Week 395 & 396: grip strength

Sunday 25 October 2026

• After years of a using a temporary cardboard desk (something like this but bigger), I got a proper one made of wood and metal. It’s Ikea wood, which is to normal wood what Pringles are to crisps, but who doesn’t like Pringles? It’s a large improvement, probably unsurprisingly. A larger desk than I’d have chosen if I’d double-checked the measurements, but that means the chair fits underneath more easily, so in practice it takes up less space, and that could be a metaphor for something, I don’t know what.

  First time using the Muji screwdriver set with the handle at 90° for extra torque.

• The ongoing bicycle project has reached an impasse: the expander cone bolt is stuck, and it’s a part they don’t make any more which makes destructive options extra unappealing. People recommend diesel for unseizing bolts, it would be against all sorts of fire safety regulations, and where do you get a cupful of diesel? But I’ve got it marinating in WD40, after realising that the thread goes into the cone a long way down at the bottom of the bolt so you need to turn the bike upside down, and perhaps I’ll invite people to have a go at unscrewing it, like Excalibur or the Seinfeld pickle jar.

  That and a jar of mayonnaise has me slightly concerned that my grip strength, which I’ve never found lacking before, is actually lacking. It would be a great tonic if someone else said they too find Stokes mayonnaise jars, with their cruelly sharp-edged lids, unusually hard to open – I hoped the few negative customer reviews would reassure me, but they’re all on about seed oils instead.

• Paul Foot’s The Future.

• 🎦 Digger. Verity. The Social Reckoning (“they used mousse?”).