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Postcards from the Isle of Man: Finding Vegetables

It’s not easy to eat fibre in a world of burger vans, but I’m managing it.

In past years at the TT, I’ve been known to eat double cheeseburgers for breakfast. When you’re only visiting for a few days anything goes, but I’m here for nearly three weeks this year, and I don’t think my body can survive on alcohol, chips, and ice cream for that long.

I was absolutely jazzed to find a local fine dining curry place has a food truck at the Grandstand serving Indo-Chinese noodles with FRESH VEG in them. I saw them chopping it! With my own eyes! They also do a banging avocado and egg ciabatta in the mornings. I’ve been telling everyone. Nobody else cares. But I’m pretty excited, and their food is really good, so shout out to Kurries and Steaks for bringing proper food to a burgerfight.

I’ve been spending some time in the local Santander Work Café, which is as sterile and uninspiring as it sounds. It’s busy though—people in Douglas obviously need a shared workspace, and they’re making full use of it, which I think is great. I can’t help but sit here at my bench table listening to the aggressively meek playlist remembering when this was a cycling shop though. It used to have a big screen where they showed the Tour de France. Now there’s a sign for something called “Network Grind” which I think is something to do with coffee and work, but that’s not what it sounds like to me.

The reason I keep coming here is because the WiFi is good, I can spend hours at a time on a table without feeling guilty, and the plugs are plentiful. But the best reason by far is that the café part of the workspace is run by local coffee roastery, sourdough bakery and now brewery, NOA.

NOA have been part of the Isle of Man’s local food scene for a good few years now, and their operation expanded last year to include a larger café space with a brewery attached on the seafront. Their bread is amazing, and their pastries are intensely buttery. I’ve not had chance to visit their new place yet, but as soon as I do, I’ll be posting about it because I’m really looking forward to trying their beer. Oddly, it’s not been a very boozy trip so far. We’ve been too busy fixing bikes—it’s easy to let an entire evening get away from you when you’re fettling and tidying and trying not to get in the way.

Anyway, please behold NOA’s Turkish eggs, a dish so creamy and garlicky and satisfying it should be given to the sick to cure them. It could bring the dead back to life. It certainly makes my life worth living at the workspace.

Of course, I’m not eating that healthily. Not when there are church halls stuffed to the hammer beams with corned beef butties and homemade cakes. The best food at the TT is always found at church halls, where coffee is £2, and slices of secret recipe lemon drizzle were made with love and intended to raise the funds needed to fix the roof.

Seeing WI and church group ladies flirting with groups of bikers while they compliment them on their shortbread is an incredibly heartwarming experience. I recommend.

The roads are closed now ready for tonight’s practice sessions, so I’d better get back up to the paddock for scrutineering. Somebody needs to make the brews.

Speak soon

Katie xox

If you want to follow our team’s progress over the next couple of weeks at the TT, visit iomTTraces.com for clips and videos, check out the highlights coverage on ITV4, or visit the TT YouTube, Instagram and X accounts. Look out for Team Kibosh, the KHhire bike, and our racer Shaun Anderson, number 18. In the wise words of Charli XCX, “Vroom vroom.”

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Postcards from the Isle of Man: The Manxman

The sun’s out and we’re on our way.

I’m writing the first postcard from the Isle of Man directly from the ferry. We set sail 20 minutes ago and we’re already almost out of sight of Lancashire—although Barrow In Furness is clinging to the horizon to our right. (Starboard? Is that right?) It’s turned out to be a beautiful day. We left in fog and rain and now the sky is bright enough to turn even the muddy sea around Morecambe Bay a respectable shade of blue. There are people in blankets, but it’s warm. I think they’re used to the horrendous conditions abord the Ben My Chree during more natural northwesterly weather.

Another benefit of not being on the Ben My Chree—I’ve got a seat. The bar on board the Manxman is just as bizarre and pleasant as I remember it, and I’m sat with a Guinness at a little round cabaret table surrounded by TT hats, jackets, and fleeces and the people they belong to. Almost everyone on board is travelling for the races, and we’ve already run out of Norseman lager, the local lager brewed by Bushy’s on the island. By the time we get to Douglas I’m sure we’ll be out of crisps too.

ITV are filming on-board, and despite running into them on the top deck I’ve managed to duck them so far. If I find out what they’re filming for, or if they end up cornering either me or Tom, I’ll let you know. Currently they’re right behind us talking to someone about Dean Harrison.

We’ll be arriving in Douglas this evening, missing the first day of practice, but just in time to crack open a bottle of Chablis at sunset that Tom hid in the van fridge before we left. What a guy. Managed to get the van finished in time for the trip, and brought excellent wine along too. Is there anything he can’t do? I’m especially excited about the fridge in the van. It’s so good. I’ve never had something so luxurious. Imagine—not having melted butter and warm cheese to make butties with before a day out! Milk that doesn’t go off in a day! Amazing, amazing.

If you’re interested in keeping up with “our” team, we’re with the Team Kibosh and WizNorton teams, and Shaun Anderson who’s racing. Check the TT Races X account for news, and keep a look out for these bikes:

I’m hoping that over the next couple of days I’ll have lots of time to send postcards, but I’ll also be updating the Substack chat/messageboard function more often with things I’ve enjoyed eating and drinking and seeing, so make sure you get the app if you can, and join in.

Slane Lhiu
Katie xox

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A New Mini Project: Postcards from the Isle of Man

Two weeks on the island, loads of things to show you

It’s that time of the year again when I can’t sleep at night because thoughts of sunny hedgerows and shiny Fireblades are consuming every microunit of my brain. Next week the TT Races begins for me, and on Monday I’ll be heading over on the ferry (yes, the Manxman) to spend 17 days living in my van, enjoying the scenery, working in a cafe, and most importantly, watching motorbikes race very, very fast around the Mountain Course.

While I’m over there I’ve got a lot of interesting and exciting things to do—it’s not all bikes this year. I’ve decided to document the vibrant food and drink scene of the Isle of Man, as well as its beautiful landscapes and everything else I love about it, in a newsletter mini-series. Remember PROCESS? Like that, but free.

I’m hoping to write a short postcard of a post at least every three days, perhaps more often if I can grab enough time, with at least a couple of interviews with local producers sprinkled in there too. I want to show what it’s really like over there during the TT fortnight, from the total global chaos of the races to the parts of the island that never change.

I’m really excited about this project because I love the Isle of Man, and I hope this series can show how truly weird and wonderful it is—the epitome of tradition meets modernity.

Maybe I’ll also see a basking shark!

Of course, while I’m visiting the island anyway, traveling around while I’m there will take time and money, and although I’ll be working while I’m there—a freelancer never holidays—I really would appreciate your support to make this series a success.

If you’d like to chip in for any bus fares (honestly the buses on the island are great? how do they do it?) and parking fees and the like, it means that I can do even more while I’m there, and write even more stories about what I get up to.

You can send any tips or contributions tome through my PaypalMe link.

Thank you so much! I can’t wait to get this series started.

Katie xox

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Crushing dreams

How Apple got their iPad advert so wrong.

Apple’s latest advert for the new iPad is a big mistake.

Viewers are complaining, en masse, that the depiction of musical instruments, art materials, finished compositions, and various other tools being crushed into one iPad singularity by a hydraulic press is deeply disrespectful.

Katie Mather’s The Gulp is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

I’m really interested by this reaction. Clearly, Apple meant to show that everything you need to make art is held within the iPad. How this was interpreted was very different.

We live in a world where AI is touted by evangelist users as a way to make art without the need for artists. “It’s accessible for everyone!” they say, while also complaining that their prompts are more sophisticated and therefore make better results… No, I don’t get it either. Is AI being developed to make life easier for everyone, or is it just a way to make certain people’s approximation of what art is—a token with inherent value to be made and sold? I am an outspoken critic of AI, and while I find certain aspects of it useful in my other role as an SEO consultant to take away the monotony of repetitive and laborious keyword research, for example, I doubt I’ll ever be convinced of its merit in the fields of creative writing, painting, drawing, poetry, and music. In my opinion, it should be used as a powertool. It makes boring, labour-intensive jobs easier, in order to enable the creative and skilled work to be carried out by people who have the talent to do so. We are all good at different things. AI Art is not a leveller, it is a thief.

Anyway. What struck me about the advert was how tone deaf it was, and how this showed that everyone involved in making it—who must have been, themselves, in the creative industry—thought it was a good idea to show traditional creativity being destroyed by a single electronic gadget. It’s edgy, of course. But is it crossing a line?

The Japanese audience in particular thought so, with many of the complaints coming from Japanese accounts. Here are some of the responses on X (some translated by Google.)

“Many craftsmen value their tools… Musicians value their instruments, architects value their rulers, painters value their brushes and painting materials more than life itself. The video you presented “all in one”, but it will only disgust them. They may never want to engage with your company again. Your predecessors showed us their dreams, you showed us our nightmares.”

“I can’t relate to this video at all. It lacks any respect for creative equipment and mocks the creators.”

“It is a heartbreaking, uncomfortable, and egotistic advertisement. When I see this result, I’m ashamed to buy Apple products since nineteen years.”

“There are a lot of memories, emotions and spirits in there. These things are people’s ‘selves’ that have been smashed. You have smashed those extensions of people’s selves and made a thin, cold something out of it, so it has no emotions or spirits. “

Find more comments here.

Maybe they didn’t mean to make an advert that seemed to promote the destruction of craft, care, and passion. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what it looks like they did.

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Katie Mather’s The Gulp is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

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5 Years of Pellicle

Proud member of your favourite independent food and drinks mag.

This week, the magazine I assist in editing, Pellicle, turned five. We’re having a party to celebrate this milestone—come along—but this week, it was all about sharing our achievements. I think Pellicle has earned the right to be a little boastful.

Pellicle was the first publication to take my wine writing, and was therefore the first place I was ever paid to write about wine. Since then, I have helped create and then edited national wine subscription magazine Glug for almost two years, and still write for them regularly. I have written some of my favourite stories for Pellicle, and their open-mindedness about how far I can take an idea has allowed me to stretch creatively, write personally, and improve, improve, improve.

When Matthew, the owner and editor of Pellicle, asked me to join the team as an associate editor, at first I was concerned I wouldn’t have the capacity to give writers the attention they deserved—I was still running my bar Corto at the time. I shouldn’t have worried. It turns out editorial work is as close to a true calling for me as I think I can get. I absolutely love working with writers to polish their work into something they can be immensely proud of. Editing at Pellicle isn’t a simple glance-through, neither is it a strict adherence to brand guidelines. It’s a symbiotic relationship between writer and editor. A beautiful SCOBY that becomes a delicious literary kombucha, if you like. I feel immensely privileged that people bring their best work to us and I can read it before anyone else, and then have conversations that might take that work even further.

Pellicle is fully independent and can only pay contributors and our little team (Me, Matthew and Lily) through generous donations, Patreon subscriptions, and support from Pro Patreons and our sponsors.

Please, if you value what I do, what we do as Pellicle, and the writers, photographers, and illustrators who we publish—sign up as a Patreon. We are hoping to put up our rates for contributors soon, and we can only do that with the support of our Patreons!

Become a patron of the arts—be a Pellicle Patreon supporter

I believe that Pellicle is pushing food and drinks writing forward. I believe it’s a special and important publication, unique in its offering and essential if we want stories about food and drink that don’t follow the preceding narratives of traditional media. Pellicle gives a platform to new and newly-discovered writers when others rely on celebrities and critics for their coverage. Pellicle shares the unique and insightful opinions, experiences, and perspectives of writers, not just press releases or reviews of the products they consume.

I am incredibly proud to be able to call myself a member of the Pellicle crew, and I intend to spend the next five years working hard to make Pellicle as successful as it deserves to be—as a publisher, as a platform for talent, and as a space for creativity and thought provocation.

Thank you for getting us this far. Here’s to Pellicle, and all who made it.

Buy Tickets to My Tasting Session at the Pellicle Birthday Party

On Saturday 11 May, the Pellicle 5th Birthday Party will take place across the Piccadilly Trading Estate’s rich seam of brewery gold. I’m thrilled to be hosting a tasting session at Balance Brewery at 2.30pm on the day, pairing their delicious beers with vegan nibbles provided by their lovely selves.

Please come along: tickets are £20 and you will get four drinks and four amuse bouches included.

Get your ticket here.

My Pellicle Pieces from the Past Five Years