Ted Lasso

May 23, 2021

May I recommend

The Apple TV show, Ted Lasso.

Look, I feel bad because I should have told you guys about this show (if you haven’t already watched it) the instant I started this newsletter, but it didn’t occur to me. It’s fine. There are more of you now, anyway.

So, watch this show. It features Jason Sudeikis, who everyone (me) gets mixed up with Ed Helms, but who is a handsomer less stressed out Ed Helms. He was in that movie with Jennifer Aniston that one time? Anyway, he plays an American football (regular) coach who goes to England to coach a football (soccer) team.

What the hell, Amy?! I hate sports and sports movies and I turn the radio off for the five minutes where they talk about sports at the top of every hour. I do not want to watch that show. Also, football (soccer) and football (regular) are boring and testosterone fuelled and I’d much prefer to read Dostoyevsky and sip a neat scotch while some Schubert tinkles away in the background.

Listen, I hear you… I resisted this show when my friend Kathryn told me to watch it… BUT Ted Lasso is not about sports. It’s about Ted Lasso and his moustache and his biscuits and his earthy words of wisdom and his positive approach to life. It’s also about hilariously foul mouthed, half naked British footballers (soccer players) learning to abandon their toxic masculinity. It’s about female relationships that aren’t focussed on men but on supporting and loving each other. A pivotal scene revolves around a dart game. Grandma Downton’s funny, smarmy butler is in it it. There is karaoke as emotional catharsis. There is a very grumpy and macho man reading a A Wrinkle in Time.

It has good family values and teaches excellent lessons, so fine to watch it with kids, as long as you’re not worried about the swears, including a very British offhand “cunt” every now and then. It’s also gloriously short. I prefer TV that doesn’t demand a lot of commitment. This show is half an hour long and there are only 10 episodes.

Fine, Amy, you’ve convinced me. I would like to see this television program, but it’s on Apple TV. I don’t have that and I don’t need another streaming service in my life. Firstly, is that true? What the hell else are you going to do, but watch TV? This pandemic nonsense isn’t wrapping up anytime soon. Just relax and sign up.

Amy, you’re not listening. Some of us have bills to pay, I can’t afford another streaming service… Dudes, have you not heard of a TRIAL PERIOD? Just sign up for the two week trial - put a reminder in your calendar to cancel, and flipping dive into this show. You can gobble it up in a week, easy. That will leave you another week to explore what else Apple TV has (honestly, nothing… don’t waste your money on a subscription, despite what I told you earlier).

Bonus Recommendation: If Ted Lasso is old news but you are intrigued by the world it presents, I urge you to track down Season 1 of 2002’s Footballers Wives, a deliciously over the top, hilarious soap opera about trashy, ridiculous women married to brutish, ridiculous men… There are affairs, and comas and kidnappings and very long nails and insane fashion choices. One of the main female characters is named Chardonnay.

Have you jumped aboard the Ted Train? Let me know in the comments below!

The Woman In the Window and its bonkers origins story

The Woman in the Window should never have seen the light of day

Okay, it’s worth doing a deep dive on the new Netflix series, the Women in the Window. It’s based on a bestselling thriller that came out a few years ago by Dan Mallory. What is truly interesting, and worth a read in its own right, is the story of how the author, a young up and comer in the publishing industry, lied about practically every aspect of his life. The story of how he wrote the thriller is such a fascinating read that they are now making a Neflix series about THAT.

Suffice it to say that a movie about a promising young novelist lying his way to the top of the publishing industry is potentially richer than yet another variation on the archetype of the middle-aged woman whose mind is playing tricks on her. Currently, Jake Gyllenhaal is slated to play Mallory in an upcoming Netflix series that promises to split the difference between Nightcrawler and Shattered Glass.(Sounds good, actually.) In the meantime, though, The Woman in the Window arrives as damaged goods, its ending reportedly rewritten by Tony Gilroy after a series of disastrous test screenings.

Squirrel Obstacle Courses

Former NASA engineer builds an incredible obstacle course for the squirrels that are stealing his bird seed.

I’m here for bird feeder content and this squirrel obstacle course is excellent

Back to work we go

Only the least tasty employees work from home!

As the manager of an area that requires onsite work (you can’t bring archival records home, suckers… There’s no way to work on secret networks from your living room) I was particularly delighted by this article.

Everyone must be in the office with their assorted smells and their good meaty legs! It is bad that the office is empty of people and filled only with the scent of hand sanitizer and flat sodas that were opened in March 2020. There is no nourishment in this! How the management yearns for a return of the workers! How it is ravenous for them! How it hungers for them!

I am deep into rhubarb right now

How To Make a Rhubarb Shrub for an impressive martini and other refreshing drinks

This recipe looks delicious. Also, if you’re in the Ottawa area and want a rhubarb plant or a few stalks, let me know!

Used in the past as a method of preserving fruit, a shrub is just a fruit syrup made with vinegar instead of water. This tangy rhubarb shrub can be added to mineral water, sodas or cocktails for a refreshing tart drink.