first mulled wine of this winter

i started listening to Tortoise Investigates podcast on Neil Gaiman and the allegations against him. Paavo recommended. its good, and sad. Tortoise Investigates has other interesting topics too, im hooked now.

we hosted a dinner a week ago, inviting Gökçe and her friends Gülçin & Aykut. Dr made tacos and they were brilliant. 

finished this a while ago. the dark bits were challenging…

when i saw this puzzle i thought oh great, colourful and lots of detail! i should really know better. this level of intricate detail is a bit much and actually makes the puzzle challenging. 

random poster in the tube. London has these kind of things, i appreciate. 

there seems to be a trend “having a boyfriend is embarrassing”. i find it sad. im always the first to criticise men for various things (that theyve mostly been conditioned for but could make choices to improve) but i think that the trend is borderline misandrist. maybe this is a necessary phase to communicate womens expectations to young men (i feel this trend is mainly gen Z?) and maybe its not as bad as it sounds, 

 another work related thing that I occasionally think about is when I hear or read about people applying for “200” or whatever number jobs and not even getting any interviews let alone being hired. theres many versions of this, but the main plot is the same; crazy number of applications contrasting with poor results. i think unless it’s a very generic position, like a shop assistant in a huge city or a whole country, I think it’s unlikely to find 200 open positions that really fit your profile. which means the person in case is probably applying for all kinds of jobs they are not qualified for. it does not change the fact that its hard to get interviews or jobs, but applying for 50 jobs that really are not a fit does no favours, and does not prove anything. I totally understand when the job market is tough this happens, but if a company is looking for “a pastry chef with five years of experience”,  and you just got out of cooking school, and you apply… how can you be bitter for not getting an interview? i assume though, out of the “200” jobs, 20 might be perfect fits, and if you dont get an interview for those, thats crap and very demotivating. i hope to never experience that. my criticism was mainly directed at applying for positions you cannot be reasonably expected to be considered for. 

this NYT article on fashion week in Paris was interesting. 

this specialised book shop in Brixton village looked interesting but i was in rush and too aware of our overfilled bookshelves to go in.