Someone whose website I follow has had a mildly nasty experience at the hands of what she calls a couple of British twats. Apparently two men (surprise) highjacked a thread in which she was asking for some specific help and advice to tell her, more or less, that she was basically stupid for contemplating the thing she wanted advice about.

Chris Aldrich has written a terrific essay that goes far beyond its title The Two Definitions of Zettelkasten. It sets out the long, often complex, history of the idea at the heart of the zettelkasten method: the commonplace book and its rich tradition. Chris’s corrective is absolutely essential and I hope more people will take note of it and stop referring to “The Zettelkasten Method” as if it were the tablets that Niklas brought down from the mountain.

People (well, a person, but still) asked about the incidental music in my recent episode on Mothers and Milk. It is my interpretation of one of the Child ballads, No. 40, The Queen of Elfan’s Nourice. How we got there is a bit of a roundabout story.

Perhaps I am borderline obsessive,¹ but I’m always struck when I send an email to somebody, don’t get a reply within, say, a week, send a follow up and then get ”Sorry about that! Went to my spam.” My spam filter is simply glorious, but that doesn’t mean it catches everything, nor that everything...

It isn’t a good idea to complain that someone else hasn’t treated some topic in the way you would have treated it. Nevertheless, I want to put down a marker. I listened to two podcasts this week each of which, in my opinion, left a big question unasked.