lif Shafak says she finds it easier to write sorrow and grief in Turkish, her mother tongue, and comedy and satire in English. The observation lodged with me. If English is hospitable to humour in a way other languages aren't, the question is why — and one answer is that the language carries the structures of British comedy inside its own vocabulary.

I gave a talk at Write The Docs London a few weeks back, to a room full of technical writers. The pitch: most people's relationship with AI stops at the chat box, and for docs work that's leaving a lot on the table.

I know an alchemical art
which is as ancient as man.
Do you see transformation
on the lines I scratch?
There is an illusion of creation,
but it is just humble change.

Weeping was my lot.
Half asleep, two little sparrows
left their own land
‘refugee’
I kiss their bodies,
the colour of wheat in summer.
They complain into the watering.
It was my lot to be the cloud!

The ceaseless body carries on
when perhaps you should stop
and plot a route. A path.
A freeing twist.