In this show, we discussed with Restarter Dave Lukes the “Big Fix“, Hackney’s festival of repair taking place this Saturday, featuring a Restart Party, as well as bike, furniture, fabric repair workshops and much more.

We then spoke to Restarter Orsetta Hosquet about a US laptop refurbisher turned artist, inspired by the glitches produced by faulty video cards he was substituting. This made us think about perfection and appreciating faults, when possible.  But this story also made us think about the patience that the repetitive work of commercial repairers requires, which is why Restarters love the variety of gadgets they get a chance to try repairing at our events.

We then talked about the wave of consumerist events leading us to the end of the year, the infamous Black Friday and more. More retailers this year are announcing their special deals weeks in advance, even giving details on why it’s better to shop in the middle of the night. We were inspired by news that Alibaba broke all records of online shopping earlier this month during China’s “Singles Day”. Orsetta shared her experience working in a large store during sales: people’s anxiety and often buying products they don’t really need, just because they’re on sale.

For background reading, in order of our discussion:

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