🐥The Paradox of Now #16

Scrunch, Roll & Squeeze

Hi people!

I’m not one of those shower thought people. Most of my ideas come while walking.

But this one’s a shower reminder.

So next time you’re in there, half-asleep, serenading your shampoo bottles, pondering if you could win Total Wipeout, do me (and yourself) a quick favour:

🧼 Boys - Scrunch, roll and check your balls
🧼 Girls - Squeeze and check your boobs
🧼 Everyone else - Have a general rummage around. You know what to do

It might seem a bit weird, but this kind of thing cannot be said enough.

It’s not about paranoia. It’s about attention.

Put a message in your group chat. Something this simple could save someone’s life.

Cool, now let me give you a taste of what's coming:

🐥 A cartoon for the existential thinkers
🐥 The origin story of my love for Pokémon
🐥 Are the White Cliffs of Dover sweet or savoury?

🥚Eggstra News🥚

Your weekly dose of some fascinating and fun finds:

🌌 The Midnight Gospel – A trippy cartoon packed with big questions. Feels like philosophy on mushrooms. Weird, wise, and worth it.

💍 Serge Denimes – Simple, affordable men’s jewellery that actually looks good.

📬 Sahil Bloom – Easy to follow, great newsletter. A big reason I started this one.

The Paradox of Now

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The Proustian Moment

The Campanologist Within

The church bells ring.

It’s a Saturday morning.

The living band of campanologists performs for an unlikely front row…

The dead.

But behind them, the small village is slowly returning from the bar to sit and listen with a drink in hand.

To some, the sound is too much.

They already had one drink too many the night before in the local pub.

But to others, it’s a sign of great things to come.

Football training of course.

Curtains drawn back. Light spilling into the small box room. A single bed.

A perfect morning to put on your Sondico boots and kick a size three football, pumped up harder than you thought conceivable.

A singular beam of light reflects off a tiny glass Donald Duck souvenir. He stands proudly next to the bobblehead turtle from Barbados.

You still can’t believe Donald made it back in one piece from Disneyland Paris.

The turtle, though?

That takes you back further.

You remember the shop. The smell. The height of the shelf in which he was perched.

Outside that shop stood a man, barefoot and blind, holding flowers in exchange for coins.

Too young to carry your own money, you’d look up at your parents - your designated currency carriers.

Too young and naïve to know the flowers were taken from a bush fifty yards around the corner.

Your parents were wise to this however.

And yet they still bought them.

Every day.

A silent kind of kindness. A holiday rhythm. Good people.

Then on to the family’s favourite lunch spot: Bean n Bagel.

Yellow sign. Warm air. Friendly faces.

Cheese and tomato bagel. In the style of a margherita pizza.

You still remember how the purée left a metallic taste.

How the cheese never fully melted.

How you weren’t its biggest fan.

But still, every day, you ordered the same.

Too shy to speak up. Too polite to say, “I don’t like this.”

So you sipped radioactive-orange Fanta through a plastic straw and swallowed your silence.

(Sorry about the straw Mr Bobblehead Turtle)

Afternoons spent in the pool with your brother and his new friend, James.

You remember Reggie, the children’s activity guy at the hotel.

He would always be the goalkeeper when the children wanted to play football. He seemed near impossible to score against.

And yet… you did. Often.

Were you a Messi in the making? Or was Reggie just a man raised in a good home?

And then, one particular night:

A lemonade race.

All the children lined up. The parents watching, drinks in hand.

You were handed a drink of your own:

Reggie announced.

First three to finish their drinks won a prize.

And you needed that prize.

Mr Bobblehead Turtle needed a friend for the flight home.

You were sure you came third.

Adamant.

The crowd thought otherwise.

The disappointment still haunts.

So much so, you're typing this sentence twenty-three years later with fingers pressing harder than before.

But you’re not bitter.

Not really.

Because to end on a memory like that would be cruel.

So instead…

You remember the man by the pool.

The one who promised to post you a box filled with every Gameboy game imaginable.

You remember Pokémon Yellow catching your eye first.

How it started your Pokémon journey.

How twenty-three years later, you inked Ditto onto your arm forever.

How only now, in this moment of thought, you realised that was your first Pokémon memory.

You hear about this concept called The Proustian Moment.

You’re grateful someone gave it a name. These involuntary memories triggered by any one of the senses.

Grateful you’ve lived long enough to look back.

Grateful you’ve written it down.

Grateful that even radioactive Fanta, misjudged races, and metallic tasting tomato purée have become stories worth retelling.

Maybe the bells were always more than bells.

Maybe they were invitations.

To remember.

To return.

To find your way back…

To memories and stories more powerful than anything a social media platform could ever comprehend.

🐥 Haiku’s Haiku 🐥

A bit of duck-ception this week as Haiku finds himself with a duck, inside an egg.

I know. Mesmerising stuff.

What do we think of the change of the polaroid style?

I bet you couldn’t believe your eyes.

What a rebel.

What a maverick.

I can only imagine that reality around you is now all distorted.

🌴 Palm Tree Euphoria 🌴

A few weeks ago I had to clarify to my manager that I’ve never licked the White Cliffs of Dover.

Or a bath bomb from LUSH.

Why? Because I said Refreshers (the old-school ones) probably feel like licking both.

Which led to one of my favourite truths:

Look around. Try it. You know.

So tell me:

Mine was the radiator.

Regretful yet… honest.

And please keep it PG. This is a duck-friendly space.

See you next week Dashing Ducks! 🐥

P.S. if this licked your brain in the right way, forward it to a fellow duckling you care about.

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