The Kettle Conspiracy

The Kettle knows

The kettle knows.
It doesn’t just boil water—it gauges urgency. It can smell lateness, taste panic, sense the sheer weight of a day balanced on those last two minutes. And it responds not with sympathy, but with spite.

On a Sunday morning, when the world is soft and slow and you’re not even fully dressed, the kettle is a sprinter. Whoosh, bubble, steam—done before you’ve even located the teabag. But on a Tuesday, when you’ve got exactly seven minutes to leave the house, find your keys, and not look like you’ve dressed in the dark? The kettle becomes geological. Whole landscapes could form while it mutters and stalls.

I’ve tried tricking it. Pretending I don’t care. Walking away, faffing with the post, acting casual—as though my entire survival doesn’t hinge on that mug of builder’s tea. But the kettle knows. It always knows.

There’s a moment, just before the boil, when it pauses. Like it’s considering whether to give in. A power play. A reminder of who’s really in charge here: not me, but the chrome jug with limescale scars and a plug that’s slightly loose.

And in that pause, I sometimes hear myself asking: is this what life is? Waiting for things that never hurry, precisely when you need them most?

Of course, then it clicks off.
And I drink.
And I’m late anyway.

Over 100 Classic Novels Summarised in the Style of an Alphabetic Poem

Hands up: there are lots of classic novels I haven’t read. The advent of chatGPT has made it possible to summarise these classics very easily, which is at least a starting point for getting familiar with their outlines and themes.

But what about doing this in a more interesting and creative way - such as a poem where each line starts with the next letter of the Alphabet?

Let’s see! (Click the title to read the poem).

• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

• The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

• The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

• The Color Purple by Alice Walker

• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

• The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle

• Dracula by Bram Stoker

• A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

• Bleak House by Charles Dickens

• David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

• Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

• Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens

• Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

• Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

• The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

• The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett

• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

• A Passage to India by E.M. Forster

• A Room with a View by E.M. Forster

• Howards End by E.M. Forster

• The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

• North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

• Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

• All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

• A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

• For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

• The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

• The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

• Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

• Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald

• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

• The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford

• The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

• The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

• The Trial by Franz Kafka

• The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

• Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

• The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

• Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

• The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

• Daniel Deronda by George Eliot

• Middlemarch by George Eliot

• Silas Marner by George Eliot

• The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

• 1984 by George Orwell

• Animal Farm by George Orwell

• Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

• The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

• The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

• Moby Dick by Herman Melville

• The Iliad by Homer

• The Odyssey by Homer

• Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev

• The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

• The Call of the Wild by Jack London

• White Fang by Jack London

• A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

• Dubliners by James Joyce

• Ulysses by James Joyce

• Emma by Jane Austen

• Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

• Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

• Persuasion by Jane Austen

• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

• Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

• The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

• East of Eden by John Steinbeck

• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

• Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

• The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

• The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

• Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

• The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy

• War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

• The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

• Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

• Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

• The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

• The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu

• The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

• The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

• The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

• The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai

• The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

• Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

• The Red and the Black by Stendhal

• The Once and Future King by T.H. White

• Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

• Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

• Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

• The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

• The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy

• Death in Venice by Thomas Mann

• The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon

• Beloved by Toni Morrison

• Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

• The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo

• Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

• To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

• Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham

• The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

• The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

• As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

• The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

• Lord of the Flies by William Golding

Let me know if you’d like more added to the list.

An Alphabetic Plot Poem for 1984

"1984" is a dystopian novel that explores themes such as government oppression, propaganda, and individual freedom. It provides a thought-provoking commentary on the dangers of totalitarianism and the power of language to control people's thoughts and actions. Reading "1984" can be a thrilling and eye-opening experience, as it encourages readers to question their own beliefs about government, society, and human nature. Additionally, the novel's vivid and evocative writing style has made it a literary classic that is still relevant today.

A world of oppression, under Big Brother's reign

Beneath the surface, resistance begins to gain

Controlled by fear, the Party's power in full swing

Dissenters vanish, free thought, a forbidden thing

Eyes everywhere, telescreens, a constant gaze

Fighting for freedom, in a world of haze

Greed for power, the Party's ultimate goal

History erased, the truth, a black hole

Innocence lost, a love story in despair

Joy turned to pain, Winston's fate unfair

Knowledge forbidden, newspeak, a tool of the state

Loyalty demanded, betrayal sealed their fate

Ministry of Love, a place of torture and dread

Newspeak's purpose, to alter what's said

Oppression in full force, the Thought Police at hand

Propaganda and lies, controlling the land

Quest for freedom, in a world of deception

Reality blurred, in a twisted perception

Struggle for truth, in a land of lies

Tyranny reigning, as freedom dies

Unforgettable, a warning of a dystopian fate

Vigilance needed, before it's too late

Winston's fate, a reminder to all

Xenophobic regimes, on the rise and standing tall

Yearning for change, a hope that won't die

Zeal for freedom, a flame that will not lie

And so the story of "1984"

Becomes a part of history, forevermore.