This week I went from figuring out programmes we’re building across the region, to making cartoons about Kuwait’s relationship with Porsche, to working out how to get inside a rocket factory in India, plus several other things I have exercised the extremely rare good judgement not to put in writing just yet.
Somewhere along the way, the question of how ambitious I’m allowed to make things at THIRD appears to have stopped being asked.
Nobody has intervened, yet. So here we are, a perfectly normal range of activities for one human brain.
Apparently though, this all counts as one job.
One part of my brain has also been occupied by Creator Games. Salil published another issue this week, which you can read here, and we’re now working on taking Creator Games live.
At approximately the same time, I discovered that Kuwait was one of the earliest places in the world where you could buy a Porsche.
Obviously, everything else had to stop.
In 1954, Kuwaiti businessman Morad Behbehani visited Volkswagen’s factory in Germany and met Ferry Porsche. Two years later, he became the Porsche importer in Kuwait.
I love stories like this because they disrupt the version of globalisation we inherit. You imagine Porsche expanding out of post-war Germany into the obvious European capitals.
And then there is Kuwait.
Which brings me to another slightly unhinged experiment.
We’re trialling a new series called Funny Business: very short animated stories about genuinely interesting moments in business history, told with considerably less reverence than business history normally receives.
And apparently cartoons about Kuwaiti businessmen meeting German industrialists were not enough range for one week, because we’re also preparing to go to India to film space companies.
These two things have almost nothing in common, except that for reasons probably best explained by workload-induced delirium, I made both teasers.
I should clarify that I can take almost no credit for how most things at THIRD actually end up looking. Writing I guard with a slightly unreasonable level of possessiveness, but visually, I usually have an idea, explain it with an alarming number of references, and then hand it to people who possess the actual skills required to make it real.
So please enjoy this brief creative detour. I’ll return to bothering everyone with references shortly.
Anyway, I’m not entirely convinced the human brain was designed for this range. Mine certainly seems to be approaching its recommended operating limits.
But at the end of the day, I’m incredibly grateful that I somehow ended up with a job that accommodates my slightly deranged intellectual and very non-intellectual interests.
There are probably more sensible ways to make a living.
I’m very glad this is mine.
See you next week,
Chaymae