{"id":2769,"date":"2026-08-31T18:09:04","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T18:09:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/henrybrook.com\/?p=2769"},"modified":"2026-08-31T18:09:04","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T18:09:04","slug":"if-you-want-to-write","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/henrybrook.com\/?p=2769","title":{"rendered":"If you want to write&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>you can&#8217;t swerve the hours at desk or table. Those hours are the price you pay for the lines. But there are benefits to being a scribbler anchorite. When the fifty-pence plastic part failed and the pipes started gushing in the top bathroom I heard the water streaming from the light fittings, stumbled out onto the landing and grabbed some towels. In four minutes, maybe three, we&#8217;d lost two carpets and all mains power, gained a few ceiling cracks. I&#8217;m rarely out &#8211; the bookshop, groceries, fleeting catch-ups &#8211; but if the copper had popped on one of those forays the whole house would have been under. All August I&#8217;ve been watching the grass turn yellow and the trees cracking up, been thinking on water. Been thinking on human nature and the modernity machine we&#8217;ve created. The plumber shook his head. It should have been soldered, that lasts. But the plastic&#8217;s cheap and fast and you don&#8217;t need to be skilled to clip it together. That&#8217;s the machine too, seeping into everything we do. Maybe I should learn how to solder, as an act of resistance.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/henrybrook.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/PXL_20260821_075142990.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2770\" src=\"https:\/\/henrybrook.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/PXL_20260821_075142990.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"549\" srcset=\"https:\/\/henrybrook.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/PXL_20260821_075142990.jpeg 640w, https:\/\/henrybrook.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/PXL_20260821_075142990-300x257.jpeg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>you can&#8217;t swerve the hours at desk or table. Those hours are the price you pay for the lines. But there are benefits to being a scribbler anchorite. When the fifty-pence plastic part failed and the pipes started gushing in the top bathroom I heard the water streaming from the light fittings, stumbled out onto [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-henry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrybrook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrybrook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrybrook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrybrook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrybrook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2769"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/henrybrook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2771,"href":"https:\/\/henrybrook.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2769\/revisions\/2771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/henrybrook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrybrook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/henrybrook.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}