The Friday Thing #668

The sun is shining here in Seattle as I hit send on this….which I am very thankful for as another Friday rolls around. So here goes…

The Friday Thing #668 is going to spare you some of the long reading I did this week and keep it short and fun for this edition. If you do read one long piece this week though, I would highly recommend Adam Serwer’s piece on America’s Racial Contract. 

In other reading this week, the headline of my week goes to The Economist with “DIY hairdressers under covid-19 lockdown tend it like Beckham” which uses Google search data to show the lockdown hairdressing patterns. Next up are two of my favourite new Twitter accounts. The first is @NYT_first_said which tweets words when they appear in the New York Times for the first time. This is what the Internet was invented for – to bring us treats such as hypified, supinating, and saladgate. The second Twitter account is Bookcase Credibility – an account that suggests “What you say is not as important as the bookcase behind you” and provides a daily digest of screenshots from TV interviews hosted in front of bookcases which has become quite the trend. Here we see one of my favourite chefs, Marcus Wareing in ‘bookcase-situ’. 

Perhaps Marcus will get his own backdrop added to the magnificent set backdrops from the sets from vintage BBC TV programmes. You can apply these timeless backdrops to your favourite video conferencing apps and soak in some British nostalgia. I am torn between a cell from Porridge, a room in Fawlty Towers, a pub from The Two Ronnies, The Young Ones set….well, basically most of them. And I know most of my American readers are now baffled by this whole thing given questions I have already had today of why I am in a pub. Well, it’s Friday. For the Brits, prepare to be taken down memory lane with The joy of sets. 

I’ll close with one of the highlights of my week. For the last few weeks, my team has been taking turns to write an episode of “the Covid Chronicles” where we share our views on life during this weird time we’re in. Last Friday, Hannah – who is in her first-year of Microsoft’s 2-year marketing rotation program for college hires – shared her updated (fake) resume with its COVID-19 inspired additions. I’m sharing in full below….because it’s too good not to. 

That’s it this week. Have a good weekend, and please consider your mental health at this time.

More on that next week…..

-Steve