I think I've timed it quite well. I'm not desperate to go home, but neither do I feel like I'm missing out by leaving now. Probably just about hit the sweet spot. Also, I really do need to stop eating pastries.

You are most kind. I'm sure I'll pop my head up from time to time and plan to come back in the new year, should the world still exist.

The plan is to focus my energies on more creative pursuits. I'm sure I'll pop onto social media from time to time, there's a lot of great stuff to experience here, but let's see how I do. A bit of writing, some fermenting and pickling, and finally read some of these unread volumes on my shelves.

I head back to the UK tomorrow after six weeks in Copenhagen. It's been a wonderful experience, genuinely fascinating, and given me a chance to take stock, shift my mindset a little, and eat a fuckload of pastries. And when I get back, I intend to stay largely offline for the rest of the year.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who was behind the times with this. I know her name, and I know she lied about some drug or something, but that's literally all I've absorbed about the story.

I see Tom Cruise has contacted the celebs on his coconut cake recipient list and asked them all to record social media videos about how good Digger is.

It very much has the same vibe, and it's the same team behind it, with most of the same cast, but I think the underlying story is a bit more intriguing and stronger.

Have you also seen Men and Chicken?

I am relieved to hear that.

Perhaps a nice compote or a pavlova later.

I hope you have a decent contingency plan for those raspberries.

The Last Viking is bleak and silly, but I found it hugely entertaining. It didn't quite come together as satisfactorily as Men & Chicken, which, if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend, but it was good fun nonetheless. Also, a real who's who of the Danish and Nordic acting world.

A translator friend who's quite a bit older than me dropped me a line asking about a publisher who had approached him, and it was pretty obvious from looking at the email that it was AI spam.

Okay, so it does appear that at some point in the ensuing conversation they will ask for a fee. I'm fascinated by the fact that they're approaching some really famous, well-known authors with this shit.

Sounds legit. Thank you.

Thank you. I assumed it was something like that, but they appear to be approaching a lot of well-known, established authors, so I'm assuming they have an incredibly low strike rate.

Is that so? I wonder what they do next?

You know this epidemic of AI-generated spam emails that authors are getting from supposedly publishers, agents, and festival organisers? Does anyone know what the end game is? If someone replies to one of these, what do the spammers try and get out of them?

This is fascinating.

Yeah, there's definitely stuff going on there with the themes and subtexts that just won't be aimed at me at all, and that's totally cool. I just wish there was a bit more plot.