Euan Lawson

I have to admit, when I get an email with a red flag stating it is 'important', it raises antibodies with me. I strongly suspect the person at the other end has a dysfunctional relationship with email and doesn't fully understand how communication works. Of course, some of this is just workplace norms, and people get subjected to this in their organisation or institution, and the only way to get by is to roll with it.

That said, I'm not letting people off the hook. It might be important to you, but did you even pause for a nano-second to think about whether it is important to the other person? And it's easy to imagine how it's used as a micro-bullying mechanism by asshole bosses. I got an email a few weeks ago related to a conference which had a deadline several weeks in the future and it had an important flag on it. Bizarre. Like I said, antibodies.

It also brings me to another point about email: has anyone ever received an email where someone flagged it as 'low' importance? It's possible to do. One might wonder whether the email needs sending at all but, arguably, it is commendably honest. I might start sending a few and see if anyone notices.

Some things I have done today:

• Enhanced my daily run with a little plogging
• Installed KOReader onto my Kindle Oasis (needed a jailbreak)
• Repaired some rotten window beading
• Sketched out a plan for a vegetable bed in my garden including: squash, courgettes, sugarsnap peas, and also spinach/rocket/salad leaves
• Worked out how to replace some rotten gateposts that are about to fall apart.
• Sat in the sun and finished reading The Damsel by Richard Stark
• Updated the CSS on my Bear blog
• Decided to move my Substack to Blot/Buttondown

More of a planning-day than a doing-day.

I live in a rural spot and I run the same set of lanes almost every day. Today, I got home, realised I want to do another kilometre or so and ran to a spot where a busier A-road meets one of the single track lanes. I deliberately took a bag when me and filled it up with rubbish. Been meaning to do it for ages. This has, of course, a name and we can thank the Swedes this time.

"Stockholm Sweden became the first city to host an organized “Plogga” in 2016. This event combined a jog, jogga in Swedish, with picking up litter, plocka up."

https://www.plogging.org/what-is-plogging

One of the book 'clusters' I want to get into this year is around academic activism. There can be a tension here, in some quarters at least, about academics having any kind of opinion. That's particularly the case where the underlying epistemological position tends to be of the die-hard positivist type. Everything has to be quantifiable and objective and adopting any kind of political position would be regarded as heresy.

That's not for me.

Which is not to say that I don't value high quality quantitative research, it's just that I think there other approaches that are needed to illuminate the lived experience and to influence practice and policy. And, generally, the suggestion that people are some kind of super-neutral arbiters of reality is for the birds.

I am not after topic specific books here so much as more general ones. For instance, books like Limitarianism by Ingrid Robeyns and Revolting Prostitutes by Molly Smith and Juno Mac are superb examples of academic activism. I'm looking for a dash of inspiration and a soupçon of guidance.

Anyhoo, here is the shortlist of books I have identified as possibles:

• Citizen Scholar: Public Engagement for Social Scientists by Philip N. Cohen (close to what I am after)
• Make Trouble by Cecile Richards (not sure this is right at all - but one I want to read anyway)
• Blueprint for Revolution by Srdja Popovic (more about social activism generally)
• The Doctor-Activist. Physicians Fighting for Social Change by Ellen L. Bassuk (published in '96 and might be rather dated)
• Health Activism by Glenn Laverack (looks promising if rather textbook-y)
• The Activist Academic by Colette N. Cann and Eric J. DeMeulenaere (possibly...)
• Reimagining Academic Activism by Ruth Weatherall (certainly seems to meet my brief)

Let me know if you have any suggestions - please do email.

I’ve been thinking about some plans on what to read in the next few months. This might be doomed to failure as one of the ways I manage to keep reading is by mixing it up - it keeps me interested and stops me getting bored.

I do like the idea of taking a deeper dive into a topic or reading a series to appreciate an author across a body of work. For non-fiction I’d also be keen to then write a summary, a short essay, on my overall thoughts and reflections. (Indeed, there is no reason I couldn’t do the same for fiction…)

I’ll post some possible deep dive plans soon.

Here are the scores on the door. This amounts to 616 books over these six years. Gosh.¹

2025: 88 books - 59 non-fiction and 29 fiction.
2024: 95 books - 45 non-fiction and 50 fiction.
2023: 103 books - 96 non-fiction and 7 fiction.
2022: 94 books - 90 non-fiction and 4 fiction.
2021: 114 books - 111 non-fiction and 3 fiction.
2020: 122 books - 119 non-fiction and 3 fiction.

Even this small sample highlights a shift in my reading. I was getting through a torrent of non-fiction until two years ago and then I ran out of steam a little.

Seems like I might not be the only one: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/dec/17/are-we-falling-out-of-love-with-nonfiction

1. I kept reading lists on my main website from 2020 onwards. Before that I kept records in my notebooks but I wasn’t systematic so can’t be certain of monthly and annual reading totals.↩

It has been a difficult week for running in my corner of the world. My efforts involve getting up onto the Howgill fells but this week the wind has been blowing out of the east. That means, as usual, it is cold and it is making running particularly grim. Wind has to be the biggest enemy when outside trying to make progress. It's not just the sheer physical exertion required to battle into it or the way it strips body heat. Neither of which should be under-estimated. It's the enemy of rhythm. There is little chance to find any flow as you are knocked about and buffeted. It's just a struggle and each instance seems to last longer. There is no quieting of the mind, no sudden realisation that you've covered the last section without noticing. Just grind. If running was always like this, no one would do it.

I'm tempted to draw some extended metaphor here - but you can do that for yourself. I suppose some things in life have to be fought moment to moment.