108: August 2025
Hello hello, welcome to Border Crossing issue one hundred and eight, I hope you’re keeping well and having a nourishing summer.
As I finish this, the Brighton Pride march is about to dance its fierce, joyful dance past the end of our road. It’s an unusual moment, because this noisy, heady annual celebration also offers my busy street a rare window of daytime peace: as with Brighton Marathon, they close the road to traffic more than an hour before the marchers arrive (and even before then, it’s very quiet today, motorists know to steer clear). So before it becomes the most hectic day (and night) of the year, Pride first serves up a traffic-free respite, gradually replaced with cheering and sub-bass. Obviously lots of Brighton has mixed feelings about how corporate it has become but that doesn’t distract from the magic in the air.
Over on Linked-In (and Facebook) I wrote a short thing about how I’ve changed my mind in the Green Party leadership contest.
Right, on we roll.
xx
appearances
Friday 15th Aug, I’m playing piano in Brighton accompanying the great MJ Hibbett to launch our new low-key collab, for This Machine Kills Wasps at The Yellow Book café. It’s a lovely lineup in a very intimate setting.
Saturday 23rd Aug, Jim Bob launches his Automatic album with a full band instore at Rough Trade East in London and for some reason there are still a few tickets left.
Fri 19th-Sun 21st Sept, I’m performing a solo Chris T-T set at the lovely little SeptemberSong festival, in Oxfordshire. This is a family-run psych/folk gem with a beautiful lineup, full of old music friends.
gems
1
Ocean Vuong on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
2
I don’t usually go for British comedy podcasts, but last week I belatedly got deep into Jessica Knappett’s Perfect Day show and there are loads of episodes with decent guests to wade through.
3
Marc Maron’s legendary WTF podcast is ending after sixteen years and more than 1,600 episodes. Marc is interviewed by the similarly legendary Terry Gross for Fresh Air.
4
Writing in his Octannual Manual newsletter, John Higgs has announced his new book Lynchian will be out in November. I can’t think of anyone better to unpack the profound impact of David Lynch. (Preorder via Bookshop)
5
What Rough Beast podcast, Virginia Heffernan and Stephen Metcalf’s long conversation ‘witnessing in horror’ the West’s decline, just published an extraordinary episode: Epstein and the Swanky Left Compromise is a fine bit of social history on what unfolded when a particular class of intellectual elite gained access to a particular class of power and wealth. Brilliant and horrifying. Partway through, I was imagining this as a whole book, called Edgelords: The Stupid Geniuses Who Screwed Everything.
potato gems
• Major potato headlines worldwide this week that you may already have seen: scientists have proved that potatoes evolved nine million years ago from wild tomatoes, via a hybridisation process, whereby the mixed genes formed a fresh lineage strand.
• In a brutal snub just as Edinburgh Fringe gets going, that city’s legendary spud spot Tempting Tatty has removed the “Richard Herring” baked potato from its menu (fillings: orange cheese and mango chutney, verdict: 7.5/10). The iconic mono-testicled stand-up comedian is justifiably upset.
project basic potato
And we’re done with the potato growing challenge. Big success.
I harvested
cooked
and we ate
our potatoes.
It’s true what everyone says: home grown potatoes are incredibly delicious compared to supermarket spuds. Perhaps the disheartening bit is I spent four months growing them and we only had enough for three or four meals, before they were all gone. It’s a shocker for an urban idiot like me to realise how much ground space is required to make growing remotely viable beyond flavour enhancement items such as herbs and spices.
I’m planning to grow green beans in the soil left behind by the potatoes, but haven’t yet got my shit together to plant them. I may have missed the boat. We’ll see.
•
get in touch
email: chris@christt.com
Instagram: @cjthorpetracey
always there
Could you benefit from a creativity/life balance reset? Check out my Creativity Counselling service.
Check out my other (irregular) newsletter Double Chorus where I write whatever I like about music.
Refigure podcast is back for series eight, with Rifa and I chatting about our adventures in arts and culture. Search ‘Refigure’ where you get pods.
My Pact Coffee discount code is CHRIS-A8UKQG. Sign up for coffee bean delivery, use this code, you get £5 off and I get £5 off a bag.
Thanks again. Please look after yourself and your people.
All my love,
Chris
x