Well….turns out there’s a lot of us ‘analogue’ people out there! After yesterday’s post I had some great suggestions of the power of using pen and paper and one that was a new one for me:

“My phone turns grayscale from 9-7”

As someone who knows the reason games like Royal Match are so appealing (yes I have got it, and yes I am about to delete it) is because of the pretty visuals, I love the idea of making the phone less of a precious jewel. So, if you want to keep your apps intact but also want to try to reduce your screen time, I’d recommend heading to your accessibility settings and switching grayscale/greyscale on – as you can see by the below, Royal Match doesn’t look quite so appealing in fifty shades of grey 😉

Add a book to your bag

The same person (thanks Georgina!) also offered another tip – to put a book in your bag. As an avid ‘before bed’ reader and someone who devours books on holiday I thought this was an awesome shout. My bag is capacious enough for more than one paperback so that’s me throwing one in with the purse (I have been told this too is a very ‘analogue’ approach to life when it’s possible to pay for everything via your phone or watch), the phone, the keys that I can never find and tissues and hand sanitiser that I now always carry with me and which came to the absolute rescue after someone threw up behind my daughter just prior to us waiting for our plane to take off on our first (and greatly anticipated) foreign holiday in many years. I’ve heard of ‘nervous fliers’ but puking before take off? That’s a new one for me.

The beauty of books

This brings us neatly into holiday reading. For our week’s stay in Spain I took the book Chinaman by Shehan Karunatilaka. To order it online in a way that benefits independent booksellers – head to uk.bookshop.org. I bought it for my husband because he loves cricket and reading and Sri Lanka. I also bought it because I’d read it was a blindingly good book and I love reading and Sri Lanka and wanted to read it for myself. Having been to Sri Lanka twice – once to watch cricket (and I can tell you that a crowd of Sri Lankan school children will out-sing the Barmy Army any day of the week), and again for our friend’s wedding which was the most spectacular, interesting, beautiful, full-on multi-day celebration I have ever had the pleasure to witness, this book was more than just the usual holiday fare of murder mystery with an ex-SAS man as the main protagonist.

This book was comforting, hilarious and surprising by turns. The way Shehan wove together caste, class and cricket with human frailty, friendship and funny lines had me absolutely hooked. Whilst my knowledge of cricket is minimal, I was familiar with the names of Muralitharan, Ranatunga, Jayasuriya et al and revelled in the memory of a Barmy Army song dedicated to the Mighty Muttiah (“Bowl, bowl, bowl the ball, gently down the seam…Murali, Murali, Murali, Murali, bowls it like a dream”). You can see where my brain is at while watching a One Day International.

A fight with Alan Turing

So that’s my first recommendation. If you prefer a book that picks a fight with you, let me recommend Alan Turing, The Enigma by Andrew Hodges. I chose this because I wanted to know more about Alan Turing’s life. I thought I was going to read about his heroic efforts and horrendous treatment (which I did) but what I didn’t expect was a book that was 50% complex mathematics. A quote on the back cover of the copy I have talks about it being “One of the most readable biographies ever written”. Well, if you’re a mathematics professor, that would absolutely be the case. If you had to re-sit your maths GCSE (as I did), not so much.

That said, I was determined to get to the end and was glad I did. This book provided incredible insights into the treatment of women, neurodivergent people and gay men. There was also an examination of class and the education system at the time which was fascinating and enlightening. So a hard fought task that was worthwhile and one for which I believe I deserve a badge.

For the love of libraries

The first book, I bought from a bookshop. The second book I picked up from one of the many ‘Wee Libraries’ that popped up around our village during COVID. An inspired idea and one that I know lots of other areas have – just a little box full of books that you can donate to or choose from and they saved my sanity more than once. It’s easy to forget how important libraries are when – for some of us – any novel can be downloaded onto a device or delivered next day. We need libraries and physical books. We need something that doesn’t require an expensive device, a battery, electricity. That can be dropped in the bath and left to dry. That you can pick up without being tempted to click on a distraction. That can be accessed absolutely for free. I wouldn’t have been able to access learning resources and quiet space for my A-levels without Basingstoke Library and who can resist the heady smell of a mobile library – yes they still exist! The Proustian moment I experienced when I took my children onto our mobile library cannot be understated. Once you know that the smell of an old book is related to the vanilla family it’s easy to understand why a library offers such a heady experience. Unless you don’t like vanilla. Does anyone not like vanilla?

Recommend a friend

I know people who will describe books as being ‘their friends’ so please – introduce me to yours! Turns out that a problem with my website design means that the comments block doesn’t appear on posts (it’s in the process of being fixed) so, until that’s sorted, drop me a line via the contact form to make your recommendation.