I was listening to Sideways as I was walking home with the dog this morning at 9am.

David McGurk is a bank administrator by day and makes mini-figures in his free time. He has made more than 600 figures and collaborated with Abbey Road studios among many big names. Growing up in a poor family of four kids in the 80s, the most exciting time for action figures, readymade collectable figures are not something easily acquirable for David and his brother Stephen. The kids learnt to make their own toys by using PVA glue.

I didn’t really know what that means until I looked up and found a video that he explained his then 8-year-old brother Stephen pushed an old toy figure into a soap, put it into the fridge to be hardened, removed the soap and the figure from the fridge, extracted the figure and poured PVA glue into the shape – and that’s how they get their homemade action figures. David describes Stephen as a genius who does not realise how creative and clever he is. Stephen lost his life to alcoholism at the age of 38.

I learnt from Sideways that David started making figures after his death in Feb 2012 as a way to reconnect with his childhood hero and lifelong friend. But when I watched the interview with Aeon he said he had his son in March 2012, and he was determined to be a good father to his son, be present every moment – yet the time he spent playing with his son triggers the memories of him and Stephen as children, and these memories are like videos in his head replaying again and again. So he decided he had to make a figure of Stephen. In the video David is trying to create an action figure of his brother Stephen. He says, to do so, he needs to live inside Stephen’s body to feel like him and think like him. It is an incredibly difficult process for him. He also taught his own child to create action figures using soap and PVA glue.

Creating is a dialogue between the creator and the made object, by creating we are starting a dialogue. My repetitive proofreading is a dialogue between me and the world as I understand today. David’s creation of mini figures are also part of the human history, particularly in the form of religious artefact and toys. As a parent, I have seen my children learn to make sense of the world with their toy soldiers, Playmobil and LOL dollhouse. Sideways’ research and interview are a dialogue with ordinary people making sense of life.

I love the way radio opens up my mind about things I normally wouldn’t care and give me a new perspective to see the world and simple things like my kids’ toys. I am not an action figure collector and I am fed up with tidying toys for my kids. I don’t care enough about the Beatles. Why would I be bothered with action figures and what’s in this 30mins for me? Escaping the algorithm is opening a dialogue that I can feel and think outside of myself.

On a different note, I also watched a video from WordPress about the important of Open Source and why we should resist reliance on Closed Source system this morning. I have owned this domain for years and this is probably the first couple of weeks I am making use of this actively. I have tried to read on substack but like Facebook it has to keep recommending me new writers and new pages and it is not an ecospace that I know anyone. I came back here. I pay for the domain, I own the space, I don’t have to care about comparing with anyone. Perhaps simply to exist outside the closed platform is a form of freedom and rebellion.

We all know about enshittification – all big platforms make it impossible for the users to leave and the user experience and quality of content keeps decaying because of profitmaking. If we all rely on platforms that exists for commercial value, our reality is dictated by commercial interest. As I said, I have completely got off FB/IG/X, not as a political stand of any sort, just because they no longer suit my needs. Lots of angry comments, decentralisation of information, danger of creeps using your children’s photo to create porn images, you name it. And a post like this will never reach people’s algorithm, unless you are off for a while and it is seen a few more times than normal for once to lure you to get hooked again. I have been on it for far too long.

Anyway, I really like David McGurk’s story – not doing things for money, for climbing up the corporate career, or for art, but for his loss. And for love.