"All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered."

― Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

#AdventCalendar – Day 12: The Brawn

A traditional Chinese restaurant that has recently opened here in Milan has a section of the menu that lists “dishes we know you won’t order, but we put them on anyway”. I guess that would be a good subtitle for this post because, continuing my research on the traditional Tudor dishes for a historically accurate Christmas, an all-time favourite is the brawn.
More than a favourite, it’s an evergreen as it’s mentioned throughout at least three centuries, from Tudor’s kitchens to Jane Austen.
And it’s today’s recipe on my Patreon.
architecture, engineering and construction

The Digital Ghosts

In Letters to Milena, Franz Kafka tries to name a specific distortion he believes is introduced by mediated communication, such as letters, then (already, in 1922) telecoms. Kafka writes this after a long, anguished correspondence in which he repeatedly doubts what writing letters is doing to him and

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books and literature

The Bicentennial Man (and other stories)

If not for the single story where they cure depression by blasting jazz against brainwaves (not how depression works, I’m afraid), one of the best collections I’ve read so far. It has the sequel of “Marooned off Vesta”, one of Asimov’s the best stories of

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books and literature

Rebecca Ferrier’s The Salt Bind

Rebecca Ferrier’s The Salt Bind is a historical fantasy novel, set on the storm-lashed Cornish coast and steeped in folklore, sea magic, and women’s lives on the edge of the sea. It follows Kensa — daughter of a smuggler and with a regularly-complicated relationship with

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July 11, 2026 9:00 am
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The Digital Ghosts

July 15, 2026

In Letters to Milena, Franz Kafka tries to name a specific distortion he believes is introduced by mediated communication, such as letters, then (already, in 1922) telecoms. Kafka writes this after a long, anguished correspondence in which he repeatedly doubts what writing letters is doing to him and

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