Hey โ Jamie here.
Weโre back on track to Sunday deliveries of the newsletter. Huzzah! Iโm slowly getting ahead again. It feels good.
Oh, and this week, I saw Malala. Yes, Nobel Peace Prize winning Malala.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Seeing Malala
- Articles & Guides
- Stories & Reflections
- Favourite Finds
The week's story returns to last year, to the day I looked at my dadโs search history after he died. What I found shook me. It explores love, parenthood, and the secrets we donโt mean to keep โ fitting for Valentineโs weekend.
That experience also gave life to the name of my next book: The Last Google. This weekโs story explains why.
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This weekโs article looks at the danger of moralising your chores: treating an
undone task as proof that youโre a bad person. Itโs a quiet habit that stacks shame on top of exhaustion. The piece is an invitation to put that weight down and live a little lighter.
Seeing Malala
โIโve crossโreferenced the moles. Itโs definitely her.โ
You see, this is why I sent the picture I took to my friend. I knew heโd take the situation seriously. He found her official portrait, played a game of spot the difference against my photograph, and reported back. I wasnโt imagining things. The person whoโd walked in, ordered a matcha latte, and taken up a seat in the far corner of the cafรฉ was Malala Yousafzai.
Malalaโs story is one that made waves the world over. You probably know of her, even if you donโt know her name. She spoke out publicly for girlsโ right to go to school, and she was shot for it. Not subtly either. In 2012, a Taliban gunman boarded her school bus in Pakistan, asked 'Who is Malala?', and fired at her pointโblank.
When it happened, Malala was fifteen years old.
Malala now lives in the UK. She won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 for her struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education. She continues to be a global activist for these causes. Sheโs a hero of mine and my mumโs.
'Get her on the podcast.'
'I donโt have a podcast.'
'Cโmon, Jamie. For Malala, you would start a podcast.'
Thinking about it now, my friend was right. I want to amplify the voices of the worldโs best problem solvers. The whole MO of Jamoe is to 'help kind, curious, and ambitious people find a better way to solve problems that matter.'
Malalaโs efforts, past and present, embody this through and through. Sheโs not perfect, but we need to stop tearing down those who are trying and, in tandem, elevating villains to positions of power and influence. Iโve added having a chat with Malala to my little dreams list. Itโs a motivating goal. One day.
Annoyingly, by the time I was certain it was Malala, sheโd left. Thatโs probably for the best. I'd been nursing a gym injury and couldnโt straighten my arms that fateful Wednesday. Well, I could, but not without causing a lot of damage to my tendons and sending redโhot pain through my body.
Iโd adapted to the pain by walking around bowโarmed, or like a Tโrex.
Greeting her with salaams, my arms Tโrexing, while trying to contain my excitement at meeting her wouldnโt have been the ideal first impression. Though Iโm sure sheโd remember me. Next time.
Iโve added a few photos from that week, including one of Malala, at the end.
Articles & Guides
Capacity, Not Character: Rethinking โDomestic Failureโ
At a glance
- Based on the reader question: What does the state of my home actually say about me when Iโm barely coping?
- By separating capacity from character, youโll see that messy rooms, dishes and mould are signs of overload, not moral failure
- Learn a simple way to read your home as a dashboard of what youโve been through, and to respond with smaller, kinder actions instead of shame
Introduction
Thereโs a mean story many of us carry around: if you canโt keep up with the dishes, the laundry, the bathroom, there is something wrong with you. Not with what youโve been through. With you.
Of course, thatโs not true. Youโre suffering because youโre moralising your domestic chores. You believe that your selfโworth is tied to the crumbs on the kitchen counter. You believe that whether you are good or bad, a success or a failure, is informed by your performance at completing your chores.
When life is going well, we donโt notice the weight of this shame. When our capacity has been chopped down by loss, illness, breakโups and financial shocks, and the chores get neglected, the weight of that shame becomes unbearable.
Fortunately, by pointing out the absurdity of moralising domestic chores, you can untie your moral worth from the dishes, give yourself more grace when life gets tough, and carry a newโfound sense of freedom into the good times.
Stories & Reflections
The Last Google (and Why I Write)
I already know the name of my next book: The Last Google. It will be dedicated to my Dad. The idea for the title came from a bittersweet discovery on his phone after he passed away.
When we die, we leave echoes. They get quieter as time passes. Lipstickโstained mugs get cleaned. Beds go cold. Clothes get laundered. Phone numbers get disconnected and reassigned to strangers. Recollections start to fray.
The night my dad died, my sister and I returned to the family home with a plastic bag of his personal effects. Wallet. Keys. Glasses. His phone. I sat on the edge of his bed, the one he and Mum had slept in for decades, and started chasing echoes.
I reached for the phone and typed in the passcode...
Favourite finds
Avoid YouTube adverts on iPad and iOS (tech tip)
The privacyโfocused search engine DuckDuckGo has a neat trick up its sleeve. Download the DuckDuckGo app, open YouTube as normal, tap share, and select DuckDuckGo. You can then watch the video in its own player completely adโfree. With the rise and reign of enshittification, itโs a small act of resistance against the extortive practices of big tech. Googleโs โDonโt be evilโ mantra is long buried. When youโre forced to watch five adverts before a one-minute video and then offered a ยฃ130โaโyear subscription to stop them, the blood does boil. Isn't that what gangsters do?
Scouted (local journalism)
Want local, independent journalism and all in one place? Enter Scouted, a nonโprofit website built by a friend of mine. Local news is the lifeblood of holding power to account, yet itโs often fragmented and undermined by platforms that exploit reportersโ work without compensation. Scouted pushes back on that trend with clarity, purpose, and charming logo. See the photos at the end for the muse behind it. P.S. I wasnโt paid for this shoutโout. I just think itโs genuinely valuable.
Jerry Has No Complains (comic)
Unintentionally, thereโs a strong social activism current running through this weekโs picks, so hereโs the cherry on top. Jerry Has No Complains is a short comic that wryly explores the cost of complacency and the uneasy future (or present) it might signal.
Key & Peele sketch (comedy)
To end on a lighter note, some comedy. I forgot to include this alongside last week's story, An Icy Start. Itโs a sketch by Key & Peele called 'Black Ice'. It's one of my favourites. See here.
That's all for this week's edition. Feel free to reply to this message. I'd love to hear your favourite finds, questions, and requests.
Jamie | @JamoeMills
โ๏ธ From a dizzly London
Find a better way to solve problems that matter.
P.S. A reader asked for a memory technique for remembering everyone on a football team and I had one. I've used it to teach students how to remember lists of historical figures, though you can apply it broadly. I'll be sharing that in a future issue.
