding numbers than fostering a genuine curiosity and zest for learning. I do not think this is the fault of our overworked teachers, who are handed oversubscribed classes, uninspired curriculums, and a plethora of complex needs across their classroom. Rather, I believe the curriculum and culture need to shift at a much higher level.

Tangential to my last post; one of the oft-alpha-slopped concepts I’m interested in is minimising my exposure to ultra-processed foods. Meal prep is one method for this, which I oft attempt and seldom stick to. It is difficult to avoid these foods and thinking too hard about it gives me a rather existential fear - the idea that we are pumped full of plastics and processed foods, regardless of all attempts to avoid this.

Based on my general (and very amatuer) interest in classicism, philosophy, and history, the algorithm has assigned me: wannabe Stoic Alpha Male. ‘Tis a shame, as I do enjoy lots of this content on a general level, the specifics of how it is marketed to the disillusioned Western young man is essentially the adult man’s version of brainrot. There is no deep engagement; only calls to reshare short-form content, to buy this course which will definitely be the one to address all underlying problems in your life, to not think too carefully or critically about the proposed ideas. Just share the ragebait. Appease the algorithm so your betters may scrape another penny from the advertisers, in exchange for all your data and diminished attention span.

I have attempted some preventative measures on my wine-soaked Mac. whilst I didn’t want to get fully into the weeds of it all, I did pop it open to inspect the logic board (thus far, clear) and to check if any liquid remained. Aside from a faint old-wine aroma, it seems as though the bulk of the damage has been confined to the keyboard. Ideally, confined to cosmetic damage to the membrane, though only time will tell.

Owing to a wine spillage, all Mac-related endeavours are currently on hold. Whilst I’m hoping the damage is largely confined to a small aesthetic stain on the keyboard membrane; I do hope to maximise it’s chances by allowing it a few days to thoroughly dry out. Then ideally, track down some 90% isopropyl alcohol to prevent any future corrosion. The wine was at least light on tannins, but I distrust the level of sugars present.

Following unlucky friday the thirteenth, we move straight into Valentine’s Day. I watched university challenge this morning, and there was a bonus set on Christian Quarter Days. I’ve often said the UK calendar needs more festivals, particularly between Easter and Halloween. Bring back Beltane. We need more ritual in the modern world.

Welcome to the crystalblue blog.

I do not particularly anticipate that it will attract a large readership, if any at all. However, if you have happened upon this space; please feel free to pull up a chair and grab a metaphorical cup of tea & a biscuit. I would suggest a chocolate-dipped viennese finger.