IT HAS BEEN a long while since I posted a new blog, perhaps five months. I think that’s because - like everyone else - I’ve been coming to terms with the ‘new normal’.
TAKE A LOOK at the photograph on this page. Imagine walking along this alleyway. How would you feel?
ARE YOU JUST sick of the news, or is the news actually making you sick? It’s a pertinent question in the age of ‘doomscrolling’. In America, psychologists are already talking about ‘headline stress disorder’ and ‘news anxiety’ as consumers wilt under a relentless barrage of negative news reports - true and false.
LET ME TELL you about Poppy. She was waiting tables in a London French restaurant when I noticed her. She was slight, very young and (as the young have a tendency to be) good looking. She also knew precisely what she was doing.
OKAY, I ADMIT IT, I have a problem with copy generated by AI chatbots. That’s hardly surprising, you might think, after all I’m a human who has written for a living for more than half a century. But, to be clear, I’m not in fear of my livelihood - it’s just that chatbot copy is so often very badly done.