July 2024
What I've been up to
This month I spent a week in Barcelona, where I got the chance to use my Spanish in lots of real-life situations, re-read the whole of ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’, did plenty of work, and – aside from all the time I spent on the beach and in the pool – lived as unlike a tourist as possible.
Output
The Kev’s YouTube channel is now a year old (boasting over 104,000 hits), and will include a wide range of exciting new features starting in August. Here are some highlights of the journey so far:
The next headline gig is still set for November 16th:
My guitar YouTube channel is also thriving:
Activities
My main professional activity in recent months has been a job in a law firm that I cannot discuss much. It has been a relief to have this discipline and the structure after having so little time in office jobs since 2018.
But my other activities are still going strong, including as a support worker on campus and tutoring Chinese:
Wider World
United States President Joe Biden finally bowed to pressure and stepped down as the candidate for November’s election. This means the contest looks certain to be between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump.
The outcome is highly unpredictable, and the choice is a genuine contrast. In 2004 (the first presidential election after I turned 18), it was between George W Bush and John Kerry, two rich men with slightly differing ideas about how America should dominate the world. In 2020, it was between two septuagenarians, both of whom had corrupt family members, credible allegations of sexual misconduct, and evidence of cognitive decline.
Now it is between a California liberal, and a man who is adored by God and guns republicans. Harris has never been popular, has achieved nothing of note as vice president, and her public speeches have often been comically vacuous. However, she is currently enjoying a bounce due to widespread relief that Biden has withdrawn.
Harris is also unpopular with staff, having an extraordinarily high turnover rate, and has shown no sign of being able to articulate policy ideas well. A good opponent would surely crush her in this election. As it happens, she doesn’t have one.