We both suspected that she really was an alien at different points during the movie.
When Teddy exploded in the wardrobe, I wondered for a moment whether either he’d detonated the vest on purpose in an attempt to kill the aliens on whatever ship he thought he was being teleported to, or she’d somehow triggered the vest to trick him. The latter theory was ruled out by the fact she probably wouldn’t have done that in her actual teleportation wardrobe.
Housing has two economic functions. It is a consumption good – it provides shelter – but also an investment. In relation to the latter, it can be a financial asset providing realised and unrealised capital gains and rental returns; a source of collateral to support borrowing; and an efficient store of wealth. The demand for housing as an investment can impinge on its function as a consumption good given an inherently limited supply of housing and land in desirable areas.
With around 5.5k cases annually, self-harm is one of Wales’ top 5 causes of hospital admission.
It’s clear that our mental health is shaped by social and economic factors. For example in England, adults in the most deprived areas have higher rates of mental health problems (26.2%) than those in the least deprived areas (16%).
In England, the suspected suicide rate was 11 per 100,000 in the 2 years up to January 2025 — 17.4 per 100,000 in males, 5.0 per 100,000 in females. The rate among unemployed people was 126.7 per 100,000. Men are around 3 times more likely to die by suicide than women — a gap that has widened over time. Women were more like to report a suicide attempt than men and just as likely to have suicidal thoughts.
At school I luxuriated in not trying very hard and doing alright anyway. Teachers called me “gifted” – a term that was, incredibly, written into education regulations at the time. They also called me lazy, insisting I had untapped potential if I would only apply myself.
Now I’m thirty going on thirty-one, almost a decade into a career with which I have a fraught relationship. I want change, and to get it I need to grow. Materially, I need to learn things: languages, skills. This year has been about discovering how much learning potential I’ve lost since those school days. What would have snapped into place effortlessly as a kid now refuses to take hold. My work ethic has improved a hundredfold, but my ability to learn and think has degraded even more.
I read 74 books this year. I’m not reviewing them all; I don’t remember them all. However, a few of them stuck with me for various reasons: The Golden Notebook, The Magus, The Interrogators, Martyr!, Money… It’s been a good year.
For the past few months the days have been long and dark. Somewhere in the middle there it snowed and it stuck for a couple of weeks, slowly hardening into sheet ice. We’re through most of it now. Last week, in the courtyard behind the apartment the trees started to bud, and now there’s sun enough to catch the green rippling along all their branches. Spring, maybe. In the dark months I kept my head down and worked. Ugly, stupid work. Pointless work. Now just as spring comes I’m sick.
Berlin has cash only bars, stickers to put over your phone’s camera before you can come into the party, and a strong poster culture. The surfaces of the city are covered in a growing, shedding, and regenerating skin of posters. Most are good. Here are the ones I liked this year.
Notes from a really damn good issue of Granta about Germany. Featuring non-fiction by Alexander Kluge, Peter Handke, Fredric Jameson, Lauren Oyler, Michael Hofmann, Peter Kuras, Adrian Daub, Peter Richter, Lutz Seiler, Ryan Ruby, Jan Wilm and Jürgen Habermas. As well as a conversation between George Prochnik, Emily Dische-Becker and Eyal Weizman.
The world is enough to make you crazy. The city is enough to make you crazy. The building is enough to make you crazy. The way lint builds up on the desk right in front of you, given enough of everything else, is enough to make you crazy. I’ve deliberately contracted in the past couple of years. I’ve tried to become less of a jangly ball of reactive nerve endings. I think I used to be a gaping maw that inhaled current affairs from near and far and exhaled analysis and anxiety. I try to do less of that. Touch grass, if you will. I still read a lot but I try to read fewer feeds and more books and long articles. Is it helping? Do I still feel obligated to have a working knowledge on this or that current thing? Well…
