Right, so here’s the thing. We as a species have survived the Ice Age, the plague, and the invention of the nuclear bomb, only to voluntarily wear shoes made of Lego bricks. In this episode of All Mouth, our host Dave Thackaray starts off by having a proper go at the new Lego x Crocs partnership. He reckons—and he’s right, by the way—that stepping on a Lego is the closest you can get to death without actually dying, so why turn it into footwear? It’s mental. It’s like wearing a bear trap for fashion.
But then, just as you’re nodding along about the foot-pain, he pivots. He’s in the kitchen. It’s Sunday in Oranienburg. He’s roasting garlic and onions for a ragu—a "Fallow Ragu," if you want to be fancy about it. And then he describes a potato preparation method that is frankly surgical. He’s scooping the flesh out of jacket potatoes to mix with cheese and put it back in. It sounds fiddly, doesn’t it? But he’s committed. He’s roasting empty potato skins like a madman. I respect that. I’d just eat the cheese, but Dave has standards.
The real meat of the thing, though—pun intended—is when he starts talking about writing. He’s been reading McNae’s (a law book for journalists, which sounds like a laugh a minute) and following a bloke called Packy McCormick. Dave’s theory is this: now that AI can spit out facts faster than a librarian on speed, the only thing left for us humans is "personality." Facts are cheap. The "vibe" is expensive. You have to add "dimensionality" to the work. You have to be you.
It’s a brilliant point, actually. A machine can write a recipe for mashed potatoes, but can it feel the sorrow of a burnt sausage? Can it feel the visceral hatred of a Lego shoe? No. Only Dave can do that. Listen to this. It’s better than working.