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Hey Reader,

This one time, I took some magic mushrooms and then went for a walk through Birmingham’s evening streets and everything got brighter. Fairy lights were more sparkly, raindrops contained universes, and lights in windows glowed. The world felt more real than it usually did.

It was blissful.

In the car on the way home from parkrun last week, the sunlight hit the leaves on the trees and turned everything golden and fiery for a moment, and the world got brighter again and my chest swelled (not in a boob-job way, in an excited way) and my brain swelled (not in an encephalitis way, in a LOOK HOW BEAUTIFUL THE WORLD IS way) and my grin stretched past both my ears and out of the car windows into the woods at the side of the road.

I thought I might drown but if I did that’d be okay because look at the world.

Do you know that feeling?

Have you had it lately?

It’s awe.

A WOW moment.

I like to have as many WOW moments as I can and you don’t need magic mushrooms to make them happen (although they can help).

Because awe is expansive and generous and hopeful and it’s a trigger for joy and it’s a trigger for creativity.

And we can reach for awe when the world feels dark.

Wow moments. Silliness just because. Doing things for joy not for productivity.

When was your last WOW moment?

If you can’t remember, may I respectfully suggest that you take yourself into nature of some kind and look for one? Stare at a raindrop until it becomes bigger than the world. Stand in sunlight filtering through Autumn leaves and boggle at the colours. Stare at the sun going down over the ocean (not directly into the sun please) and wonder where the path of light might lead.

That is your challenge for this November weekend, should you choose to accept it.

I’d love to hear about what you see.

But at the very least, write about how it makes you feel.

This wonderful fundraiser to feed 100,000 people in 100 hours

My friend Yinka’s husband Shola Ewuola put on a food event in Lagos last year, and hundreds of children turned up uninvited and ate all the free samples, because they were starving. Instead of getting cross, Shola built this year’s event with feeding those kids in mind.

Because no child should EVER be hungry, anywhere, ever. Full stop.

Should governments take care of this? Yes of course. That’s literally what they’re for. But you might have noticed, many governments are a shitshow at the moment and more concerned with taxbreaks for the super rich than with preventing children from starving.

So we do this.

Every £1 donated feeds a child. Every time you share the fundraiser, it might inspire someone else to donate.

Can you spare even a couple of quid? If so, please put it here.

This TED Talk on why big tech is incompatible with democracy

Bruno Giussani talks about how Europe’s reliance on American technology has crossed the line from convenient to risky — and what we can do about it. We have more power than we think — the choice to spend our money elsewhere. And European tech can build for convenience without spying on us.

These good news bears!

Despite pathetic trillionaire Elon Musk’s best efforts, spending millions if not billions to try to rig the midterm elections, the Democrats swept the board in America. Among the newly elected senators are an openly gay man, several Black women, the first Muslim senator (omg Abdul el-Sayed is incredible I’m a fan), a trans woman, a Palestinian woman, and many more. These people want the world better for all of us and I’m hopeful.

AND we can now refer to Convicted Rapist Russell Brand which is how everyone everywhere should namechecking that walking ick in a fantastic win for women’s rights, at a time when women were honestly beginning to think WTAF at almost every headline.

This Very Gay Paint!

Speaking of joyful things, how brilliant is this LA-based duo of lads who are going around painting Very Gay murals and rooms and spreading joy and delight everywhere they go? I want them to paint my new kitchen.

This Mushroom Map!

Did you know you can get a mushroom forecast and a mushroom map and find where the best fungi will be and when? ME NEITHER BUT I’M SO GLAD THIS EXISTS!

I found it because Sarah was telling me about Switzerland’s Mushroom Identification Stations where you can forage fungi and then make sure the fungi won’t kill you. I really think the UK should have Mushroom Identification Stations. Please can someone reading this make it so?

What I’m reading

I’m thoroughly enjoying An Unreliable Man by Jostein Gaarder. I abandoned a previous book by him so was a bit wary of this one. But it’s a delight. It’s about a very lonely man who attends strangers’ funerals to connect with people, and also goes on word safaris because he’s a student of Indo-European languages and their roots, and it’s totally fascinating.

What I’m writing

Some new comedy for a new material night I’m at on Thursday November 12 in Hereford. It’s called Laughed Orders and it starts at 8pm. If you’re localish, please come along!

Word of the week

komorebi

木漏れ日

This lovely Japanese word means “sunlight through leaves,” that kind of shifting dappled light you get when you’re walking in the woods. It’s one of my favourite things and another of my favourite things is loan words, and I think komorebi should be a loan word we adopt.

Quote of the week

I wish you a beautiful weekend. Fill it with WOWs if you can.

TTFN,

Vicky 🫡

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