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“Anyone who isn’t embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn’t learning enough.”

Plus a little time travelling

Author

Leonie Mercedes
October 30, 2025

Good morning ☀️ Here’s your three-part nudge for the day:

a prompt

In the next 5–10 minutes, write a letter to your 13-year-old self. Think about what you’ve learnt, achieved, and overcome since then. What would you want them to know?

a thought

“Anyone who isn’t embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn’t learning enough.” – Alain de Botton, via Austin Kleon’s Show Your Work

farewell

Prunella Scales, actor (1932–2025)

“For her Fawlty Towers character, Scales said she concocted a backstory that had Sybil’s family working as caterers at a small hotel on the south coast…

“‘Sybil’s trouble was that, having married out of her class and been fooled by Fawlty’s flannel, she realised, too late, that she had landed with an upper-class twit for a husband,’ Scales said in the 2007 book Fawlty Towers: The Story of a Sitcom. ‘But behind all of Sybil’s apparent disenchantment with Basil, there is still some – just enough – real affection for him, and that is probably what makes her stay.’”

Thanks for coming, dear makers and shakers. See you tomorrow, for our final edition ☕