When in Rome.

The illusion of infinite efficiency.

Nov 18, 2025

Hello, and welcome back to the KIOSK. How have you been? I’ve just retuned from Rome, which, due to its large number of fine kiosks, could almost be chalked up as a taxable expense. But let’s not think about that, because it reminds me I need to do my tax return.

It was a very nice trip, and I won’t bore you with the details, but I enjoyed it particularly because of the mindset I was in while I was there. What am I talking about? Well, my partner, Lizzy, was teaching a week-long course, and I was merely joining for a spell, with none of the responsibilities of educating anyone except myself. The casualness of that premise meant that I felt unburdened by the need to see Rome in the same way as if the trip had been specifically to see Rome. Which, ironically, kind of freed me up to actually, y’know, see Rome. And yes, I do appreciate that I sound insane.

I’d never been to Rome before and of course I saw a few of the classics. The Colosseum is not getting old, and the Pantheon is one of the singularly most stunning spaces I have ever set foot in. An experience that my architectural studies and photos couldn’t come close to to conveying. But for the most part, I wandered around, I drank espressos from perfect little cups, I peered at ancient crumbling walls and baroque statues, took analogue photographs when the light was right, ducked into small bars, sat in squares warmed by the Autumn sun…and well, you get the the idea.

I’m not a man to thrash out a strict schedule for a trip, but I somehow I felt doubly freed by the circumstance from the notion of ‘getting the most out of it’, or being efficient.

The more I think about it, there are strong arguments for being less efficient these days. It feels like every advert at the moment is generally geared around the idea of saving you time. Which I understand conceptually, as no one feels like they have enough, but I disagree that the solution is a grammar app, a delivery app, a time management dashboard, or AI in general. The elephant so often in the room is, what you’re going to be doing with all this newly free time beyond the vague notion of having ‘fun’? Which is generally depicted by a preposterously attractive family all smiling and laughing at each other. And on a personal level, for all these incredible advances in time saving, why is it harder and harder to get someone to have a drink with me? (Don’t answer that, it will probably be abundantly clear by the end of this newsletter.)

A few TV adverts take a stab at it, but only mange to highlight how weird this concept is. A current Tesco’s delivery service advert showcases various oddballs indulging in niche pursuits in their own homes, with barely concealed contempt. Charitably, I think it’s supposed to be ‘you do you’, but the overall message it gives, is that ‘these freaks have to do this thing behind closed doors, and therefore need their essentials shipped in’. The final shot of the perplexed delivery person might as well come with the caption, ‘Here’s your food, you fucking nutbag!’ And that’s how they are depicting their customers. That’s you, that is.

Another advert for pet food delivery sails closer to the wind, actually engaging with the paradox that I’m talking about, although it tries to make light of it. A woman is freed from the burden of worrying about ordering pet food, allowing her the brain-space to ‘…worry about something else…!’ Ha. Ha. Ha?

I talked about something similar in my newsletter in about real life side quests, as we clearly need distractions and activities to quiet our raging minds, probably now more than ever, and ‘chores’, although perpetually branded as negative, are actually very good for this. The point I made in that newsletter was that there’s a rise in chore based video games, that people are playing in their free time, and it’s a curious development. It speaks to this.

The other day we ran out of washing up liquid so I had to cycle to the local market to get it refilled. Did I want to go? Absolutely not. But was glad I went? Of course. Because what else would I have done with that half an hour? Scrolled the fuck out of Instagram?

I’m also fascinated by what is classified as a chore these days too, whereas in the past is was just called, ‘life’. There’s another advert at the moment for some AI assistant thing with a woman choosing flowers, and she gets the thing to choose the bouquet for her. What the hell is going on in her life where this act, a task so wholesome that it’s probably too twee for a children’s book, has been re-classified as ‘an absolute ballache’?! And as such, should be left to the robots, while she does…what? Stares vacantly into space? Or perhaps she’s desperate to get back to some of that laughing and smiling at her attractive family we’re supposed to crave? Oh, and here’s some flowers that I didn’t choose. Which is the whole fucking point of flowers.

Most current studies suggest that despite the billions invested in AI, it hasn’t really seen any measurable increase in productivity or efficiency in the workplace. It’s early days though, and the AI defenders (those twats, the one who invested the billions) say it’s only a matter of teaching the workers to use it properly and it will really come into it’s own. So, come on comrades, lets all dig our own mass, unmarked grave, together!

Regardless of what actually happens, it wouldn’t surprise me if it didn’t work, because we’ve been here before, haven’t we? Certainly in my line of work, we all know that ability to send an instant message or email has not streamlined the process of illustration and publishing at all. Instead it has merely opened up the opportunity for much more client back-and-forthing, worse and worse briefs, and fickle, mind-changing. So, perhaps, as a society, we’re about as efficient as we can get?

Much like capitalism's central myth, you can’t have infinite growth forever. And what is efficiency anyway? The most efficient process is nothing happening at all. Created in a second, forgotten in an instant.

AI has already crept into our domestic lives in many sigh-inducing ways, and in one recent banal example, a flyer for a petanque competition was dropped into a Whatsapp group I’m in (yes, I’m pretty cool) that was clearly AI generated. A designer friend of mine shared it privately with an angry eye-roll, and yet, back in the group chat, people responded with ‘great poster!’, as of course, they couldn’t tell the difference. So the general populous is not going to save us on this one. The government clearly couldn’t give less of a shit either, and my own industry seems to be pinning its hopes naively on the fact it can’t draw hands properly yet.

How does one respond to this? I genuinely have no idea, but personally, I think I might just slow down. Because I can’t out run it, I can’t even keep up with it. All I can do is watch it thunder off into the distance and hope for some kind of hare and tortoise outcome. I can’t keep up with a person who is trying to shave seconds of their daily schedule by using Monday.com, or Grammarly, or using AI to choose their flowers. It’s a race I seen no value in taking part in. Going slow is the one thing it can’t do. It can’t think for any longer than it takes to receive the input and then prematurely ejaculate the unconsidered results.

It already feels like a million years ago, but that Joanna Maciejewska post is still right on the money;

‘I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes’

But without being too facetious, I think I actually want to do the chores too, especially if that ‘chore’ is flower choosing. I don’t want to hand over any of my precious time, because we’re in control of how precious that time really is. I don’t want to listen to podcasts at double speed, I don’t want to binge watch the next must-see TV show only to have it completely forgotten about the next month.

But don’t worry about me guys, I’m fine in the slow lane. Send me a postcard when you get there, because where is that? You’re not seriously going to send me that picture of the inane smiling family are you? We can’t keep falling for this. Elon Musk has EVERYTHING and that entire, non-smiling family, hate him.

I want to make drawings, write stories and think about both. It doesn’t really matter how fast I make them, because AI is allowed to steal them as soon as I’m done, so I might was well enjoy the process, becasue that’s the bit where I still own it. I want to play petanque (perhaps one of the slowest sports known to man), cycle about London on errands, make my own pasta (been enjoying that recently), take photos and wait for my films to be processed, grind coffee beans (found an old wooden hand grinder on a market stall the other day and restored it), or just read a book.

More and more I feel like slowing down and doing something with presence and intent is the most revolutionary act I can undertake. It’s the one thing it can never beat me at. And, paradoxically, I seem to be getting more done too.

I think one of the fascinations with Ancient Rome comes from the fact that despite it being two thousand years ago, society today kind of still looks exactly the same. From the political to the philosophical to the domestic, it’s all there. The majesty of achievement, the grub, the horror, the cruelty, and the banality.

If Rome was built in a day, it would’ve been forgotten the day after. But as the popular meme informs us, many of us are still thinking about it with remarkable frequency. Because of it’s layers, its chaos, unending lives upon lives. And for me, I want to be involved in that messy process, not sell off portions of my life so that I can do…‘something else’.

This is how it always ends. With death. But first there was life. Hidden beneath the blah, blah, blah. It’s all settled beneath the chitter chatter and the noise. Silence and sentiment. Emotion and fear. The haggard, inconstant flashes of beauty. And then the wretched squalor and miserable humanity. All buried under the cover of the embarrassment of being in the world, blah, blah, blah... Beyond there is what lies beyond. I don’t deal with what lies beyond. Therefore... let this novel begin. After all... it’s just a trick.
Yes, it’s just a trick.
Jep Gambardella. ‘The Great Beauty’.

Sorry about that, everyone. I was just going to tell you about my trip to Rome, but I got a bit distracted. I promise I’ll keep the next one short and light. As a treat for making it this far, here’s a Ancient Roman food kiosk found in Pompeii. Rather lovely isn’t it? It even has the right colour scheme.