Walks

I love walking. Running gets the praise and the admiration but let’s hear it for walking. I took 3 weeks away from my desk to come up with ideas whilst walking and to do a ‘creative recharge’ basically. I know that’s a total luxury but I was starting to feel burnt out, exhausted and low on ideas. I made myself a list of podcasts, films, books, essays, you-tube series and art galleries I wanted to visit. But, mainly I just wanted to walk every day and see what it was like to come up with formats whilst not staring at a computer or dealing with kids. Trees and fresh air are the greatest, especially in London, and walking seems to allow the mind to look at a problem in a new way. So, here are the top 20 things I read/heard/watched. Do it up. Oh, and go for a walk. Back to the BBC on Monday but feeling super excited about my new projects.

1. I, Daniel Blake.
2. The Electric Typewriter: http://tetw.org
3. Zadie Smith, Roxane Gay and Joan Didion Essays
4. The Last Interview: Nora Ephron
5. Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed
6. Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl by Carrie Brownstein
7. Skin Deep – ‘The And’ you-tube series
8. Insecure (HBO series by Issa Rae)
9. American Honey by Andrea Arnold
10. The Fourth State of Matter by Jo Ann Beard (New Yorker)
11. Lenny Letter (Lit Thursdays: Magazine Articles of Yore)
12. Podcast ‘Dear Sugar’, ‘Zadie Smith on Adam Buxton’
13. Podcast ‘The Longest Shortest Time’
14. ‘S –Town’
15. Death, Sex and Money
16. Chips with Everything
17. Inside The Actors Studio
18. Hockney exhibition at Tate Britain
19. Viceland docs: ‘Gaycation’ with Ellen Page (particularly the stunning Orlando episode)
20. Chef’s Table (Netflix)