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Hey Reader,

“I’m not sure I’m comfortable with ex-convicts cutting keys,” said my elderly neighbour after I told him why I love Timpsons.

Timpsons, if didn’t know, is a cobblers, dry-cleaners, key-cutting business based in the UK. It specialises in finding employment for ex-offenders and other marginalised groups.

“Why?” I asked him.

“Well, because a criminal will have my house key and all my personal details,” he said.

We had a bit of a conversation about the reality of crime, about how if we eradicated poverty we wouldn’t have a crime problem anymore (or minimal, anyway). And about how most of the people in prison are good people who made a mistake, or committed a crime out of desperation, or who are victims of their circumstances.

My neighbour seemed surprised that this is what I believe. That I don’t believe all offenders are bad people. That I think everyone deserves a second chance of some kind.

But it got me thinking about why he so obviously believes something different from me, because he’s a good person. A lovely man. So is his wife. They’re in their early 80s and they’re kind. They hate the current rise of fascism and the right wing.

They’re also products of the stories they’ve heard and the upbringing they’ve had and the extremely privileged lives they live (they live in one of the fanciest houses in our village and they’re pretty wealthy — they’ve worked hard and all but they’ve also benefited from everything my generation and future generations won’t benefit from).

Ever since Victorian times (not so long before my neighbours were born) poverty — and by extension criminality — has been seen as a moral failing. That there’s something fundamentally wrong with people who commit crimes.

And let’s be clear: we’re talking about socially unacceptable petty crimes, not the big, huge, galactic crimes of the upper classes.

People like my neighbours don’t see the whole picture. They see only the result: the young man jailed for assaulting a stranger in a pub. The young woman in prison for stealing from a supermarket. The person banned from driving because they had no insurance, tax, or MOT. The fare-dodgers, bootleggers, sex workers.

The newspapers only report that part.

They don’t report the young man who grew up in domestic violence, who never had enough to eat at school, who had endless failed job searches and tried to numb the pain of simply existing with too much beer and who lost his temper and threw one too many punches.

They don’t tell the story of the young woman who’s a single mum because her boyfriend left her, whose benefits don’t cover the cost of groceries, who’s always one day away from eviction and had to choose between that and putting nappies on her baby. So she chose her baby.

The driver who had no access to public transport, but whose minimum-wage job couldn’t pay for his home, his food, and his car. So he made the only choice he could see to keep working.

The fare-dodgers, bootleggers, and sex workers who are doing what they have to do to put food on the table and keep themselves off the streets.

I don’t know if my neighbour will change his mind; I hope so. I’m going to look for some stories of ex-offenders to see if he can understand how people end up committing crimes.

I’m not saying there are no terrible people in the world; of course there are.

But most of us are just doing the best we can, hoping we don’t make too many mistakes, and hoping our mistakes don’t define the rest of our lives when we do make them.

Stories shape how we see the world. They give us the whole picture and help us to understand why things are the way they are.

If we want to understand and be understood, the best thing we can do is read stories, and tell our own stories.

Happy Friday :)

And now, time for the Friday Goodie Bag — brought to you from a lovely café in Cardiff.

13 minutes to the Moon

I’ve always been in love with space and space travel. This year, with the Artemis mission, the movie version of Project Hail Mary, and my late-to-the-party-as-usual discovery of For All Mankind, I’m fully obsessed with it.

Joe told me about the BBC World Service’s podcast 13 Minutes to the Moon about the Apollo 11 Moon landing and I’ve binged it over the past week.

It is MAGNIFICENT. I love it when I’m reading or watching or listening to something that induces the same sense of awe in my body as I get when I’m lying on my back looking up at the stars, or gazing at a staggeringly beautiful view. I’m into series 2 now — about Apollo 13. The latest series is all about Artemis.

If you’re fully over all the nonsense happening on Earth, I recommend this to remind you of what humanity is capable of when we stop fighting each other.

Mark Manson solves anxiety

I like Mark Manson’s emails. You’d think he’d be a total bro, but he seems not to be. He seems to be a good person. He’s thoughtful, he comes across as kind, and he’s fully nerdy about mental health and living your best life.

When his latest email dropped into my inbox and it was all about overcoming anxiety, I hopped on it. Anxiety has been a feature of my life ever since was a toddler. Sometimes it’s acute; sometimes it’s just a background hum. The only time I’ve ever been briefly free of it was the first few times I tried microdosing magic mushrooms. That genuinely was magic. But it wore off and my mushroom supply got busted.

So I listened to this episode of his podcast and it’s great — no sticking plasters, just what works. And what DOESN’T work.

Why daddy’s law firm works with the nice oil men

“On a chilly winter night, a little penguin dared to wonder: if daddy loves me, why does his law firm facilitate fossil fuel expansion?”

Oli Frost is one of my new favourite people on LinkedIn. He’s written a children’s book to make a point. He’s the one who came up with Mumumelon to make a point about destructive fashion. This time, he’s taking aim at the people who facilitate evil but don’t actually get their hands dirty, and therefore count themselves among the good ones.

He’s doing it via the medium of books, so of course that got my attention. He’s not just taking aim, though; he’s pointing towards what we (well, lawyers, I guess) can do to change things for the better. Will they? Or will they, disappointingly but predictably, go for the money?

“It doesn’t matter”

Oof. My mum is losing her hearing, and I’ve said this to her before. So has everyone else around her. And I didn’t think much of it; after all, if what I said was of no consequence, it didn’t seem like it mattered enough to repeat it.

But it does matter because our experience is made up of all the things we see and hear, however inconsequential. Mum is missing out on a bunch of stuff because I couldn’t be arsed to repeat myself.

And the realisation came to me through this advertising campaign for Deaf Awareness Week. Instead of talking about vague abstract concepts, the campaign focused on a specific tiny behaviour we can change, that will make a huge difference to deaf people.

That’s a lesson: specific beats vague EVERY TIME. In our stories, in our marketing, in our instructions… everywhere.

Victor Borge: the Clown Prince of Denmark

And now for some comedy — with not a word spoken. Victor Borge was a master of physical and musical comedy, and it’s so interesting to watch for what makes something funny. The other interesting thing? I suspect this transcends language and culture. Comedy brings us together.

What I’m reading

I’ve just started the audiobook of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation. I found the TV series confusing. I found the first five minutes of this book confusing. I find the narrator fully irritating. But we’re only 20 minutes in so I’m gonna give it more of a chance because I know it’s absolutely classic sci-fi. I’ll let you know.

I’ve almost finished The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks, which is an interesting look at what’s holding us back from greatness. I’ll probably need to read it again after I’ve finished and make notes, but it’s already made a difference to my day-to-day mindset and behaviour.

What I’m writing

Okay. Here is my pledge to you and to me in public. By next Friday, I will have a clear idea of what my next book is for, and who, and why. I’m going round in circles at the moment and it’s time to make a decision. Its working title is Late to the Party and it’s about being a late-diagnosed autistic woman. That’s as far as I’ve got so far.

I know I want it to be funny. I want it help people feel seen. I want it to help people understand me. And I want it to be more far-reaching than that. But I’m not sure how yet. Watch this space.

Word of the week

fugacious

Fleeting; disappearing after a short time.

My feelings about bananas are fugacious. But they always come back when presented, once again, with a banana.

Use it in a sentence today!

Quote of the week

Have a magnificent weekend and thank you for being here.

TTFN,

Vicky 🫡

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