PicoBlog

This installment begins on April 18th, 1775, the night that Paul Revere and William Dawes commence their famous rides into the countryside. Their plan was to warn their fellow defenders of liberty that the British Regulars were coming "by sea" to arrest Samuel Adams and John Hancock in Lexington and to seize powder and cannon in Concord. Come with me as I take you from Boston's North End out to Lexington and Concord on what is now called Battle Road.

This is part 3 of a series on my month working in Monterrey. You can read part 2 here. In 1992, Billy Ray Cyrus released his hit song “Achy Breaky Heart”. In 1994, a Mexican band by the name of Caballo Dorado recorded a Spanish cover of the song entitled “No Rompas Mi Corazón” and the song blew up in Mexico. Like “Achy Breaky Heart” people began dancing a version of the electric slide to “No Rompas Mi Corazón”.

Reader, I love it when movies are full of irresponsible people. And everyone in Gremlins is so irresponsible. Mr. Peltzer is irresponsible for buying an unknown creature as a family pet. Mr. Wing is, quite frankly, irresponsible for keeping such a dangerous creature in his store. Mr. Futterman is very obviously irresponsible for trying to operate heavy machinery after drinking (and going on a xenophobic rant). And then there’s Billy Peltzer, who acts irresponsibly at every turn, from bringing his rambunctious dog to work with him (at a bank!

It absolutely baffles me how so many perfectly smart and capable people are absolutely stuck. They’re probably always talking about it too. Maybe it’s you. It definitely was me. But if they’re so smart, why are they so stuck? When reflecting about it, I realised my answer came where I didn’t expect it. A meme. If you spend much time on the interwebs, there’s a chance you’ve come across it- the midwit meme.

Dear Friend, I hope you’re having a good summer, and thank you for your patience with the slightly offbeat rhythm of my letters at the moment. As I’ve written about before, and as you probably know, summer here is a much more pronounced thing than it is in the UK because most people take several weeks off at this time of year. Locals leave the city and visitors from everywhere else in the world arrive in large numbers.

I am really excited to be putting out this interview with Oliver Kell, a renowned stock trader who made headlines in 2020 by winning the United States Investing Championship with a staggering 941.10% return. His strategy is based on the CAN SLIM method made famous by the legendary William O’Neil. He is also influenced by the likes of Jesse Livermore, Nicolas Darvas, Richard Wyckoff and many of the great investors throughout history.

Over the past few months, I’ve been working on a project in which the character and quality of vintages across the globe’s winemaking regions are described. The key to this project is finding data on the character of the growing seasons in different parts of the world. This is often much more difficult for older vintages. But after now having spent a good deal of time on this effort, a few things are clear.

Welcome back to The 90-Minute Movie! There’s a plethora of content out there you could be reading but you’re here, and that means something to me. I am so grateful for each and every reader I have! If you’re enjoying my work, please consider sharing it with a friend: Share The 90-Minute Movie Lately, I’ve been on the hunt for comforting television. The Bear was spiking my heart rate, And Just Like That… is lacking in several areas, and reality TV can get grating real quick.

Confusing, dehumanising and counter productive. That’s what I would call the latest assault on language suggested by a women’s cancer charity in recent days. Having gone through decades of stigma and shame about naming our genitals accurately as opposed to using stupid euphemisms, we are now advised that because some transwomen or transmen might find the term ‘vagina‘ offensive, upsetting, or exclusionary, we use ‘bonus hole’ or ‘front hole’. It quite extraordinary that females are being persuaded to change our language to appease a tiny group of men, simply because they wish for us to partake in the fantasy that they are really women.