Allusionist 221. Scribe transcript

November 24, 2025 The Allusionist

TIM BROOKES: I've interviewed dozens of people whose experience of being taught to write was, at best, tedious and perplexing, and at worst brutal.

So literally about six weeks ago, maybe, I asked myself the question: when did I first enjoy the act of writing? And I don't mean enjoy writing as in enjoy writing a piece of journalism or enjoy writing a short story - I mean the actual physical act of writing. And in my case, the answer is July.

HZ: July 2025?

TIM BROOKES: Exactly.

HZ: Gosh. So you were already deep into writing this very book, several books into your writing career.

TIM BROOKES: That's right. And in fact, when I then went and asked people that question, many of them just stared at me because it had never occurred to them that it was something you enjoy.

Allusionist 111. Engraving part 2: Precious transcript

December 16, 2019 The Allusionist

MAX ULLMANN: I like how this is typical of all antique jewellery, in a way, it's just completely symmetrical and totally imperfect. In a world of perceived perfection, this is far more interesting. You know, you can really see that somebody is done that by hand. You know, the A is lower than the Z and the E, the horizontal arms of the E, are too short by modern standards. It’s certainly not perfect. There's bits and pieces of the letters missing, but you can really put yourself in the position of the person doing it, who obviously was not able to achieve this kind of perceived perfection because they're human.