Molten metal, paragliding, and a DJ who doesn't just press play.
30th March 2026
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Hello! And in particular, hello to all the new newsletter subscribers who joined after my "hi, I'm back" video last week. Here's what I've been up to since then!
First of all, Nebula subscribers! You can now watch episode 2 of the new series. I try to fit an entire county in one camera shot, learn to spot chimneys in the sky, and make a very strange noise: they can fly 200
miles with no fuel. Here's how. And if you're not a Nebula subscriber yet, you can join right here!
And for the folks who stick with YouTube! Episode 1 is up for you: go watch me try to smash up a 142-year-old bell.
Next, in this week's Lateral, it's the return of the Let's Learn Everything team! Ella Hubber, Caroline Roper and Tom Lum face questions about French phrases, rugged roads and profitable practices.
Because I've been busy with the show
launch, I haven't had much time to watch YouTube this week. So thank you to the newsletter readers who replied with these suggestions for Good Stuff To Watch:
- In February, Bad Bunny's Superbowl Halftime show was watched live by more than a hundred million people, and it has as many views on YouTube. It was almost entirely performed in Spanish: so for those wanting more context, this unofficial English translation and commentary is so good. Because Sadja hasn't just translated the performance: she's
reshot and re-performed parts of it, as a split-screen with the original. She's improvised costumes and green-screens, and used her friends and family as background performers. And if that wasn't enough: there's additional "pop-up video" facts that fill in additional context. This is fascinating, exactly the sort of thing that YouTube was meant to be for, and it let me see the original performance in a whole new light. (Thanks to Greg for the suggestion!)
- There are many, many, many, many, many long-form slow-TV videos from the cabs of trains. But this, from Cabview Holland, is unique: every thirty seconds or so, the seasons shift. The footage is matched with painstaking precision, day
to night, winter to summer. It's technically very impressive... but also sits in a weird middle, where it's not quite interesting enough to constantly pay attention too, but too interesting to just put on in the background! (Thanks to Jason for sending this over.)
- Having only just learned their parts, 2,500 strangers in Montréal sing Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. Originally, I thought this might be an "and finally" link for the end of the newsletter, but no, this absolutely deserves a place in the main section. (Thanks for suggesting this, Manuel.)
And some
quick links from around the rest of the web:
- Why so many control rooms were painted seafoam green.
- Automating those "hey, want to feel old" facts has been on my ideas board for so long, and now I don't have to, because someone has automated those "hey, want to feel old" facts. Actually one of the most downbeat things I've linked to in the newsletter in a long time, turns out I'm glad I didn't
make it myself!
- And on a much brighter note thanks to reader Christopher for reminding me of Geograph, a web project that was started more than 20 years ago to take a photo of every 1km grid square in Britain and Ireland, all 300,000+ of them.
The resulting photos, more than eight million of them, are Creative Commons-licensed and have formed an incredible, invaluable, almost-accidental modern history of Britain that's available to all.
And finally: some DJs just press
play. A.N.I. is not one of those DJs.
All the best,
— Tom
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