Dispatches from the Pavement Podcast

Toby Isaacs

Because if I look up, I might have to make eye contact. Voiceovers of my Substack essays. tobyisaacscomedy.substack.com

  1. 5d ago

    I don't travel light, I travel dense.

    I don’t travel light, I travel dense. I have been known to travel for over three weeks to Southern Africa for a holiday of a lifetime with hand luggage. This has included extensive camera equipment and technology to allow some form of photography processing, suitable footwear to allow for exercise (which I subsequently don’t really bother doing much of), battery packs to charge phones, tablets, cameras, and so on, and then the usual things expected if there’s space: toiletries and clothing. I fit all of this in two bags. Thanks for reading Dispatches from the Pavement! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. I then pack this onto myself and become a mule. I wander around the airport and notice the novices who have with them a smallish, misshapen rucksack (due to lack of content), and a book in their hands. They only have a rucksack with them because they have packed inefficiently and trusted that their luggage would follow them to their final destination. This is often not the case. Mistake #1. I do not understand the obsession with ‘taking a book’ on any kind of trip, holiday or otherwise. I betray this criticism in my home life, because I have books. Many books. “Too many books. You don’t even read them.” I have read them. I used to read physical books. But I have a proclivity to not want to destroy the physical medium. If there is a good or amusing phrase, like “He had the attitude of a preoccupied chicken,” I will inevitably want to note that somewhere. But a book with scribbles in is, in my view, soiled. It draws your eyes to the markings which means you cannot take in other aspects of the book. And it’s personal. If someone grabbed Thud! off my shelf and got to that page, they may not appreciate my enjoyment of preoccupied chickens. I do need to get some shelves. I wonder what these travellers do when they finish the book on day 2 of their 2 week holiday. It would have lasted them longer, but they broke the promise to themselves not to read it until they got to Greece and then the plane was delayed and they’d done all the terminal shops too quickly. It is now a useless deadweight to have to fit into your luggage for the journey back home. Do these people just leave them as gifts for the hotel/Airbnb staff? There are others, reading slim magazines with of-the-moment treatments of economic trends, who have failed to realise that these, too, are available electronically. And their disposable nature is equivalent to them disintegrating in your hands. They don’t read them properly anyway. This lightweight item is not engaging enough to prevent you from reaching for your phone to check notifications. It’s also too bewildering to avoid needing to look up cultural references or current events so you can make sense of the writing. And because you do it with your phone, you can engage and multitask with this content so much easier, while also getting those useful notifications that mean you instantly forget what you were reading about the Economist’s editorial on the budget, get distracted, and resume the doomscroll. Mistake #2. One key element is that, as a technologist, I have a Kindle that ensures I can take reading material with me to not read because I’m going to watch stuff on my iPad anyway. But it’s there, for the few minutes when it feels like that would be more appropriate while we wait for the plane to taxi, for example. At the other end, when the destination is reached, we are ready to get going. All of my stuff is with me and we head straight to the first thing on the agenda; usually an Airbnb. These amateurs who picked up a book at WHSmiths because it was there and the voice of reason had left them at the check-in desk, where they had trusted all of their required luggage with an airline, are now also at this destination. But their luggage isn’t, and they’ve turned the luggage trolleys into a library cart. Mistake #1 again. All of this is to say, please can I have a separate queue for travel Pros. Some people will consider themselves travel pros because they may, for example, have lounge access. On a work trip, once, other colleagues were pretending like they knew what they were doing. And then they let themselves down by evidently checking in their luggage and deciding a paper-based item was a great decision. That item is supposed to entertain you for a 10–12 hour long-haul flight, when we are now so used to never properly concentrating for more than 15 minutes it will prove useless before the plane has reached the runway. Even if you are in the Gold lounge at Heathrow with a flute of champagne in front of you, this doesn’t make you a Pro. It makes you a problem. Only if your pockets and spare luggage space are full of miniature drinks, bags of crisps, and pastries wrapped in serviettes from said lounge, do you get to consider yourself a Pro. I have accepted my place; I have enough content downloaded and battery packs to last me a four-week stint on a remote island that we may well crash land onto. What have you got? Fuel for a fire. Kindling, rather than a Kindle, with a glossy cover with a gripping title like, THE MAN WHO FOUGHT TOMORROW. You will get us through the cold evenings and I will dominate the inevitable nights of terror providing escape to our newfound community with my outstanding reading voice. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tobyisaacscomedy.substack.com

  2. Nov 3

    Backstreet Has Returned

    Some months ago, when the world was slightly less on fire, I found myself, with choices forced upon me, in Las Vegas. I do not need to tell you about this city. Despite the idiom “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” being prevalent and used all too frequently, the people who say this and think they mean it have not considered basic facts, like the bodily functions that transport the food you might eat at the airport before you fly out to another destination. They have also not considered TripAdvisor. If you want to know anything about what it’s like to visit Las Vegas, you can literally go to TripAdvisor and find out for yourself. What happens in Vegas has been documented and shared at length. It is not staying there. Also, the Las Vegas F1 is fully televised. Thanks for reading Dispatches from the Pavement! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Of course, there are certain unique experiences that are not possible in other cities due to the nature of the approach to architecture in this desert. The only place similar that I have visited would be Dubai. But Dubai does not have The Sphere. It is truly insane as a structure. We’ve all been distracted driving down the A40 by the Pizza Shop’s LED screen that displays the offers of £8.99 for a medium pizza and a drink, £10.99 for a large, £19.99 for a family deal. Been confused by the 3D spinning final message “TERMS AND CONDITIONS” with no further context or information. Ok. Terms and conditions. Sounds reasonable. But scale this up to a Vegas Scale, and they have to do more than that. Is it tacky? I will not offer my opinion. Only rhetorical queries. From the outside, it’s only really a spectacle at a distance. Close up, it is like if you find yourself shrunk to the size of a Quality Street and have been placed on a Christmas Tree. The Christmas decorations, tiny replicas of chandeliers or shiny everyday objects, up close mean that there are too many gaps to make out what it’s supposed to be. But this shouldn’t be an issue because you will quickly discover that if you are walking around pretty much anywhere outside in the United States, but Las Vegas in particular, you are seen as doing it wrong. Being outside on your feet is a marker that you do not belong. Compare that with the London Shard. At a distance, a pretty interesting modern feat of architecture. And close up… also pretty impressive. Given the limited choices available to me, I found myself in a place where the ‘anything goes’ mantra extends to being allowed to experience outside temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius at night, which was the ticketed event of the Backstreet Boys comeback show. I don’t think they could have got away with a comeback show in any other venue on earth. The interior of the Sphere is admittedly mind-blowing. The immersive worlds that can be created are far greater than IMAX. I worry that the Odyssey phenomenon of 2026, selling out IMAX screens worldwide for months, will only be the first step. Nothing will ever be shown again on any IMAX because someone will not have yet seen the Odyssey and there is, supposedly, no other way of seeing it. Apply that to the Sphere experience, and we have a problem. And no, I’m not advocating for building another Sphere in Greenwich, however attractive that would be to finally redeem the Millennium Dome project. What the Sphere does is truly impressive and, without trying to detract from the importantly brilliant shows that are scheduled here, it is able to achieve something that nowhere else could. Without the Sphere, the Backstreet Boys would put on a tragic comeback show. This show is still tragic, but epically so, which actually distracts you from it. Sadly, what is also evident is that they are no longer Backstreet Boys. For one, they are in their 50s. No two ways about it, they are grown adults, I’m afraid. Nick Carter The leader of the pack(Street Boys) who seems to be the one who isn’t doing this reluctantly. He represents the Peter Pan syndrome – someone who hasn’t properly looked in the mirror for years. Every time he catches his reflection, his mind superimposes a youthful version of his face over the top, and he seems to still believe he is youthful. His ears are doing the same when he hears himself sing. Those in-ear monitors are working fine; it’s the internal processor that undermines the performance here. Brian Littrell Hiding his appearance with a baseball cap and oversized puffer jacket, he knows he’s the one who is truly the vocal foundation. There is no way he would not be part of the Backstreet Boys comeback show if only to do what he can to ensure the core performance didn’t drift too far into farce. A bit of farce is fine, but no more than that. AJ McLean AJ has come back from what appears to be a career as a magician. He gets to lead one song, and that’s the only reason he agreed to do the whole show. Howie Dorough & Kevin Richardson Were also there. But Backstreet Men doesn’t work and, when you let them have their go at talking to a crowd instead of just singing their songs like they’re supposed to be doing, you realise that the best way to label this act in 2026 is much closer to letting them be called ‘Middle of the road Men.’ Howie and Kevin especially so. Even with a name like ‘Howie’. They are men occupying the world of the central reservation of life. Dragged out of forced retirement to put on a show in the only place where it would work for their generation, that places them far enough away from the audience, surrounding their floating heads in various visuals of spaceships and floating song lyrics to distract from the mundanity they have come from. A massive misstep was, considering this was a ‘comeback,’ that their famous song Everybody (Backstreet’s Back) was the song to close the show. I am told; I did not witness this. I left before the end. Would you buy tickets for a show if it were called Backstreet Boys: Into the millennium? Or would you rather have entry to a show entitled Middle of the Road Men: Combined age: Quarter of a millennium? Thanks for reading Dispatches from the Pavement! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tobyisaacscomedy.substack.com

  3. Oct 27

    How Much Coffee Do They Think I Drink?

    Do you know how much money I spend on coffee? In a month? Apparently, lots of service providers do. There was me thinking I was having a spontaneous moment mid-morning, thinking I’d see if The Department of Coffee and Social Affairs was busy and if I could pick up a quick Cortado, and it turns out I am just a robot performing the same activities every single day. We are defined as creatures of habit, and somehow the cogs of the economy have come for my freedom. I write this while 7-12 LED screens animate their latest “messaging” to the eyeballs of passers-by. Free wi-fi makes a false claim; you have heard it said, “there is no such thing as a free lunch,” but I tell you, “there is no such thing as free wi-fi.” Thanks for reading Dispatches from the Pavement! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. These days we are fed with content from everywhere. Terrestrial TV offers an ad-free version, an HD version, without fulfilling the important part: an app that works. Somehow, even if one does opt for the ad-free tier, one still receives ads. Ads for the product you are already demonstrating that the ad worked through your subscription. But content goes beyond streaming and podcasters into YouTube, news media, fitness plans, eatery membership, social media membership, premium support of a tech product, not to mention insurance and the much-loved tax system. Basically, anything you own you can also add a rental price over the top if you want. There is a simple phrase that is used consistently by everyone of these trying to convince you that you can afford this add-on: “For the price of a coffee…” Well, without providing the menu of the coffee shop, I don’t know if that is accurate. I might be a regular at SHOT, for example, which serves a £265 Japanese coffee. For an extra £5, you can have it brewed in a special machine that makes coffee. Maybe you should use that as a phrase: “For the price of brewing coffee in the V60 at SHOT…” That may not be as accessible, though. Regardless, considering how often I hear this phrase, please can someone answer this question: How much coffee do they think I’m drinking? Is this an intervention I didn’t know I needed? It’s not merely about having one less coffee a month that they’re asking for, after hearing this from 200 companies in that time period. It is as if coffee’s addictive properties have been isolated and the economy is trying to wean the world of one of the core commodities on the stock market. It must have been some time during the import of the Flat White concept in the last couple of decades that coffee moved from a staple, found in the breakfast routine of every household, to a frivolous extra no one really needed. Why not the price of a pint? Or the money for all that milk? It could have been any number of basics that consist in a usual outgoings calculation, and somehow these subscriptions are looking to supplant basics for a luxurious necessity. And they collectively seem to be assuming I am consuming enough coffee in a month to fill an Olympic swimming pool. Of course, it is somewhat odd when a coffee shop has a subscription model. They are rather clever as they have adopted the inverse: “put up with a few more ads on Netflix and get a free coffee.” Which I will gladly do to feed my addiction. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tobyisaacscomedy.substack.com

  4. Oct 20

    Stockholm Syndrome by Appointment

    It was getting late because no matter how you plan to get out of London by car, you are always going to have to add two hours. It’s not fair to those of us with busy lives in a city that never sleeps to request an estimated time of arrival. We will take the word “estimated” and squeeze out every ounce of uncertainty until it is a meaningless qualification that forces the arrival date to do all the work. It’s not like we don’t have good standing in the world of accommodation, but it must be put in its proper place: a base in which to prepare morning and perhaps evening food, hot drinks and a warm, comfortable bed. It is not a destination which will be valued by the seconds we can spend inside the property. With that in mind, it’s the disconcerting moment, after a long drive and you’ve had a long day, or potentially a long flight, to arrive at an Airbnb to be forced into human interaction by the “host.” “Host” is doing a lot of work to the point of upsetting the nature of the dictionary. Thanks for reading Dispatches from the Pavement! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Let me explain. There are elements in which “Host” is entirely accurate to the point of traumatising the guest, when the guest in question is me. There are other elements where the “Host” label might as well be the new definition for an A-board that had been left out in the rain for so long it had developed a stalactite-esque appearance. The check-in instructions were clear, and we were communicative in the days leading up to make sure we could access a bed for the night. Which is why, for the life of me, I couldn’t understand why, when we were given the code to the key box, sent the WiFi password 48 hours before check-in, along with a mammoth PDF with incomprehensible yet meticulously detailed instructions about how to use the thermostat, we were still having to meet the host in person. That is not the convenience of modern life. Technology-supported hiring of unregulated accommodation is supposed to include the comfort of not interacting with those who oversee things. It is hard to put into words how jarring it is. One is more than happy to be welcomed by the luxury accommodation’s Hotel Manager when you are an esteemed guest, and the money spent warrants the personal touch, as I’m told – or so I’ve heard and seen on the BBC show Life Beyond the Lobby. The experience following this should be something that sweeps you off your foundation of reality into something otherworldly. A place so other than the hurry of the everyday that one immediately escapes into a dimension of relaxation. But it is a modern crime of emotional weaponry when the ‘host’ in question meets you on the driveway grinning and waving, which makes the final parking experience to be placed under exam conditions. The car, full of your valuable luggage, is now in a quandary. Do we exit and lock the car? Does this make us seem distrustful of such an apparently friendly individual? I did not need this choice to be thrust upon me when I ran out of coffee and emotional strength half an hour ago, when we left the last A-road for a single-lane track with passing places suitable for tandem bicycles at best. Rather than a short introductory speech, key handover, and wave goodbye, we are led into the property as if she is holding a lantern down forgotten corridors, as she illuminates the decor of the boot room and gives an expectant glance at us, where we both have to enthusiastically say, “Oooh, lovely!” And it’s now all gone wrong too early when, as they open the main door for you and you walk into the largest lobby-cum-ante room, you accidentally give an over-the-top response to the welcome mat, and you have to escalate from there. By the time you’ve reached the main living area, you are screaming at the top of your lungs that you cannot imagine a more perfect location to catch up on The Celebrity Traitors; at which point you realise they have, for reasons hidden from the listing, decided not to put a TV in the lounge to allow for ‘peaceful escape from your usual everyday rituals’. It’s a good thing I never travel without my own entertainment, just in case such madness is thrust upon me. Is this the conclusion? Can I retrieve my luggage now? I do not see this happening when I am offered a tour of the cutlery drawer. This does not bring me joy. Even if there is a separate section for a cake fork. The pressure comes because the British will feel this obligation intrinsic to the fabric of existence, that this is their home. They are proud of such a home. This is unlike when you are visiting a friend or family member’s new home for the first time. When they offer you a tour, you know there is a wealth of emotion that has got them to this point, and the joining of this with your presence is a warmth that allows a genuine and meaningful reaction as they show you the cupboard under the stairs. But this is not that. This person is a stranger. And you are paying them for the use of their space, which they have cleaned and tidied, and half made an effort for minimal personal effects to not distract you, even if their DVD collection betrays that. Especially as there is no facility to watch them. You wonder how to broach the topic and decide to leave it. Emotionally spent, as they showcase the newly installed ceiling rain shower, all you can muster is a half-hearted ‘super,’ and you have a hard time disguising your confusion as to how the double bedroom has been configured with two single beds that you’re going to have to push together when they’re gone and hope they don’t “pop in to see how you’re settling in” over the next couple of days before putting it back how you remember it. The toilet on a septic tank is, without exception, unhelpfully labelled, so it is unclear whether they can be used at all or if regular bodily functions should be scheduled for the excursions to the nearby farmyard. This is, obviously, overlooked in the tour, and I’m so tired that it’s not a question that I’m able to ask. I’m not even comfortable asking, “Can I have a poo in there?” while pointing at a new door, to my own immediate family. The “ooh, lovely” responses to each and every room have expelled all other autonomy from my being. I am a shell of a shell, wondering whether I’m going to need to extend our stay to recover from this onslaught of enthusiastic hospitality. But this is far from the biggest problem I have with Airbnb. The hosts are people, all the same. They are trying their best, even if they aren’t taking my suggestions under advisement. Airbnb sounds like a great modernised, 21st-century name. It is my nature and prerogative to take this brand name and chop it up into pieces. It comes from sleeping on airbeds in San Francisco, when some tech duo came up with the idea to ask, with a properly-thought-through-method-of-couch-surfing, people with spare spaces where airbeds could be inflated to hire them out through an app. Airbeds (inflatable beds) but as a cloud-based service. BnB is a modern take on the historic B&B that exists, mostly in seaside towns, but can be found anywhere, where they offer you two things beginning with B: Bed and Breakfast. You turn up exhausted from your coastline hike, go to sleep when it gets dark in what used to be some child’s bedroom who moved out decades ago and is now a converted single room with a sink in it, and, in the morning, they feed you with gallons of coffee and as much pig in various forms as they can fit on a plate in a pile carefully balanced against the pint of orange juice. It’s comforting and sets up a traveller well for the day ahead. Inflatable beds are fine. They do the job and aren’t that uncomfortable. But I do not want an inflatable breakfast. The best that these hosts do in providing such inflatable breakfasts, as we have come to accept due to the Terms and Conditions of the website, is the laminated breakfast pages, outsourcing their obligations to the local cafe. “Here are some p… This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tobyisaacscomedy.substack.com

  5. Oct 13

    The Duty-Free Goblin and Other Airport NPCs

    I came to video games later in life than my peers. There was nothing particularly remarkable about this. I believe that if I were a child in this generation, I would not have a problem with screen time because we wouldn’t have any screens. I would, as I did back then, some 3 or more decades ago, envy other friends who had SEGA Mega Drives, Nintendo 64s, and PlayStations. These were missing from our family home. We did have other things, I have been told. I remember being incredibly excited about a new TV with Ceefax built in. “When I grow up, I’m going to have a TV and watch things with Ceefax overlay on all the time.” It was magical then. Today, it is a trend I am sure is out there somewhere. If you had to Google Ceefax, just wait until you realise you missed out on Bamboozle. Growing into my teens, we finally ended up with a family computer that was capable of playing video games of our own. Specifically, we would spend hours on FIFA ‘97. Three brothers are trying to play multiplayer with a keyboard and a mouse. Mouse controlling football players on FIFA ‘97 is equivalent to being a side character in ‘Alice through the Looking Glass.’ Your intent was entirely understood, and it would then make the players do the opposite. We once tried to play 45-minute sides to see how a real-time football experience would be. It took nearly four hours. Thanks for reading Dispatches from the Pavement! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. When I was younger and less responsible for the life I was living, the comfort of basically getting up in the morning and being dropped off at school or college and then successfully getting a bus back home, I discovered some pretty decent video games. And while you are given the illusion of freedom in a new virtual world, where you can escape the responsibilities you don’t have, you end up on a very particular trajectory which you realise around 6am on a Wednesday morning that you’ve reached the final boss of Metal Gear Solid 3 and you’ve been playing it all night and you need to get to a lecture in 3 hours. Whoops. But this is not limited to the virtual world. If you haven’t noticed, because you are allowed to browse that shop or eat that snack, trying to find the toilets on your way to the next goal, the journey you have been given is the same linear path with no return as is created in these digital creations. The scan of the boarding pass QR code is the entry point into this controlled world. As soon as you unlock the Security Checkpoint achievement, you are embarking on your mission. There is no turning back. You may only go onwards. There is an illusion of ‘open world’ exploration, but your canvas to live in is actually very small. It may feel massive if you’re wandering through Schiphol or Johannesburg, but if you’ve found yourself in Rotterdam airport, you’re just in a larger-than-average cardboard box with a shopping trolley filled with lukewarm water. One cannot ignore that you are not alone in this environ. Unlike other video games, where other people in the game are mostly programmed to move out of your way and just add a suitable amount of reality to the landscape, in an airport, various NPCs existing throughout this side quest will definitely be right in your way all the time. Regardless of whether you fancy a local snack or a local gift, someone, usually a man, usually oblivious to the amount of space he and his suitcase and satchel are taking up, will make this extra non-essential part of the adventure impossible to achieve. You could call it a bug in the programming. And you would be half correct. You will crash into many of these before you reach your departure gate. They will be the biggest obstacle, going at a terribly slow pace and looking entirely lost the whole time. All of the gate information is now readily available on your phone and can be accessed by the airline and airport mobile apps. This is a mystery to every other person who has entered the airport, and these NPCs will gather in bulk underneath departure boards that mostly make reference to other flights that aren’t yours and are delayed. You reach your gate. Despite clear information that ensures everyone knows it won’t open for 20 minutes, a queue is still going to form. All of the characters in this queue will be in business casual, have frequent flyer level 60 and are not worth engaging with. What you will experience is the next non-sequitur in this act. As the gate opens, you find there to be a mad rush of people. You can check your help section, but you are not mistaken; all of the seats are already allocated. They will all get on successfully and, aside from those delayed through transit, the plane will not leave without you. You are here. Chill out. Do not say this out loud. The fixed dialogue loop of the gate staff will remind people regularly to sit down. 14C isn’t going anywhere. You remain ready. You can do what you like, though. You are the main character, and the rules do not apply. Anyway, you do have one thing to work towards. The rest of the linear progression through the terminal has led you to this boss level. You need that overhead space, and you cannot let these NPCs get in your way. Be alert. Below are the classes of characters you will expect to find at this critical moment: Elbow Vanguard Loadout: Only elbows. Hands are firmly stuck in the bomber jacket. Difficult to pass. Passive ability: Unpredictable path, meaning they fill all unclaimed space and are impossible to pass on the airbridge. Special move: Builds momentum in lower lanes and can draft past groups 1-3, taking group 4 with them. The Hard-case Berserker Loadout: Heavily dented polycarbonate four-wheel spinner with one wheel gone rogue. If knocked at the wrong angle, the suitcase will explode, blocking the path of the considerate. Passive ability: Accelerates through the gate with the hard case used as a reverse battering ram. If you are passed by the case, your ankles take damage. Special move: Enrage. Regardless of the group called, all civilised behaviour disappears, and they charge the scanner with the urgency of a fire escape. Duty-Free Goblin Loadout: Unassuming traveller until provoked, then deploys multiple plastic bag cluster bombs, covering all nearby in gin and Toblerone shards. Passive ability: Will always find a space in the overhead lockers, even when told they are all full. The Decathlon Tank Loadout: An 80-litre expedition rucksack strapped to his back, counterbalanced by a 30-litre daypack worn on his chest. Attack Pattern: Turns abruptly to ask his partner if she has the passports, executing a perfect 360-degree spin that wipes out three fellow passengers and a small child’s packet of Smarties. As you scan your boarding pass, you should hear the comforting “Game Saved” chime as you pass through the sector. Travelling down the airbridge, encumbered by your luggage, you may glance outside at the unrendered tarmac of the world beyond. The distance stays there. It is a reminder that there is something out there that has been placed inside, but it is not for you. Out there, ambient scenery moves about, showing that you too will enter that space in time, but, for now, you must carefully, and without aggression (for fear of the Game Over screen as you are escorted out of the airport), follow the queuing NPCs who cannot remember a number and a letter when they are asked their seat number and fumble for their boarding pass that they had been holding in their hands moments ago to get to this point. There is some incongruence at this point. The safety demonstration that is mandatory on all flights is the unskippable tutorial you normally get at the beginning of the game, but for some reason comes at the end. They claim you have to pay attention, as it may be different from other aircraft. It is then exactly the same as every other aircraft. Which is reassuring, as you would hope that there is a base level of similarity in aircraft to ensure they can … This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tobyisaacscomedy.substack.com

  6. Oct 6

    Your next Thought Leader: A profile

    Just when you didn’t think he could be a worse human being, you discover that he commutes to work on a Lime Bike. What are you going to do, though? Estate agents. He’s not. An estate agent. But the overlap is a Venn diagram that looks uncannily like a single circle. It remains permissible to despise estate agents, and he emanates this same aura. Thanks for reading Dispatches from the Pavement! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. It is probably why he chose the Lime Bike in the first place. “I am that kind of individual, and I must make sure I indicate this to my colleagues immediately. They may know the kind of person I am before I even let my mouth confess that my job title contains ‘Chief.’” But it portrays another confession that he will be forever numb to: the Lime Bike requires nothing from him. A small fee, and he can claim to be doubly better for the environment than the alternative. But he almost certainly drove to the train station from suburbia in an inefficient Sports Utility Vehicle. And his job title lets us all know the other thing: he is doing his job best once he’s left the meeting, so everyone else can actually make a difference. His name might as well be Frank Sparkes. But he would introduce himself before anyone could say, “Pleased to meet you, Frank.” With “Call me ‘Sparky,’” which no one was going to, but now everyone has to. Coerced into the idea that this man might contain more depth by having a nickname like Sparky, while inadvertently proving that he definitely doesn’t, because he forced it upon the workshop participants. It puts the problem on them. If they call him Frank, they are a pedantic grown-up, killing the vibe of this true ‘spark’ of genius that has entered their presence. If they call him ‘Sparky’, they immediately drop all tradesmen who add real value to your home when they arrive in the bin, favouring this guy who, we will find out, is not good at “detail.” They have succumbed to the school playground peer pressure and indulged Frank in believing he’s allowed to continue to use this moniker. An open-plan office can be a bit intimidating to an introvert. But the modern office seems to feature some common attributes, including, for some reason, plants as dividers. It can make the Urban Jungle feel like it isn’t a coined phrase to make people feel ok about the daunting prospect of commuting to the office from the leafy suburbs, and more like it was presented by the office outfitters as a design option. And the problem is realised in “Sparky’s” attire. His cargo trousers declare that he is a man who knows his own world. Creates his own future. He can do anything and match up to any real sparky should they appear at his home. Rather than a normal individual who needs to carry personal items with them, ‘Sparky’ has decided to make sure everyone knows he’s a modern tech-savvy thought leader. I, and I’m sure if you also have pockets in your clothes, you will be the same as me, put my phone in a pocket. It’s not usually visible. ‘Sparky’ likes everyone to know his tool of choice. His phone is wedged into a pocket that showcases, among other things, the torch, which is still on from some earlier task he was doing, or accidental. But it could have been that he was checking the fuse box, no matter the “Authorised Personnel Only” sign. That would put this guy off anyway. His bioluminescent thigh is only matched by the selection of whiteboard markers in the place where screwdrivers usually go. He has an idea of what work is and wears the costume. But he will make an exit before anything is truly required of him. This wizard’s work is about to commence. His staff is lit, and illuminating door handles as he strolls past other meeting huddles where work is genuinely happening, and into the large greenhouse of a meeting room at the prominent place in the open plan. He will not be found in a room that seats fewer than 12. This is because he is a believer in “achievement through collaboration.” At some point, someone needs to take him aside to tell him, “I don’t think that means what you think it means.” To everyone else, that would mean we all discuss, plan, add our perspectives, and move forward together. To Frank, he is not ‘a details guy,’ and will perform the ritual of walking into a room 8-12 minutes after the discussion has already begun, say he will “catch up as we go,” stand up in the middle of someone making a meaningful contribution and unharness his whiteboard marker. There is one thing that you have to respect is that he is fully aware of the guaranteed failure of whiteboard markers that are provided in the room. They are, within 6 hours of distribution, quickly reallocated so each room has too many of one colour and none of a necessary one in that moment. 80% of them will draw one clear and bold line before running out of steam and producing a ghostly trail for the remainder of the workshop. Someone will take a picture of the whiteboard discussion at the end of the allotted time, but will need to contact the local shaman to decipher the glyphs and spirit of the exercise. Being fully aware that this is his moment and he cannot be misunderstood, he produces his own markers, which he tested before work this morning; probably writing a list of things for the family members left at home to get done before he returns. Stepping up to the white canvas, he draws a couple of shapes, some rectangles, ovals, lines, and other childish graphics. They overlap, but each has a story. They tell of some wide and grand moment that we must all know is coming, and these shapes are how we will achieve our goal. As quickly as he starts, he stalls, realising he has reached the end of his understanding. But that is ok, because now the collaboration happens. There are experts in the room. So he points to them and declares, “I believe we have the right people here to put flesh on the bones.” Delegating the reality to others and leaving. The room will stare for a while at the whiteboard, trying not to openly disrespect ‘Sparky’ and then place this as something that is more of a landing zone where the strategy could live if it is ever articulated in plain English. And then he is gone, on his Lime Bike. Reminding all onlookers that he was right to trust others to flesh out his ideas, as he clearly hasn’t thought through the risks of the Lime Bike mode of transport. Aside from the increased likelihood of injury or death, people also make snap judgments about people that are, on the whole, incredibly accurate. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tobyisaacscomedy.substack.com

  7. Sep 29

    The Lime Bike as Public Infrastructure

    It would be remiss of me not to take a small detail and treat it with rigour that no one asked for. I could fool myself into thinking my readership asked for this, but I will not. I am not the subject of this treatment. I trust, however, that the broad helpfulness of my publications has not gone unnoticed. Readers should now be aware of how they are perceived on London streets. But the infrastructure itself is not without blame. It was lovely, recently, to visit some reservoirs in East London with a river of genuinely transparent, super clear water, being enjoyed by the general public and birdlife. There was not one cyclist. Not one lime bike. On the walkways or in the water. Thanks for reading Dispatches from the Pavement! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Cyclists are an easy target. They make it so and do not make an effort to change. There may be a few good actors in the collective, but they cannot win over the general public. Some may blame their tools. So let’s explore that for a moment. After the adult cyclist has gone, and the transportation lays dormant, we are left with a new contraption that is doing more than its fair share of tasks on city streets. It is a litter of Lime Bikes, which is the subject today. This is not some specialist equipment, the subject of Cycling magazines nationwide, or plastered across the glass -fronted windows of a Halfords. They do not claim to improve cadence, there is no special training plan with the subscription, they are not partnered with HUEL, and they do not have a clothing line. As an aside, during lockdown, posters started to appear around London that read: “Want to Save the climate, Get healthy, and Reduce Stress? Why not take up cycling?” In London, where the primary stress inducer to the population is cyclists. Their stress might be reduced by their pedalling, but the collective stress of the UK population is definitely going up because of the increased two-wheeled clothes dryers finding their way on the inside of traffic. It had started so innocently, as if it were a campaign for Yoga or some other meditation practice. But in the end, we are, once again, at the mercy of the Mayor of London’s cycling department. Lime, as a brand, has not bothered to jump on the fitness bandwagon. I’m not entirely sure what the campaign is apart from littering every street corner with single-storey climbing frames. Easy to find if you don’t want one. I have discovered I take up a lot more space on the pavement when I notice one poorly propped up on its little kick-stand in the middle of the walkway. They are left to block the pedestrian public, and I don’t worry if they clatter over behind me. Annoyingly, their centre of gravity is a bit too effective, and it’s harder than it looks to force them into a horizontal state. Not that I do that on purpose, mind you. The general purpose of a Litter of Lime Bikes is to make entrances inaccessible. They are offering public transport and increasing usage by blocking access to any other form of public transport. If you want to get on a bus, please hire the Lime Bikes in a certain order so you can dismantle a very bad 3D Jigsaw. Of course, they are now ubiquitous across the city. It is a strange day not to see a Lime Bikes. What I have noticed in recent months is that their front basket differs from their competition’s. Others have either some kind of core frame with bungees to secure one’s belongings, or the baskets are in some way perforated but with large holes to show they are modern baskets, and probably to allow for a degree of stability. Lime Bikes have a very special and servile basket. Which, as I’ve referred to above, is a large Green Bucket. And it is, importantly, not for a Lime Bikist’s possessions. That would be normal. No, these movable buckets are for the single-use coffee cups, food wrappers, and basically anything else that a passerby has decided is no longer their responsibility. In short, Lime Bikes are public bins that have developed wheels. It is why I use the collective noun so accurately: Litter of Lime Bikes. If one sees a collection of these hireable e-bikes on the street, one can consider them as a movable reconstructed refuse centre. They are then employed to carefully redistribute the litter across the city. You may have noticed that London’s streets are actually rather clean, and this is because they are no longer covered in litter, because the Lime Bikes are doing their public service. It is a working model that is likely to be adopted by other cities, presented with the problem of a bin shortage. They could use taxpayers’ money to buy and install more bins as cities continue to grow and more people move their lives to seek their fortune. OR they could ask a private company to become this mobile bin network and solve the stalled tram project at the same time. Litter-ally everyone wins. Though they have also recreated the problem by littering the streets themselves. For some reason, this version of littering is absolutely fine, and it is simply a matter of time before the London definition of ‘littering’ will be changed to “hiring and making use of a Lime Bike by riding it and leaving it anywhere.” The selling point of this mode of transport will be its downfall. One hopes. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tobyisaacscomedy.substack.com

  8. Sep 22

    The Vehicular Tribunal

    The transport experience in London is, I believe, more educational and markedly more enjoyable than other parts of the country/world. The City itself is rammed full of side streets, constantly being reworked, so between your journey home yesterday and this morning, a new gyratory has appeared, and the one-way system has reversed direction entirely. It has never been a particularly sensible place to drive through, and the way the roads change like the castle now excised to Room 101, Hogwarts’ staircases, is the only testament as such. The thinking is not, I can assure you, as pedestrian exemplar, to make the city safer for people. There are decisions made that mean that the road is now 2 roads, one for cyclists, one for cars. If you have to reach the other side of the road, only one of the two of those modes of transport will think to stop for you. But, as a resident, I do attest that a weekend in the city is glorious. The city streets are tranquil, the public transport is much more bearable, often with much more seating available thanks to the commuting masses staying at home in the country, I imagine, staring at their new hedge for 48 hours, because what else is there to do out in the sticks? And the only bicycles are with tourists on. Two varieties: the fleeting lycra amateur pelotons that pass by in an instant, and the tourists trying to figure out how to hire an e-bike and failing miserably. These things combined make pedestrian life a breeze. Thanks for reading Dispatches from the Pavement! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Relaxed Weekend Ramble One lovely experience to have in London is, on a weekend in the city, wandering around the pretty deserted roads freely as a pedestrian and, on occasion, you’ll get a compliment from an electric cab driver as you get back onto the pavement, “in your own time, mate.” How pleasant to have this working man, probably picking up his only fare of the day thanks to the intermittent services to Fenchurch Street, being so relaxed as not in any way be vexed by a foot passenger, with noise-cancelling headphones, wandering casually down the middle of the yellow box by the taxi rank. I have to say I only vaguely overheard this. Noise-cancelling aside, the electric cabs are silent as is. We were both, it seems, creeping at a relaxed pace down the middle of the road. I think we would both be impressed by how unfazed we were by the pressures that normally come with urban living. But we were outside of these. I, naturally, said in a slightly raised voice, as I couldn’t gauge properly with headphones on how loud I was talking, “Likewise!” and popped down the stairs towards Tower Hill. Priority Benches Boarding the tube, I had a slightly less pleasant experience, and I’m sure the cab driver would have been right in my corner here as well. It was busier than I was expecting, but seats were still available. At the other end of the seating section, it appeared to me to have a group of 2-3 elderly passengers rotating the one priority seat they had laid claim to. They were doing it rather loudly, looking with disdain at ‘the young men’. In their minds, it seems, invisible disabilities do not exist. There may well be several political positions that they are sympathetic towards, that would cause friction if anyone spoke up. Further evidence of their political slant was provided when they snorted dismissively when the renamed Overground lines were announced; “Suffragette,” “Lioness,” “Windrush,” I think, were too much for this group. A couple of chairs right by them did become available after… one stop. The other standing travellers made gestures to offer the seats to the complainant and his crew. As you would expect, they refused to take the seats on principle. They hadn’t been offered seats before, so why should they sit down now that there are free seats? I’m sure it was the philosophical ranting in his mind. They were so principled, they were adamant they would go so far as to die on this hill, not worth dying on. An ant hill. They stood in the main aisle, blocking the exits. On principle. Wheels within wheels The weekend continued to provide as I exited, and a litter of lime bikes tried to take on the same task as the elderly gang. Block every conceivable path to your next destination. It feels as if they’ve been designed in such a way as to collect themselves, so you have to sign up and hire one just to get past. They tessellated all along the pavement. Maybe this is part of the instructions of the user’s terms and conditions. I wouldn’t know. It seems plausible that one of the obligations is ‘to end your reservation, you must ensure that the kick stand or pedal is inserted into the wheel of another Lime bike.’ They are also encouraged to encapsulate any competition, so Forest, Bolt, and Dott will be inaccessible. It certainly seemed to be true based on the guy who had just pulled up. Oblivious to the difference between pavement and road, cycle lane and pedestrianised cobbles, his Ralph Lauren polo shirt flapping against his satchel, the chinos barely creased because this city professional uses every piece of technology to make his life as easy as possible… in this case, the e-bike needs to do the pedalling so he can check his phone. Concluding my experience, I reflected, sipping an incredibly small coffee as I watched seagulls ride the Thames. A judgment on your personality is warranted based on the way you use transport in the city. The true benefit of the London experience is that, through the medium of the transport device, one can instantly give verdicts of people’s character based purely on their mode of choice. These snap judgments ensure you’re always prepared with the social interaction that inevitably follows. The City of London watches on as the population expands and contracts throughout the day. From this, you can garner a pretty accurate CV. The files are sparse in detail. They have enough information based on your vehicular decision. What kind of Londoner are you? We will throw aside tourists for now. They do not know any better. The lift systems in the majority of the tube network will, granted, allow step-free access from platform to street. The reality that this requires a lute-playing wizard’s assistant with a high-vis to navigate the exact combination of lifts and corridors so you don’t end up in the Dragon’s lair under Soho is something they will not find in their guidebook, and the real reason why people claim London is not safe. The regular Londoners can be thrust into various camps, and more besides, to truly get underneath their character: Cab passenger/Black cab Not working from home. Not working from the office. Zoom calls in traffic are my vibe. Uber Not brave enough to hire a Lime bike yet. But they will one day. When drunk. Tube passenger (over 60s travel pass) I should not take that priority seat. I should not have left the house today. Tube (oyster) Efficiency beyond reason. Just as they always board at the same door of the carriage, so anything out of the ordinary will ruin their week. Like their usual busker at Angel tube playing the wrong genre today. Tube (ticket) Easily lost. Tube (contactless card) Easily found. Tube (device) Easily missed. Bus Abnormal working hours. Their phone alarm app is a list of times you didn’t know existed. Lime bike user Fearless over fitness. Santander Fitness over safety. Bicycle Every journey is race conditions Folding bicycle Every journey is a hybrid triathlon Folding e-bike Every journey is a hybrid triathlon and it’s ok to cheat Unicycle Every day is a performance Penny-Farthing Every morning is spent on cobble stones through the filthy streets of Whitechapel to their work as a cobblers apprentice. Scooter Not yet a grown-up. E-scooter Never a grown-up Hoverboard Every commute is at risk of being derailed by a DMC DeLorean. Not worried too much about their future. It could be changed at any moment by a misplaced magazine. Thames Clipper Very poor at diplomacy… This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tobyisaacscomedy.substack.com

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