Good Sunday Stack January 25th

Zero Day

Good afternoon and greetings from East London.

Appalachian Trail thru hikers regularly take ‘zero days’ amidst their 2,198-mile journey from Georgia to Maine. The phrase refers zero miles walked that day, a respite from a trek that often sees them cover 20 plus miles a day of rugged east coast terrain. It gives them a chance, to rest, resupply, escape bad weather—reset really.

I was hiking a section of the trail after I’d graduated from college and taken a break to read a book in a shaded part of the trail . It was a hot day, and the shade granted no respite from Virginia’s trademark summer humidity. I heard footsteps through the trees below me, as they drew closer, I saw a thin gentleman slowly arriving to the ridgeline. I greeted him as is customary to do when you pass strangers on the trail, he mumbled a reply as his walk slowed to a crawl and his footing grew shaky.

He seemed on the brink of collapse before I got him leaned up against a boulder opposite my own. Through a raspy voice he got out the word ‘water’ and I poured a few glugs from my bottle into his Nalgene.

After five minutes or so went by, his fogginess wore off and he introduced himself. He was British, from near Bath in the southwest, and was raising money on his walk for an animal rights organization. The heat had gotten the best of him climbing up the incline. As we chatted more he asked if I had any ‘fizzy drink’, which was gibberish to me at the time but now having lived in London for a few months I know to mean soda. I didn’t have any and don’t actually know anyone who hikes with soda. I offered some trail mix as a sugar-alternative.

Eventually, his strength renewed, he carried on and I returned to my book.

I ran into him again later in the day, when he’d reached a sheltered campsite about a mile short of where the trail intersects the Blue Ridge Parkway at Reid’s Gap. He was chatting with some fellow thru hikers about leaving their bags and hitching a ride down to a brewery off 151. I told them not to worry about hitching a ride as I’d parked my car off the gap and offered to give them a lift in exchange for a beer.

It was over burgers and pints that evening where I first learned of a ‘zero day’, a few of the group planned to take one at one of their aunt’s house in Staunton. Showers and a homemade meal, a day off their feet. I’d done a fraction of the trek they had and was allured just the same.

A scroll through the camera roll reveals fizzy drinks were in fact acquired

Inspired, I’ve now come to institute zero days into my own life and I’m in fact writing you from the midst of one. My equivalent of climbing a ridge on a hot Virginia afternoon was a long day in Central London topped off with a bike ride home in a cold rain yesterday. From winding down first term classes, papers and assignments, hosting family for the holidays, and now jumping into a new term with a dissertation to embark on, this past month’s been a healthy stretch of life. Zero days offer a chance to punctuate and start a sentence. Take them too often and you won’t have anything interesting to say, but every once in a while, they make us realize we’ve been writing on a run-on sentence.

What I’m Watching

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple @ Odeon Tottenham Court Road

My mate Dan and I made a funny pairing here. Two gents, one average sized one rugby player-sized, squirming like little kids when it got too scary. Being a wuss aside, Nia DaCosta’s addition to the ‘28’ franchise is well worth a watch if you’ve got a stomach for it. 28 Years Later was one of my favorite films of 2025, and The Bone Temple got my 2026 off to a good start. While most zombie apocalypse movies make their killing off the immediate aftermath of an outbreak, the 28 Years Later movies start from the questions: what happens decades into the future? how do people adapt?

Hamnet @ Rio Cinema

If I had paid attention in my high school English classes, I probably would have loved this. Unfortunately, I did not. I’ve never been a Shakespeare person, and this did little to change that fact. In Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet the bard takes a backseat to his wife Agnes, played by Jessie Buckley. We see through her eyes a heavily fictionalized version of the pair’s coming together, starting a family, and spoiler alert losing a child, inspiring old’ Bill’s writing of Hamlet.

A story about grief and art at its core, I can see why it’s loved by some. For me though, the instruments Zhao relies on- Shakespeare’s writing and the way light filters through trees - were ineffective.

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World @ Prince Charles Cinema

I cannot properly do justice to how much fun it was to see this in a sold-out screening downstairs at the Prince Charles. Captain Lucky Jack, played by Russell Crowe (a Kiwi) had me (a yank) ready to enlist in Royal Navy for NO!, I do want to call to see a guillotine in Piccadilly nor to call that raggedy-ass Napolean my King!

Before heading into their final battle, when Crowe’s character gives his crew a fiery speech. I felt the entire audience stiffen up as if at attention. We held our posture all through the fight.

Swells of British patriotism aside, this is my kind of movie. Sweeping shots of the of the ship as it journeys around Cape Horn paired with tight shots of the ship’s quarters, wonderfully realized camaraderie, a beloved nerd, dudes rule. She’s in her prime.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest @ Prince Charles Cinema

Rounding out a Saturday double feature, by the end of which I was desperate to get out of Leicester Square. This played like gangbusters, I’m not sure if the woman two to my left went five lines of dialogue without bursting out laughing. I enjoyed it well-enough but couldn’t get past some of its more poorly aged plot points to love it.

What I’m Listening To

With Heaven On Top – Zach Bryan

Bryan’s production has evolved from simple sounding campfire music to building out brass and string sections in his band as well as multiple backup vocalists. His lyrics, meanwhile, remain sourced from collections of personal anecdotes, small love letters to places he’s been, and homesickness for his native Oklahoma. While that homesickness is the same as it’s ever been, he’s now one of the biggest American stars playing shows all over the world. That leaves Bryan in a bit of a strange spot. It’s evident he wants to be Jack Kerouac, but beatniks don’t date influencers or sell out Hyde Park. His stories are that of a rockstar, the women he writes of aren’t anonymous, they’re podcasters we see in our feeds every day.

I still like this album, and Bryan’s music by and large. There are still bits of beat down universality he gets to, but they feel fewer and further between than they once did.