Reading, Watching and Listening this Weekend

Listening

I’ve been listening to an amazing podcast called Agatha Christie and the Dandelion Poisoner, free on Audibles. American journalist, Jo Nocera, travels to the UK to find out the answer to one of the most interesting cases of poisoning involving Herbert Armstrong, a solicitor from Hay-on-Wye in Wales.

Armstrong was hanged in 1922 for the murder of his wife Katherine, known as Kitty. Protesting his innocence from the start of the investigation until right before his death, it becomes obvious that things were not as clear cut as they seemed. Nocera visits the house they both lived in, speaks to a variety of experts and retrospectively explores the evidence which sent Armstrong to the gallows.

He also interweaves the story of Agatha Christie, the events in her own life which set her up to become the writer she was, and specifically the links between the real life drama of Armstrong and his wife Kitty and her own book called The Cornish Mystery. It is very well done and I highly recommend!

Reading

I have just finished On Writing by Stephen King, a book apparently all about writing. This was a misnomer. The first part, and what makes up more than half the book, is autobiographical. Now, it’s interesting autobiographical writing, after all Stephen King is pretty good at spinning a yarn, and a book in which he is the main character is no exception. It’s just, I kept wondering where the writing about, well, writing would begin.

When it did, and it does eventually, it is not to be missed. Some of the advice is controversial, which he happily admits, and it is here that I realised the importance of all that came before. He is not giving advice as a teacher or a philanthropist or even as a friend, no he was giving advice as a writer. This might not sound too stunning a revelation, but it really is. He points out himself that most books about writing are not written by multiple best-seller authors. He does not give typical instruction. Once again, he weaves multiple stories into his rhetoric about writing, which it slowly dawned on me were utter gems.

He laid himself bare in the first part of the book in order to give authority to the second part. He is a master at his craft and anyone who is interested in the process of writing should read this book. Seriously, go read!

Watching

Most of my watching this week has been The Great British Bake Off, as I tried to take my mind off various doctor appointments. However, there have been two YouTube channels which have featured in some capacity this week. One of which I have shared before: Pick Up Limes. Pick Up Limes is run by Nadia, one of the most likeable YouTubers and nutritionist vegan. Obviously, I’m not a vegan, but I love her food and the flavours she manages to stir into every single dish.

This week I made her tikka masala. Nadia makes hers with tofu, I made ours with chicken and vegetables. I used coconut milk instead of soya cream and I included soya yogurt so that my dairy-frees could eat it. In fact, it was both dairy and gluten free which is perfect for our family.

Oh. My. Goodness. It was so good. Everyone loved it! Go check it out, it’s one of the best tikkas out there and that includes the take aways I’ve had! It has around 25 ingredients, most of which are herbs and spices. Yummy!

Another YouTuber I enjoy (but only just recently) is TingTing. She does ASMR which is so relaxing. For those of you who don’t know what ASMR is it is the tingles you can get when someone, for example, brushes your hair. It has been found that these tingles are very good relaxation aids and much research has been done into different ways to achieve them.

I got to know about them in my quest to fall asleep. Now, I have to be honest here and say that, over time, I have found an audio book to be more helpful at getting me to sleep but ASMR still has its place. The reason I don’t sleep because my mind is so active. I have never really slept my entire life. The not sleeping is particularly difficult for me when unwanted thoughts (such as worries) invade my busy mind and dominate there. This can quickly move into anxiety. I seem to have learnt to control this by distracting my brain. This can come in the form of a good audio book or some ASMR by TingTing.

I do have to give a caveat here. ASMR is not for everyone and it’s certainly not something everyone is gifted at. There are many ASMR artists on YouTube who are atrocious. TingTing works well for me because most of her videos focus on sound, which is what distracts my brain. She uses different sounds such as tapping, a brush on a microphone, repeating the same word etc. For someone with a busy brain like mine, the swift changes of the sounds makes my brain focus on each new sound and thus stops it dwelling on things that might create anxiety. There are many forms of ASMR, most of which are not helpful to me, but sounds seems to be quite a powerful way of redirecting my thoughts and focus and result in a calmer mind. I use it infrequently as I find the same effect with audio books. However, sometimes, if an audio book hasn’t grabbed my attention, I may use TingTing to try to aid my sleep.

What have you be reading, listening to and watching over the past week?