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AI stole my em dash

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admin

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July 31, 2026

I don’t mean to be bitter or anything, but up until a few years ago, the em dash was my secret weapon. Now everything’s changed. Like a magician who blows up the Magic Circle, AI has taken to copywriting like an iconoclast without shame.

No one taught us to use em dashes in school. I went through an entire education, including university, writing essays that never had a whiff of an em dash. That just wasn’t how you wrote. You used commas, dammit.

So fresh and so clean

The em dash was, before the advent of AI, the special preserve of the copywriter. Since ordinary people were never taught, and wouldn’t be so presumptuous as to use an em dash in their writing, it was the writer’s magic trick.

“Wow”, they would say, “you’re copy is so punchy. So immediate. We can really feel the energy here.” Yes, I am using other tricks right here, in this sentence, that are slightly less obvious, but AI is intent on blowing the whole game.

Now that a solid career built on the edifice of the em dash is being torn up by the Large Language Models’ insistence on using it willy-nilly, to the extent that AI speak and the em dash are now synonymous, the humanoid has to rethink its strategy.

Desperate times call for the en dash

If we are all iconoclasts now, then it’s time to play dirty. Dashes are obviously a more immediate and engaged way to write than the comma, the colon or, god forbid, the semi-colon. The solution is to get experimental.

What I always liked about the em dash was that it also hinted that you were more aesthetically minded than the average writer. It looks good on the page. Alas, such subtle shorthand for creative brilliance is gone forever.

I have for some time begun employing the en dash as my new em dash. Sure, it’s a corruption, but it performs the same function, and it doesn’t look AI since AI hasn’t thought of it ye…… oh damn.

Want more words – try out my blog on the history of zeds and zees
Freedom from pain

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admin

on

June 6, 2026

Photo by Lawrence Krowdeed

Many of us like to moan about the state. The government, politicians, the ‘powers that be’, whatever you like to call it.

It’s controlling, it’s overbearing, it’s unaccountable, it’s ineffective, it’s inefficient, it’s just plain coercive.

Stop telling me what to do

Many of us – especially of a leftie liberal bent – get misty eyed about quotes from the last of the nomadic tribes and how they spoke of contempt for the settled subsistence farmer.

Nothing would induce them to sacrifice their freedom of agency for the humiliating subordination of settled life with its overlords, taxes and rules.

But us moderns – in our wisdom – often like to think that they didn’t know the huge benefits of civilization that we now enjoy and often take for granted.

We’re living the dream

Given we have it so good, it’s amazing how much we moan. And it’s even more amazing how much time we spend trying to pretend ourselves out of civilization – just for a moment.

Gone fishing? Hiking in the wilderness? Camping when you’ve got a perfectly good house to sleep in? Sailing for no apparent reason? Holidaying ‘off the beaten track’?

It’s incredible the lengths we go to to get off grid, to imagine ourselves a little freer than we really are, to pretend for a moment that maybe we can go where we please and do as we wish without consequence or censor.

If civilization is so much better, why do we spend so much of our leisure time – yes, that time we are allotted where we can do what we feel like doing – turning our back on civilization?

Its discontents

Turns out there’s a lot to civilization that really annoys us. Timetables, commutes, rules, alarm clocks, overcrowding, garbage, pollution, offices, queues, ultra-processed food, mortgages. Whisper it, other people?

But the coercive state offers us something else beyond all the bread and circuses. Something deeply compelling to our animal spirit. Freedom from pain.

Ask your most strident anti-establishment off-gridder this: if you get ill, not a snuffle, but a really bad illness, what do you want to do? Fend for yourself? Or perhaps, one step up, ask your tribe to fetch the nearest shaman? Or would you like modern medical care at that point?

Still want freedom?

A huge part of regaining your freedom, of freeing yourself from subordination to the state, of truly getting off grid, is the process of accepting pain. That doesn’t come easy.

Our nomadic ancestors knew this as a fact of life. Freedom of agency also meant the freedom to live with a lot of pain at times. Physical pain. But perhaps they suffered less emotional or psychological pain than settled man? Who knows?

That is the elusive question that haunts every camper, every Sunday sailor, every rambler, everyone who’s gone fishing, even if they don’t know it. Did I lose something out there?

Still think you’re into living on the wild side? What about when nature is annoying?
Terms & conditions apply

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admin

on

March 10, 2026

I am updating my terms & conditions. After offering myself for free to friends and family for a very generous introductory period, I will now be placing myself behind a paywall. But read on for news of exciting extras for those who take out annual subscriptions.

The data shows that friends and family gain measurable health benefits from spending time with me. I relieve stress, encourage sociability and companionship, and my added humour can provide a whole host of unexpected bonuses, from a wry smile to full-blown laughter.

Hurry while stocks last!

For friends and family who choose to take out an annual subscription (note: this is a recurring subscription and will auto-renew on your due date. You can cancel at any time.), a raft of added club member benefits awaits.

You will be able to hook-up to a livecam of me spending time on my own preparing to spend time with you. You will be able to watch me switch my phone to silent when you call, pick my nose, compose a witty reply to your text, and much, much more.

Click for merch

A subscription also comes with an ‘I Know Nat’ tote bag, a Nat’s Gang™ baseball cap, and a Certificate of Authenticity confirming your ongoing relationship with me, personally signed by me. There are even a host of Nat’s World™ adventures you can join me on, available only to subscribers.

Now you may be saying, this is all very well, but what about if you’re my child? Children’s rights need to be safeguarded here. With that in mind, I have also designed a special Parent Package, where you receive my care services through a preferential loan scheme.

As a child, enjoy all the benefits of my parenting for free! You pay nothing now. (Note: as soon as you enter employment, repayments automatically activate on a per salary basis until the loan is repaid with interest, or you reach the age of 50, whichever is sooner.)

Talking of control issues, someone asked if we should risk losing control of our civilisation. Are we even in control?
Posh English baddies

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admin

on

February 22, 2026

Photo by Marcos Ferrari

I’ve spent the last decade watching children’s cartoons. Someone had to do it. And as I’ve watched, something has become very obvious. Where you’ve got a baddie, and no one else can help, there’s only one place to turn, and that’s to a posh English actor.

I’ve watched a lot of cartoons – from the old Disney classics to contemporary Hollywood blockbuster franchises and British kids’ cartoons, and across the board, the message to our young ones is clear: never trust anyone speaking in the Queen’s English.

Me? With my reputation?

I’ve traced it back to the likes George Sanders with his impeccably evil Shere Khan in the 1967 animation of The Jungle Book. But my research suggests that the Hollywood suspicion of a posh English accent might be even older than that. Certainly, they have now become typecast.

Consider Jeremy Irons’ Scar in 1994’s The Lion King and Gary Oldman’s Lord Shen in 2011’s Kung Fu Panda 2. Or Russell Brand’s Dr Nefario in the Despicable Me franchise and Richard Ayoade’s Professor Marmalade in The Bad Guys animation film.

Then there are the more obscure ones like Marc Silk’s Grandmaster Glitch in the British cartoon series, Go Jetters, who is constantly trying to take over the world a la Dr Evil. If a regional British accent crops up, it will never be evil, more likely funny or lovable, while the accent of the hero, especially heroic kids, is always American.

We’re quite safe now, honestly

This knee-jerk connection must presumably have begun in the American mind, perhaps as a throwback to a time when Americans felt put upon and condescended to by posh Brits. But it’s a connection that now filters down to every little kid on the planet who watches American movies.

The posh Englishman really isn’t much of a threat to anyone nowadays, least of all Americans. Yet this quick brain link between the poshest of English accents and low cunning, devious villainy and general moral bankruptcy appears to be as strong as ever.

Who is going to tell our American cousins that there’s no longer anything to be afraid of? Seriously, would I put a trapdoor right under the seat you’re sitting on? Would I? Who would possibly do a thing like that? Me?

It gets worse. Baddies don’t just have posh English accents, they also have a surprising amount of physical injuries. Find out more in How to tell the baddies
Does god exist?

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admin

on

November 18, 2025

Photo by Simone Secci

If this question has been bothering you then you’ll be pleased to know that, in the space of this 5-minute read, you’re going to finally get the answer.

I know, it’s amazing, isn’t it? All that effort expended over the centuries, and then the answer comes, without fanfare, in a random blog post, that perhaps only you will read. Surely, it’s one of God’s little jokes?

The answer revealed. At last.

Not so fast. Be patient. It’s only another few paragraphs until you can relax in the knowledge that has confounded humans since the dawn of time. But first, a little history.

So, we haven’t quite nailed this one to date. Everyone seems to have piled in with gods everywhere you looked. As early tribes, we saw gods in mountains, trees, the sky, the earth, the sea, the weather, fire, animals, you name it.

And then the Abrahamic faiths hooked onto the idea that every god that had, until then, been deemed to exist, actually hadn’t.

Wait, it’s coming…

No, all those gods since the dawn of time had just been made up. They were merely figments of our imagination. However, it turned out there was one god. In fact, we’ll give this god a capital, we’re so sure: God.

From here on in, apart from a few notable outliers, humanity became convinced there was one God. We couldn’t absolutely agree on a name, but as this is an English language blog, we’ll call him (it? her? don’t be crazy) God.

Then some humans thought some more and came to a new realization: there were in fact not loads of gods, nor even one God. In truth, there were no gods or God at all. The existence we had pinned everything on had been a lie.

OK, you’ve been patient…reward time.

Of course, that wasn’t the end of the discussion. In fact, the heated question of whether God or gods exist has continued with much energy to the very present moment.

But wait…

Let’s think about this for a moment: if God or gods do not exist, then our deciding they did, then deciding they didn’t, but one did, then speculating that maybe that one didn’t after all, then becoming adamant that it didn’t, and then getting cold feet again, would have what effect?

None whatsoever. In a godless universe, everything was just as it was, apart from what went on in our human minds.

And let’s invert that: if God or gods do exist, then our deciding they did, then deciding they didn’t, but one did, then speculating that maybe that one didn’t after all, then becoming adamant that it didn’t, and then getting cold feet again, would have what effect?

None whatsoever. In God-filled universe, everything was just as it was, apart from what went on in our human minds.

So, the answer, perhaps frustratingly for those of you who have ploughed doggedly on with this blog in the hope of a big win, is that the answer is irrelevant.

The true state of things is unaffected by the vagaries of such questions existing in my mind or any other human mind that may be engaging with this question.

And so, the pertinent question becomes: to what extent does what we believe matter to the existence of the universe? And if it doesn’t really matter one iota, then we can all relax, and go on believing whatever we each choose to believe, safe in the knowledge that it won’t make any difference.

And if that was too much God for one day, what you need is some cricket: Tailenders make cricket great.
Your phone knows best

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admin

on

June 2, 2025

Photo by Uwukuri Emery

My new phone says ’Good morning’ to me. I didn’t ask it to, it just started doing it. It’s something to do with the alarm, which can only be set once you’ve set up the Health section of the phone.

It involves setting a Sleep Schedule – something else I didn’t ask it to do. I felt it as an impertinence on the part of the technology. If I want a Sleep Schedule, I’ll plan one. I don’t need to be cajoled by my phone.

My phone has mission creep

When I first got my new phone, I was disappointed to find that it was significantly bigger than my old phone. Forgive me, but I recall mobile phones in the 80s being bricks. I thought that was something we were designing away?

Not only is it bigger physically, but experientially as well. That sounds so instinctively like a good thing, it could almost be a line from an ad.

Your new phone – bigger, experientially.

But is that a good thing? I’m not so sure. I want my phone to do certain things. But I realized as it said ‘Good morning’ to me this morning that very soon I will have a virtual assistant who will be telling me all sorts of things.

I pictured myself in my care home, years from now, sitting there over my porridge as my virtual care assistant tells me everything: what the weather is like outside, what the Tories have been up to, how much rainforest is missing today, have I remembered to go to the toilet, etc.

It would be terribly clever to have robotic assistance in remembering my bowel movements, but do I want it? Do I have a choice?

The moment the phone left the side table and entered my pocket, it could have been seen as an invasion of personal space. The question I ask myself is how far I want that technology to go in getting to know me.

There comes a point when you just want to be left alone – even by your own phone.

Less of the grumpy old man? Then perhaps, Are you a smartphone addict?
No stilettos please, we’re Swedish!

By

admin

on

April 10, 2025

Photo by Alex Hudson

In the obscure digital labyrinth of my corporate benefits system, there exists an opportunity to subsidise the purchase of a pair of shoes. All very good. All very dull. What is far from dull, however, is the veto list.

Clogs need not apply

A quick perusal of the list of shoes and their status is not only hilarious, but also whiffs of a certain social engineering inclination in the Swedish corporate psyche.

Banned are such innocent delights as crocs, espadrilles (unforgivable), flipflops, galoshes, clogs and moccasins. A more humble, workaday and egalitarian set of shoes could hardly be imagined.

Then there are the cryptic ones. Why are pumps banned, but sneakers approved? Why are ballerina shoes banned, but sailing shoes, golf shoes, even ski boots allowed?

Puritanical shoes

While slippers are barred, roller blades are ok. And this points to a wider wholesome trend. There is a ruddy-faced gusto to the acceptance of everything from hiking shoes and ‘desert shoes’ to snowboard boots and riding boots.

Yet elsewhere, the heel comes in for stern attention. In fact, it is frowned upon so hard as to smell of sinfulness. Platform shoes, banned. Boots, approved, but only, the coda specifies, if they are low-heeled.

And of course, the dark satanic queen of shoes: the stiletto. What of its fate? I hardly need to tell you, do I? Wear them if you dare, but don’t expect a corporate staff subsidy for such depravity.

Feeling peckish? How about a traditional Swedish hot dog?
A dispatch from 1880

By

admin

on

March 23, 2025

What follows is a view of the world in 1880, as described by Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky:

“The world has celebrated liberty, especially in recent times, and what is it that we see in this liberty of theirs? Nothing but slavery and suicide! For the world says: ‘You have needs, therefore satisfy them, for you have the same rights as the most illustrious and the richest amongst you. Do not be afraid to satisfy them, nay multiply them,’ such is the present-day teaching of the world. It is in this that they see freedom. And so, what comes of this right to multiply one’s needs? Isolation and spiritual suicide for the rich, envy and murder for the poor, for though rights have been granted, the means of material gratification have not yet been prescribed. We are assured that the longer times goes on, the closer the world draws towards fraternal communion, when distances will be bridged and thoughts transmitted through the air. Oh, do not believe in such a union of men. By interpreting freedom as the propagation and immediate gratification of needs, people distort their own nature, for they engender in themselves a multitude of pointless and foolish desires, habits, and incongruous stratagems. Their lives are motivated only by mutual envy, sensuality, and ostentation. To give dinner-parties, to travel, to have carriages, titles, and slavishly devoted servants is considered such a necessity that, in order to satisfy this need, people will even sacrifice their lives, honour, and sense of humanity, and if they cannot satisfy it, they will even commit suicide. The same thing is true for those who are not rich, but in the case of the poor the inability to satisfy their needs and feelings of envy are for the present drowned in drink. But instead of wine, they will soon quench their thirst with blood, for that is what they are being led to. I ask you: are such men free? I once knew ‘a fighter for a cause’ who told me himself that when he was deprived of tobacco in prison he was in such agony that he nearly betrayed his ‘cause’ just to get some tobacco. And people like him say: ‘I shall go and fight for mankind.’ But where will he go and what is he capable of? A short burst of activity, perhaps – but he will not be able to sustain it for long. And so it is not surprising that instead of being free, people have become enslaved, and instead of serving the cause of brotherly love and human harmony, they have…fallen into disharmony and isolation. So the idea of service to mankind, of brotherhood and human solidarity, grows ever weaker in the world, and truly it is now treated almost with derision, for how is one to shed one’s habits, whither can the bondsman turn, if he has grown so accustomed to gratifying the multifarious needs which are of his own devising? He is isolated, and the world at large means nothing to him. We have reached a stage at which we have surrounded ourselves with more things, but have less joy.”

Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Karamazov Brothers (1880), translated by Ignat Avsey

Maybe it’s time to take a look at how the other animals do it: Nature can be annoying. Good.
Men, women and paper

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admin

on

February 11, 2025

Photo by Kelly Sikkema

It is often said that history is written by the victors, the powerful – and that they are men. But have you ever considered what they were writing on? Paper has a history of its own, revealed to me by Madeleine Killacky in History Today (December 2022).

Papermaking involved beating rags collected in the rag trade, before stretching, pulping, soaking, heating and drying them. Finished paper also had to be coated in a gelatin-based emulsion, made from boiled up animal parts, to prevent ink-blots. And most of this work was done by what Killacky repeated calls “low-status women”.

Highbrow and low-status

How many of history’s great historians, I wonder, wrote their histories on paper made by these “low-status women”? Almost all of them, we can assume. Which paints – or scribes – a rather different portrait of history.

Every narrative of victory, every male-centred gaze upon the great moments that have defined great men, were all written upon pure white paper beaten into being by the sweat of “low-status women”.

Hidden histories

This is not a unique tale, of course. That paper was made from rags, not trees as I had always imagined, is revealing of other layers of unseen history: that of ethnic minorities. Jews thrived in the trade of schmatta (rags), while their history remained hidden to the wealthy and literate of London and New York.

Paper pulp from trees wasn’t first achieved until 1800 in Germany. It wasn’t until the end of the 19^th century that tree-based paper became the norm, allowing such limitless amounts to be made that we could even start wiping our bums with it.

Before that, the laborious rag trade was the only route to a nice, bright white piece of paper, ready for the quill to hit it. I’ll never see a blank piece of paper the same again.

And fast forward to today – what hidden stories lie behind the ice white screen on which this post is typed?

Talking of words and letters, ever wondered where ‘Zed’ comes from?
Zeds and zees

By

admin

on

October 7, 2024

Photo by Zyanya BMO

English and American English have their differences. Tomato, tomato. Sidewalk, pavement. Trunk, boot. Thank God they managed to keep the alphabet the same. Almost.

They must have been kicking themselves when they managed a perfect match, only to come unstuck not on the last letter, but the last sound in the last letter.

It’s a telling example of the importance of paying attention right the way to the end of something, even when you think you already know the answer. How America must be kicking itself now.

Because for all the perfect alignment of the previous 25 letters, when they were delivering ‘Z’ it’s like they went to sleep on the job.

Zzzzeeeeeeeeeee

As we all know, it’s zed, not zee. So, what went wrong, America? Let’s find out.

It turns out there weren’t simply two options in the running. As with all the best stories, there was a rogue third element, and its name was izzard.

That’s right, go back into the yokel dialects of England (and apparently to some far-flung corners of Wyoming or Idaho in more recent times) and you may have heard the final letter of the alphabet pronounced ‘izzard’.

That clears up the derivation of stalwart UK comedian Eddie Izzard’s surname, but it doesn’t untangle the zeds versus zees debate any further.

Zed’s long lineage

We have to go back to the Phoenicians for the semitic letter ‘zayin’, which was later borrowed by the Greeks for their letter ‘zeta’. The link between ‘zeta’ and ‘zed’ is immediately obvious.

But it wasn’t that simple. Zed came to the English via the Romans. But wait! Latin had no zed in its alphabet, just as it had no zero in its number system (another story, for another post).

Nevertheless, the Romans borrowed ‘Z’ and applied it to their ‘ts’ and ‘dz’ sounds. The ‘dz’ sound being the derivation of the French ‘j’ that came to English before the zed did. Most European languages take their word for the letter ‘Z’ from the Greek root ‘zeta’.

And finally, we meander back to 19^th century America, where dictionaries began cementing ‘zee’ as the preferred option over ‘zed’, apparently as an alignment of the pronunciation with other letters, such as ‘bee’, ‘cee’, ‘dee’, ‘ee’, ‘pee’ and ‘tee’. As with so many American linguistic treasure hunts, it all comes down to simplicity in the end.

More treasure hunts? How about all the Swedish words in English?