Well, no sooner we’ve polished off the Christmas stockpile, it’s time to refill the cupboard with more frivolous treats. My top recommendation is Mr Kipling’s Easter French Fancies - basically a whole box of the lemon ones. Which are the best ones, as every right-thinking person knows.
No proper newsletter this week because of the lovely four-day weekend, and no newsletter at all next week, as I’ll be on the move. But in the meantime, some pleasing little hidden extras that life has provided. At least one of these will probably be old news for you but, for me, this is BRAND NEW INFORMATION.
Before I get into that, though a quick apology for anyone who got a duplicate newsletter from me late last Friday night - Substack had some sort of meltdown and apparently sent out everyone’s last edition again …
Puts you in mind of a train announcement, doesn’t it? All that’s missing is “Great Western Railway would like to apologise …” Ah well, no use crying over spilled newsletters. On with the show!
Mystery solved
I doubt many of us are marking Easter with Kinder Eggs, thanks to the massive product recall. But I did discover a fact about them - maybe you all knew this but I didn’t and it BLEW MY MIND.
You know the yellow plastic thing inside that has the toy in it? Do you know why it’s yellow? It’s supposed to be the yolk. Not only did it never occur to me before, but I just never questioned why it was that colour - it was just one of those nice firm planks in life: “The thing in the middle of a Kinder Surprise Egg is yellow.” It’s comforting to know there is a reason.
Green parakeets
I’ve seen green, ring-necked parakeets! In real life! I know they are all over London these days but it’s my first sighting so close to home. Some flew right by me while I was out jogging.
Oh, and on the subject of jogging, I’m up to five minutes continuous running now - which is nothing to most humans, I know, but for me and my dodgy back it’s a big deal. Encouraged onwards, as always, by lovely Sarah Millican, reassuring me and other nervous runners: “Don’t worry, I’ll be with you the whole time.” Thanks Sarah!
Another W1A moment
A couple of weeks ago, I noted the triangular-ness of the iPlayer icon and its subtle similarity to a logo featured in mickey-taking sitcom W1A. This week, I laughed myself sick when I realised that BBC Sounds’ new icon is almost exactly the same as another logo featured in the same episode. I know I’m behind the curve on this but I am a BBC Sounds refuser so I’ve only just seen its new look. (Dear BBC, please make BBC Sounds useable, FFS. Thanks, love you, byeeeee.)
So let’s all take a moment to enjoy that particular logo-reveal. Maybe one day, they’ll get Perfect Curve to make BBC Sounds less un-appy generally.
And finally, a sad farewell
Guardian Morning Briefing, which I was so proud to have helped launch, has closed its doors and sent its last daily missive. For more than five years, it served the UK with one of the friendliest wake-up calls in the news media. I’ll miss it very much and salute the team who made it such a joy, most especially lead writer Warren Murray whose cheery and occasionally silly salutations got us through some very dark years of morning headlines. TTFN.
That’s all for now - I hope you are all able to enjoy at least some of the long weekend and revel in the lack of Sunday blues. See you in a couple of weeks!
Easter eggs
See you soon😘