Future Proof Newsletter

Apologies for my lack of newsletters over the summer. It’s been really hot, I have a beautiful three-month old babies, and I’ve been applying myself diligently to other creative endeavours. As a result, I’ve actually (and quite reasonably) lost a handful of my beloved paid subscribers. Please accept my contrition, know that I am gearing up for a fruitful autumn, and take out a subscription to Future Proof so that my baby can afford socks.

This is an obscure joke about a Charli XCX LP. I hope it doesn’t get me banned from Substack. A couple of weeks ago I was invited by The Media Society to speak on a panel at The Conduit in London. The event was chaired by Ritula Shah and I was joined on the panel by Chloe Straw from Goalhanger and Adam Fleming from the BBC. It was an enjoyable evening: I have a newborn baby at home, so any opportunity to return to the adult world is much appreciated.

Here in the UK, news has broken that social media (or, at least, the websites that legislators believe constitute social media) will be banned for under-16s. The detail of this is a bit sketchy, but the plan is intended to be implemented by next spring. It’s a last roll of the dice for the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Stamer, who is extremely unlikely to be in office when this becomes law.

Just a reminder: I love it when people upgrade to a paid subscription. It makes me think very positively of them, and (briefly) myself. As a rubric for understanding my upbringing, I can offer little better than the image of a 13-year-old version of me staying up late into the night, eating Parma ham sandwiches and binge-watching boxsets of the David Suchet Poirot series in the smaller of our two living rooms. I adored that series.

The World Cup kicks off this evening and will dominate headlines for the next few weeks. In the United States – one of the three host nations – the show seems to be sputtering already. Sporting enthusiasm appears more directed towards whatever is going on with basketball in New York. But this evening, Mexico will open this edition with a game against South Africa that should prove to be everything that makes the tournament special. Vibrant, fervent, global.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) I’m speaking on a Media Society panel, at The Conduit in Covent Garden, about the future of podcasts. Alongside Adam Fleming from the BBC and Chloe Straw from Goalhanger, and chaired by Ritula Shah. Tickets are available here. In my guise as a television reviewer, I spent some of the weekend writing about a new documentary in which Gareth Southgate investigates the crisis facing young men.

For some time, I’ve been trying to work out why everyone hates Keir Starmer. The fact of his unpopularity is undisputed. YouGov put his net favourability rating at negative 46 last month (unchanged from April), having previously been at an historic low of -66. At the May local elections, his Labour party took a drubbing, losing 1,498 council seats. It has precipitated an unedifying leadership race amongst party grandees hoping to be parachuted into Downing Street.

A couple of years ago I quit Twitter (as was) after a series of unfortunate events that saw some of the worst people in the world publicly calling me one of the worst people in the world. I left before it was trendy to do so, which meant that I was looking to establish a replacement outlet. My choice was TikTok, where I started doing very low-quality, low-effort videos to advertise my writing. I chose it, in part, because British journalism was something of a laggard there.

I remember as a child going to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It came out in the summer of 2008 and I had to get special dispensation to go (because I was at boarding school, where such liberties are not taken for granted). But, of course, I was allowed an afternoon out at the cinema, not least because the film was perceived as an event.

Forgive the meta title that makes it sound like I am going to stop writing this newsletter. I’m not going to stop writing it, in fact I intend to write it more regularly and with greater enthusiasm. It’s just that I’m going to start properly charging for it. As of next week, I will be on paternity leave for a bit. I’m planning to take a couple of weeks away from everything (including this Substack) and then a couple of months away from specific things (not including this Substack).