Odds and Ends #50: The weird thing about London's New Year's Fireworks

Plus how the government should respond to Musk's nonsense, and an AI video that might just show us how video production is going to change.

Hello! Happy New Year, dear readers – it’s time for Odds and Ends, your weekly-ish round-up of interesting links and shorter takes from me.

The good news is that I’m now back from my absurdly long Christmas holiday to New Zealand, via Singapore and Malaysia. So normal service will be resumed from Tuesday, when the first big essay of the year will be landing. I’ve also got some other fun stuff cooking for future weeks too.

But in the meantime, here’s some other fun stuff.

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If you still haven’t booked for the second event on the future of transport, tickets are still available but I’m getting a bit nervous about the capacity of the room, so might have to declare it sold out imminently.

I’ll also soon be announcing the third ever Odds and Ends of History live event - I’ve got an awesome guest, and we’re going to be digging into a provocative topic. More details soon!

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So let’s get started – this week I feature:

• The weird politics of London’s New Year’s Fireworks

• How the British government should response to Elon Musk’s recent attacks

• What Singapore really feels like

• And a new generative AI video that has broken my brain

The weird thing about London’s New Year’s Fireworks