Tripe

It has been an uneventfully dull sort of day.

That is to say, I have not exactly been wasting bits of the day gazing into the fire with a finger stuck up my nose and contemplating the infinite, but neither have I achieved anything useful, either.

In fact I have Caught Up with things.

The things I have Caught Up with are almost too dull to tell you about. I have mended the no longer beautiful cashmere cardigan torn by my assailant last week. This took ages, there were several heart-breaking rents, and worse, when I was sewing it, I found that there was one of her hairs still stuck in it.

I knew it was not my hair because my hair is a good foot shorter than that and no trouble at all to get out of plugholes.

I put the hair in the bin, revolted, and then emptied the bin into the dustbin. This was mildly disconcerting because it was empty. I had put a broken plate in it yesterday, and had vaguely wondered if it might be possible to dig it out and mend it, but it had gone, so that was the end of that.

Once the cardigan was mended, I washed it, carefully, and it is drying on the rack downstairs. I do not have to think of horrible violent nurses now every time I look at it. It will just be a cardigan again, and if I only wear it on the taxi rank, I will not have to look at it at all, because it will be dark, so the problem will be solved.

I would have sewn some new buttons on my torn dungarees as well, but the ones that she tore off were lost, and I didn’t have any replacements, so that will have to wait.

Obviously I have got a full button jar, by the way, I am not that much of a philistine, my mother and grandmother would be shocked at anything less, but none were quite big enough or the right shape.

Actually, one was, but one button is a fat lot of use.

I answered some emails that have been lurking guiltily in my inbox for ages, although I ignored some because they were just too difficult. Mostly these were from the Department of Transport, who have got my email address now, and seem to be disproportionately interested in my opinions, although they have heard most of them already, sanitised into a printable version.

I ironed a pair of trousers that had been flung on the bottom of the children’s stairs some weeks ago, and then ignored because nobody ever goes up there when the children are not here. I had removed them to the ironing board in the loft when Oliver’s arrival became imminent, and today I made them flat and beautiful again.

I felt virtuous about that.

Oliver is home now, of course. He arrived late last night, and is hale and hearty as always. I told him about our AI discoveries, and he listened patiently before explaining that mostly AI is complete rubbish, and very easily confused.

Fascinated by this, I thought I would investigate by asking it about these very pages, just a simple question.

Who writes Windermere Diaries? I asked.

I got the following response, which made me laugh out loud.

The Windermere Diaries you’re referring to online are written by Elspeth, a contemporary blogger who writes under that name. She keeps an online diary — typically published on Substack or a similar platform — where she documents the rhythms of everyday domestic life: cooking, household chores, nature, reflections on simplicity, and the beauty of quiet order.

Her writing style is often compared to writers like Dorothy Wordsworth or Virginia Woolf’s diaries, but with a distinctly modern awareness and gentle humor. Readers are drawn to the Windermere Diaries because of Elspeth’s calm, observant tone, her celebration of the ordinary, and her ability to turn tasks like ironing or sweeping into small acts of grace and mindfulness.

I think we can be agreed that this is first-class tripe.

Fascinated, I went back to Google’s AI, and asked the same question.

Google did a lot better.

• Background: Ibbetson has been a taxi driver for many years, often writing her diary entries in “bits and pieces” while waiting for customers on the taxi rank.
• Literary Recognition: In 2024, she won the Lucy Cavendish Student Fiction Prize.
• Content: Her writing often covers local life, camper van adventures, and the challenges of balancing work with her aspirations to be a full-time writer.
  

This, I thought, was impressive.

All the same, I thought our technical overlords can stop worrying about AI taking over the world at any time soon.

It might take it a while to get there.