we had a very gentle design team meeting this morning, not least because it was the design team Christmas party last night. passing a panettone around in a circle the morning after the night before felt like about the right level for me today.
finished Girl, Woman, Other and it was brilliant. best thing I’ve read all year. it’s out in paperback in March so bags yourself a copy then. did I mention I got it from the library? all the copies were out when I wanted to borrow it, so I paid a whopping 50p to reserve it, then got an email when it came back in stock. 50p! and I don’t have to find bookshelf space to store it when I’m finished!
next up is How To Do Nothing by Jenny Odell. another 50p to Lambeth libraries, another book not out in paperback until next year. honestly. libraries are so great.
speaking of that 50p: I’ve been thinking about how it feels like a joy / pleasure to pay it, rather than annoying or “books from the library should all be free” (let’s be clear, it’s a 50p reservation fee, not 50p to borrow the book: if the book was in stock, it’d still be free to borrow it). that’s partly because of how the payment system works. it’s not ‘pay 50p and then you can have the book’; you can pay that 50p whenever. no chasing, no judgement. pay 20p when you get the book out if you like, and another 30p another day three weeks later. it feels non-transactional. when I first thought about this I had examples of two other services that had a similar payment feeling, and now I’ve forgotten them. I think there’s something in this though: the way, place, time, reasons that payments are taken change the way that a service feels. payment at the point of use and free at the point of use are not the only models.
going to Paris for work for a day next week and I’m reasonably sure there won’t be time to visit Du Pain et Des Idées for pastries, which begs the question, why go to Paris?
a new DM started on the team this week. everything is a bit easier already. thank you Rich!
got wound up by seeing a totally inaccurate use of a reflexive pronoun in some work comms because it just did not need to be there. look at this sharp increase since the 1960s! I don’t know why this bothers me, except I kind of do: pretending to be formal and getting it wrong feels quite closely related to the kind of inauthentic lack of substance that riles me right up. I should be more forgiving, I know.
New Zealand are passing a new Public Service Act, which reads a bit like service communities getting codified by law: it “will lead to the establishment of interdepartmental boards, or “joint ventures”, comprised of chief executives from relevant government agencies. The boards will report to a single minister, and will have the power to collaboratively deal with high priority issues. They will have the ability to employ staff, enter into contracts, and administer appropriations, and public servants from across departments and agencies will be deployed when needed”. read alongside this from the Centre for Public Impact. well done New Zealand: please continue your progressive thinking on what governments should be, rather than only on what governments should do.