Let's get fed #3
Featuring the advent calendar every adult needs
Welcome back everyone. Does anyone else feel like they opened the first drawer of their advent calendar and their lives went into overdrive? Which is why I am scrabbling to get this signed off before catching a train to, what is looking like a very wet and windy weekend in, the Lake District. Regardless, here are some thoughts on the week:
Things I’ve seen:
This Tuesday I was fortunate enough to attend the 2025 Contagious conference, which for those outwith the marketing world is a yearly event celebrating some of the best creative output, and predicting the year ahead. I met some lovely people- including Ana Sianes Bautista from Limrick based agency Piquant, who presented on the importance of Substack (!!). Her talk enlightened me to the fact that Rosalia, before the astronomical success of Lux actually leaked a page of sheet music to her closest fans. This inevitably created a swell of excitement and fans responded by giving it a go. So fun. Shout out to Ana and her lovely team (who I press ganged into following me here 👋 )
The sessions were great, however my favourite was by Nils Leonard, from Uncommon, who is also one of the brains behind this frankly inspired paracetamol advent calendar:
Unsurprisingly off the back of this festive offering he spoke a lot about the importance of creating objects over ads, which in an industry that often promotes productivity (and selling) over craft, especially as budgets get squeezed, lit a spark in me. I was so taken by his point about the need to pay attention to every detail, and to make and create work that “becomes a reference point”.
Which I suppose on the point of making objects, and a slightly tangential aside, I’d already seen that Lily Allen had created Butt Plugs with USB’s of her music as part of her album launch and as of this week they are available to the public. Just in time for Christmas! I’d already been considering how this whole album launch was a bit of a stroke of genius; from announcing the album on the same week as the release, the timing of Halloween which triggered an endless stream of Pussy Palace costumes, to the loyal audience base she’s built on her podcast Miss Me over the last 2 years. I am and will always be an Allen stan.
Which bring me to this frankly hilarious comment under her townhouse tour with ex husband and the pop culture biggest villain of 2026 David Harbour
Clone is one of my favourite bookmarks in my bar, and essentially allows you to peep into a curation of another person’s tabs.
My friend Gabi shared this video which shows how the phrase ‘lost for words’ changes in relation to the language. This was off the back of a conversation we’d had last year about the novel Swimming in the Dark- a Polish book which I had obviously only read in English. I thought it was one of the most lyrical books I read last year and I wondered how it would be to have read it in the original language. Anyway my personal favourite here is “words run out halfway”:
Back in my hometown Edinburgh over the weekend and finally took a trip to 5th Season vintage and it was incredible. The owners were perhaps the highlight and I urge anyone that visits to go!
Looking for a little dopamine hit? I’ve followed Will Warr for a long time, and love how he captures the intimate everyday moments between himself and his son Fred. It’s such gentle, sweet moments which make me appreciate how creative and curious children are. Unsurprised that brands like Gap and John Lewis are working with them.
Things I’ve read:
Sorry but bio-hacking should have been the word of the year and I won’t hear otherwise. Why? There are almost as many med spas as McDonald’s in the US
Off the back of my Lee Miller obsession, which I was feverishly relaying the details over lunch to my Dad he brought Little Mouse/ Nancy wake to my attention.
Learned about the definition Juvenence from Pandora Sykes: ‘youth, immaturity, the process of growing into youth, or rejuvenation (becoming young again)’
Saw this on As seen on, and felt quite destabilised for about an hour:
I was stuck on an Avanti West Coast train for 7 hours on sunday so I finished Facebooks’ damning expose. This part particularly made my blood run cold:
Anyway I hasten to end on a bleak note so here is another note that I saw a friend share on their story and thought it’s a pretty nice little turn of phrase to live by:
Until next time,
L x