Life is suffering, and suffering is life, but on the other hand I watched 24 Hour Party People this week (a mere two decades after its release) and cling also to the Boethian Wheel concept of (paraphrased) sometimes you’re on top, and sometimes you’re smooshed to pieces, but it’s ever-changing and, indeed, inconsistency is its very essence.

So things seem better than they did last week, from my tiny, narrow, pencil-slit viewpoint; last week I removed my rainbow-coloured nail-polish, painted in honour of the Solstice, and re-coloured them all black, and wallowed in my mood, and felt better for it. In the river, one swimmer asked me what I wanted to do with my life, and I could answer in one sentence, and felt better for that too. I need to just crack on with it.

1. Have you watched Ted Lasso yet? I am delighted so many people seem to, but as this long, long piece covers, the marketing was terrible, no one cares about Apple TV enough for it to gain natural momentum, and the concept doesn’t really sell itself — football? with a clueless American in charge? — but my goodness. That linked piece is long and rambling, in the modern style of conversational self-effacement and verbal tics that make me crave the cool, clear waters of a Hilary Mantel LRB piece but that I also can’t escape in my own writing, but it’s worth reading for how well she captures all the issues Ted Lasso should have, and how it doesn’t just avoid them but creates something entirely beautiful and positive instead. My only issue with it is that she doesn’t reference the most obvious comparison point, which is the Paul King Paddington films. Ted Lasso is a moustachioed, six-foot, biscuit-producing American Paddington, in his total refusal to see the worst in life and in people and what that then does to those people’s expectations of themselves. Paddington now is a byword for empathy, quality, humanity and connection, but when it first came out there was very much a sense of — hang on, this children’s film of old IP is… good? Search Ted Lasso now and most articles have the same baffled but delighted tone. The programme is really worth your time.

2. May I share a meal that takes no time at all but is sustaining those of us in the house who don’t refuse to eat it? In a pan, slowly cook two chopped onions and four cloves of chopped garlic in some olive oil until softened; add in three tablespoons of tomato puree, some salt and pepper, then three tins of chopped tomatoes and a jar of whole pitted black olives (approx 160g drained), stir and leave to simmer; while simmering, cook a 500g bag of orzo until al dente; drain the orzo, stir in the tomatoes and olives, crumble in a block of feta, and serve with a salad. It’s super-quick and if all goes poorly and you make the mistake I did first time around and accidentally over-cook the orzo, you will have what tastes a lot like the world’s poshest spaghetti hoops. Otherwise, it’s divine.

3. As ever, 99% Invisible remains one of the greatest podcasts, but this recent replay of an episode on the UK’s right to roam made me a) incredibly grateful for that right, b) want to walk across the whole width of the country right now, and c) think about maybe mobilising to seize the land back off those landowners who enclosed common land all those years ago. Who’s with me, sisters? There’s really no bad episodes of this podcast, but if you want some other starters I’d suggest this one on the first-ever paramedics, this one on ringtones, and this one on how the medical profession changed how they break bad news to patients.

4. We received early copies of my paperback this week, and now a housemate is reading it. It is nerve-wracking, to say the very least.