News and social media can be like that scene in The Matrix where the dude is looking at the people and only sees lines of glowy green symbols. I feel like I only see, or too readily see, the bad, the sad and the maddening. There’s plenty of it.

This is social media, but sometimes all I see is the bad news.

Which is exactly why I resist writing about the stuff that gets me angry, or lures me into thinking in swirling spirals of defeatism.  The point is I’ve felt of late I needed a prescription for something positive, fun, and exciting to look forward to…and then this arrived:

As it happens, previews come not as single spies, but as battalions. While there’s a longer wait for Captain Marvel, even now it all looks, well, marvellous.

There’s an article floating around about medical and public health misunderstandings regarding obesity. One of the  points made is that no one is ever helped by hate, fear and shaming. Yet even this article has been condemned by some for ‘promoting’ obesity, as if obesity is something people aim for, and as if obese people who don’t appear to hate themselves are dangerous. The point I want to highlight is while I have the opportunity, why not, instead, share things that are a touch hopeful, even if it they are packaged with glowy lights and adventures through time and space? No one needs the hate.

Anyway, call pop culture a distraction, call these narratives the bread and circuses of our times. However, since I’m not becoming Emperor, I’ll take my allotted portion and enjoy them. My quiet contemplation, hurried clicktivism, and serious essays on the weighty (pun intended) issues of the moment won’t shift the world, but sharing a bit of solace and joy might alleviate the gloom, even if for a moment.

We are leaving this scheduled rant for this unsolicited Redbubble promotion below.

Apologies for the plug, but also alleviating my gloom is finding the colours I painted and making them available here for actual sale. For real.

My art, on a thing available to purchase, over the Internet. Magic.

I will now return you to your regular coverage. Any way Doctor Who and more from the MCU. Can’t wait, but I’ll have to, because it’s not like I have a TARDIS.

Or do I?