Why We Need More Goats On The Moon
Or "How To Sell A Lot Of Newspapers And Then Run Away Really Fast"
Hello!
This is Everything Is Amazing, a newsletter about curiosity. And kindness! And joyful stupidity! And, er, pillars of light that aren’t actually there, and - oh blimey, all sorts of stuff.
(If you’re new here, none of that will make any sense whatsoever, and you should just go here for a much more coherent introduction. Sorry.)
The free, open-to-all version of this newsletter is still on a break, and will be returning for its fifth season next month. You can get an eyeful of everything we covered last season in this roundup post (TL;DR - everything kinda went bananas, which is why I’ve been taking a proper, much-needed holiday in between seasons this time round) - and I’ll be back in your Inboxes in a few weeks.
The bulk of this newsletter is for paid subscribers - some of whom have been going through the older version of my nonfiction storytelling course this month. If you feel like joining them, the details are here (although alas, that yearly discount’s no longer running).
But I felt I had to share a few things with absolutely all of you - starting with this table:
It’s the work of the father of woodworker & writer Callum G Robinson, carved from storm-felled Scottish elm, and - well, just look at it. What a thing. (The way the direction of the grain is being used to suggest flowing water? Incredible work. Get a better view of it here.)
Secondly (and maybe a bit tangentially): if you want to take the heat off your grocery bills right now, there’s an app called Too Good To Go that I’ve been using to buy unsold food from my local Morrisons supermarket at a ludicrously discounted price, and it’s an absolute joy to use:
As far as I’m aware, it’s available in the UK, Spain, France, a bunch of other European countries, Canada and parts of the United States (where it’s being trialled in a few big cities). And because of the mostly unpredictable nature of what you end up getting in your “mystery bag/box”, it’s making me a lot more curious about what I can cook! Please, if it’s available where you are, give it a punt.
So, to business!
Today, as a sort of sequel to this ludicrous story from last year, I’d like to remind you of that deeply special year when a sizeable part of New York became convinced there were goats on the Moon.