EXCUSES AND HALF TRUTHS

We’ve lived in Reading for over twenty years, and yet somehow the influx of younglings for the Reading Festival takes us by surprise every August Bank Holiday Weekend. The event has changed a lot over the years—far less rock and indie oriented, much more attuned to a young audience readying for college and uni who like their pop, dance and rap.

It’s bigger than ever, with an estimated attendance of 100,000 festival-goers over the weekend. I haven’t been in years, but always enjoy seeing the kids with their huge rollie suitcases and rucksacks, utterly unprepared for the experience which awaits them. Looks like this weekend is going to be a wet one. That won’t dampen the spirits—sometimes the rain makes for the most memorable experiences. I wish everyone heading off to Richfield Avenue a safe, fun time. Pro tip—the big Tesco on Napier Road might just save your life.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.

The garden has suffered over the past few weeks, and we have had to be cruel. We simply can’t keep everything watered, so some pots and beds have had to be sacrificed to the sun god. We have to be practical in the face of the drought and a hosepipe ban which is likely to last till the end of the year.

Don’t think we’re admitting defeat, though. We’re looking to reset, retask. Even replant, getting some autumn and winter crops into a newly-vacated veg bed, taking bigger plants out of thirsty pots and into the ground where they’re far more likely to survive. It’s an opportunity to get more drought-hardy, structural plants like pittisporum and sedum in place. Gardening is all about adaptation, moving with the seasons. A change in the weather, however it presents, is a challenge we need to embrace.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.

I’m working a night shift this week and let me tell you, Readership, it is absolutely as strange and destabilising an experience as you’d expect. As an avowed and long-time early bird, the revised hours have effectively flipped my schedule through 180 degrees — asleep when I should be working, working when every fibre in my body tells me it’s snooze o’clock. It does feel, weirdly, as if there’s more time to play with during the day. I’m finishing at 5, home by 6, sleeping til 1 for my necessary seven hours with the rest of the day as my own. Is it fun trying to kip during an intense heatwave? Well, no. But physical and mental exhaustion have a way of bullying the nervous system into submission.

Meanwhile, I’ve invested in a good sleep mask and some Loop Dream earplugs to shut the world out. The turnaround back to days is, I suspect, going to be brutal. I couldn’t do it long term. It’s scrambling my brain-meats enough as it is. So, if this week’s Swipe seems a little less coherent than usual, now you know why.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.

There was a tiny wash of rain this week. Barely enough to wet the ground and fill the air with the blessed scent of petrichor. But it was a moment of respite from this seemingly never-ending dry spell. C and I have already started rethinking some of the garden planting, embracing the idea of more drought-resistant varieties. In our runway of a plot, marching watering cans up and down for hours on end is not the best way to spend our time. We’ve already had to sacrifice some planters, and hope that the new border C planted up this year will be able to cope until the winter, after which it should be able to look after itself a bit more.

However, the tomatoes, squash and cucumbers are happy as anything, and we’re enjoying the slightly illicit thrill of poaching blackberries from the brambles looming over from next door’s garden. It’s a fruitful time, if nothing else, and helps us to spend more time outdoors, off our screens, awash in sunlight.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.

Greetings from a converted wool store somewhere in Kent, where we are taking a very much needed break from all the stuff and the things. An increasing number of you are, in the face of spiking travel costs and the ongoing nightmare of getting through customs, cottoning onto something we realised a long time ago — the UK is a pretty nice place to go for a holiday. C and I are easily pleased—a few castles and gardens, maybe a trip to the seaside, some good food and drink, and we’re sorted. Splash out on a holiday rental and you can set your own agenda, come and go as you please. Why make life hard for yourselves? You’re supposed to be on holiday, after all.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you holiday, welcome to The Swipe.

Let me see if I have this straight, because it honestly feels like I’m hallucinating.

One of the most wily political operators of the last twenty years, a man who has changed the landscape and discourse around subjects like immigration and our place on the world stage, has decided to forestall ongoing investigations into his financial engagements by resigning the role of MP (a goal it took him eight goes to finally achieve) then recontesting the seat, despite that having no effect on the work of the commission. It simply pauses, starting again should the good people of Clapton vote him back into office.

That’s not even the good bit. The other parties with seats in Parliament have decided not to bother standing candidates. Leaving said wily political operators facing a contest in which his opponents at the time of writing are a nepo baby, a child Hitler and the breakout star of the 2026 political circus, an intergalactic space warrior with a bin for a head whose satirical swipes actually make more sense than most of the main parties’ manifestos put together.

I mean, I’ve got that right, haven’t I? I’m not just suffering from heatstroke?

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.

Well, it’s not like we weren’t warned.

As our life slides to a gently liquifiying halt thanks to the red temperature alert (including conferences both pro- and anti-net zero, because the sun doesn’t care about your petty human concerns), let’s find some amusement and pleasure in our newly-found status as a Mediterranean country. I’m advocating for siestas, amaro hour and a general shrug of the shoulders at the laughable idea of doing any work in the face of all this. When asked to drag your asses to your desks simply point at the pitiless blue sky and say ‘bof, c’est impossible.’ Them continental types had it right all along. We just weren’t built for these times.

We must adjust, adapt, reset but with a wary eye to the inevitable urge for humanity to exploit any emergency for the sake of money or clout. A lot of the safety and stay-cool advice out there is, unsurprisingly for ideas gleaned from the internet, tosh. Even the saintly Hannah Fry’s fluid dynamics lesson for dropping the temperature of the inside of your car down quickly doesn’t really work, I’m sorry to report. Yes, I was that numpty flapping his car door about in a car park on Tuesday.

The only advice that works is the obvious stuff—stay hydrated and out of the sun. In other words, be more goth. Draw the curtains, crank up The Cure or The Lost Boys and dream of Halloween. You know it makes sense.

Thoughts and prayers for those of you who don’t have a choice and have to work in this heat. You are the heroes we don’t deserve. Have a drink on me.

Also—it’s forecast to be rainy and damp on Sunday, apparently. That’ll bring the climate change deniers back out of their caves. At least until the next red alert.

Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.