The Swipe Volume 3 Chapter 16
We’ve been on us holidays. Still unpacking, both mentally and physically. There will be more about the whole experience next week in a diversion from the norm. But today here’s your expected slumgullion of goods and services.
Wherever you are, whenever you are, however you are, welcome to The Swipe.
Rob is reading…
Dead Ground by M.W. Craven. A recommendation from one of my sources, this is the fourth in the Washington Poe series. Craven specialises in twisty turny murder mysteries which end up 180 degrees from where they started. All of which is fine, but you have a lot of sitting down while the detective tells the murderer how he did it. Perfectly entertaining, and Poe and his sidekick Tilly Bradshaw make for an interesting diversion from the norm. Definitely worth the £2 spend in a National Trust book nook, but I didn’t feel the urge to bring it home with me.
Rob is watching…
The Shepherdess And The Chimney Sweep, the most influential animated film you’ve never heard of. The craft and art on display in this 1950s French film still looks beautifully fresh today. There’s a link to an Internet Archive dubbed version which makes for very good use of an hour.
Rob is listening…
to The Del Fuegos. This sort of music, garage rock with a hit of Americana and no concessions to keeping things civilised, always brings me out in smiles and goosebumps. A similar vibe on this side of the Atlantic would be the pub rockers and blues thugs of the mid-70s like Nine Below Zero and Dr. Feelgood. The kind of band who would start a fight then play an encore.
Rob is eating…
Ditalini with peas. There’s something about this simple, stocky dish of veg and stubby pasta which feels right on the money at the time of writing. Seasonality makes a lot of sense, and when you can throw dinner together with a limited set of ingredients in a short period of time—well, why wouldn’t you?
Rob’s Low-Key Obsession Of The Week…
As a sidebar, I have too much stuff.
Animation art director Catriona Drummond talks about her time on one of the most famous animation shows out there. She takes us backstage for all the glamorous details. Spoiler: there is no glamour. I have no idea why anyone would become an animator—it’s a grind.
This is a weird one. MacKenzie Chung Fegan is the restaurant critic for the San Francisco Chronicle. She went for dinner at The French Laundry, a top ten destination for all foodies. Not in her official capacity, and under a pseudonym. Events take an odder and odder turn from there. For me, neither party comes out of this well—Keller for his contradictory behaviour, Chung Fegan for doing exactly what Keller feared she would.
I loved this eulogy for jazz critic Stanley Crouch, a man who loved to argue about music as much as he listened and wrote about it. Clearly obnoxious and irritating, but I somehow warmed to Crouch in the course of the article. The guy had standards, certainly, and stood by them to the bitter end.
The story of the sample rights battle over Bitter Suite Symphony, the one song you know from The Verve. I hadn’t realised how predatory Allen Klein was over the issue. It’s pleasing that the gents who actually wrote the song did the right thing in the end, but it seems to me Klein deliberately laid traps and waited for less unprincipled musicians to set them off.
Max Read lays out the ground rules for a very particular type of SF. I’m pretty fond of this sort of work—Dave Hutchinson’s Europe trilogy drops neatly into the box, I feel.
No lead up on this one—it’s a story you need to go into cold. Trust me, though, it’s worth it.
Adam Mastroianni has opinions on writing, and he’s going to share them. A lot of useful stuff here, some of which I intend to take away and use.
This is delightful. Dr. Ella Hawkins makes and decorates biscuits. One slight problem—they look too good to eat.
Today is National Biscuit Day, and it’s about time that I populated this account with biscuit (cookie) sets from the past few years. Here are some of my favourites.
— Dr Ella Hawkins (@ellamchawk.bsky.social) 2025-05-29T07:04:56.531ZFirst up, a set inspired by the delicious designs of William Morris and John Henry Dearle.
On the design language of pubs. I am very familiar with and extremely fond of this aesthetic. Let’s just say over the years I have immersed myself fully at the source.
One last thing. I’m behind the curve on this, I’m sure. But gods damn, melon with a hit of Taijin is the bomb.
Tangy, spicy, fruity, cooly. The mouthful of summer.More graunchy garage rock, which was the soundtrack to our week in Shropshire, from my old pals The Georgia Satellites. Crack a beer and crank this up.
See you in seven, fellow travellers.
