Gruum

I figured that switching to solid shampoo and conditioner was an easy peasy way to remove some single use plastic from my life. Gruum’s Revitalising solid shampoo bar is perfect for my hairs, which somehow manage to be dry and frizzy and greasy. This cocoa butter shampoo bar leaves my hairs soft, bouncy, and clean! Plus one bar lasts about 3 months. Cheap as chips!

Giffgaff

I have literally left every other mobile phone provider in a rage, but Giffgaff have given me only one cause for complaint in the six or so years I’ve been with them (their fascist policing of cannabis-related websites). Plus, they’re cheap. Why are you paying more for less?

Beavertown Neck Oil

I got turned onto craft beer around twenty years ago now, when I was living in Philly (thank you Dan). Trying new beers became a hobby for around eighteen years and I rarely drank the same one twice. Then I tried Beavertown Neck Oil and I realised that the world was complete and I never needed to try another new beer again. It is what a carbonated alcoholic beverage should taste like. Thank you for the comfort and joy you bring my tastebuds. I salute your excellence.

Pride 2019

When veteran campaigners say that Pride is now capitalism with a pink hue, they ain’t lying. In fact, I’d go further than that and say it’s the perfect example of how to emasculate activism through co-option. The pay-for tickets to march, the heavily restricted numbers, the barriers between the marchers and the many-thousands-more in the crowd, the way people were chanting the names of the organisations who paid to be part of the march (umm, hint, it’s not about you Corporation, Ltd), and the huge amounts of personal space around the marchers has hollowed out any reference to protest. You must pay to join the snake at its tail and walk through its fortified and impenetrable body until you emerge, bored, underwhelmed, and full of anticlimax at the mouth of the beast located conveniently far enough away from Downing Street and Whitehall. Yeah, London Pride 2019 is the perfect example of

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Using peppermint essential oil in the steam room

Imagine you went to Brighton four years ago and bought a stick of rock which you had a little lick and gnaw of before putting in a drawer without bothering to wrap it back up. Then, one night, you were fishing about looking for some such essential item and you come across the dirty, still slightly sticky, old piece of rock and you gingerly have a sniff. That’s what using peppermint essential oil in the steam room smells like.