Like Peter Gabriel who, since his 2023 album i/o, has been releasing “Bright-Side” and “Dark-Side” mixes of all his songs.

And Dua Lipa released regular and extended versions of Radical Optimism in 2024 – though the extended versions were on digital and streaming only.

There have always been multiple versions of songs, of course – album, radio, live, remix, 20th anniversary, etc – but releasing multiple studio versions from the get-go is a new and very cool development.

Also, I know Peter Gabriel’s “Been Undone” was released on 3 and 18 January 2026 – the Dark-Side and Bright-Side mixes, respectively – but I think this is going to be my song of the year.

Here are the 36 albums I’ve listened to on repeat over the last five years or so, listed in alphabetical order by artist name.

• Big Thief – Double Infinity (2025)

• The Birthday Massacre – Violet (2004)

• Charlie XCX – Brat (2024)

• The Chicks – Gaslighter (2020)

• Deep Forest – Made in Japan (1999)

• Devon Cole – Two Shades Blonder (2024)

• Dua Lipa – Dua Lipa Live from the Royal Albert Hall (2024); Radical Optimism (2024)

• Elderbook – Another Touch (2024); Little Love (2023); Innerlight EP (2021)

• Filter – The Algorithm (Ultra Edition) (2023)

• Garbage – Let All That We Imagine Be the Light (2025)

• Goo Goo Dolls – Vol.2 (2008)

• Gretta Ray – Positive Spin (2023)

• Haim – I Quit (2025)

• Heleina Zara – Autopilot (2024)

• Jackson Browne – The Very Best of Jackson Browne (2004)

• Laufey – A Matter of Time (2025)

• Linkin Park – From Zero (2024); Papercuts (Singles Collection 2000–2023) (2024); One More Light (2017)

• Michelle Branch – The Trouble with Fever (2022)

• Natasha Humera Ejaz – Ordinary Miracle (2023)

• Peter Gabriel – I/O (2023)

• R.E.M. – R.E.M. Live (2007)

• Rosa Damask – Adore You (2024)

• Rosalía – Lux (2025); Motomami (2022)

• St Vincent – All Born Screaming (2024)

• Tori Amos – Diving Deep Live (2024)

• U2 – Easter Lily (2026)

• The War on Drugs – Live Drugs Again (2024); I Don’t Live Here Anymore (2021)

• Wet Leg – Moisturiser (2025); Wet Leg (2022)

I did listen to lots of other albums, of course. They didn’t make it to this list because I only liked a handful of songs from them.

Take Lady Gaga’s Mayhem (2025), for example. I listened to that from start to finish a few times and then I picked the songs I liked the most (seven of them, it turns out) and added them to my ‘Current’ playlist. But this wasn’t an album I listened to on repeat all the way through.

Same with albums from Aly & AJ, Cannons, The Chemical Brothers, Folk Bitch Trio, FKA Twigs, Kesha, Kita Alexander, London Grammar, Mammoth, Miya Folick, Moby, Neil Finn, Nine Inch Nails & Boyz Noize, Robyn, Rosa Damask, Sabrina Carpenter, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Taylor Swift, Xani, and Zoe Keating, to name a few.

What albums have you had on heavy rotation over the last few years? I’d love to know.

‘Song for Hal’

The Edge on lead vocals.

These lines as a reference to death:

Did you hear “forever”?
Was it playing soft and low?
It’s not a song you wanna hear
If you’re not ready to go

The comfort people find in religion, even though I’m not at all religious myself.

‘In a Life’

This song might be about “celebrating friendship”, but it’s about so much more than that.

Larry Mullen Jr’s drumming.

These lines, which are so relevant today:

And when we make the bed out of war
Deafen our children with its roar
Repeat, rewind, replay once more
Never unsee the sights they saw

The anthemic outro with The Edge, once again, on lead vocals.

‘Scars’

The way this song ends with, “You won’t know who I am / The next time we meet” and then transitions seamlessly into ‘Resurrection Song’.

Larry Mullen Jr’s drumming.

‘Resurrection Song’

Larry Mullen Jr’s infectious drum parts.

Adam Clayton’s driving bass parts.

The Edge’s shimmering, tinkling, shining guitar parts.

The emotion in Bono’s vocals, and how they’re raw and not overproduced.

The fantastic dynamics throughout the song structure.

(Yes, this is my favourite song on the album.)

‘Easter Parade’

A beautific, anthemic outro singing a Greek phrase from the Bible that translates to, “Lord have mercy”. I bet no one had that on their Bingo card!

‘COEXIST (I Will Bless The Lord At All Times?)’

Who thought that in 2026 U2 would release a 6 minute, 48 second quiet, mostly-vocal song produced by Brian Eno that was “a lullaby for parents of children caught up in war”.

The question mark at the end of the song title.

Bono’s voice, equalised but otherwise raw and unprocessed; and with an occasional chorus effect applied.

“[The] girl of Guadalupe”?

The unexpected stinger/discordant chord at the end of the song/EP that has no musical or commercial reason to be there except that’s what the band/producer wanted (or wanted to leave in).

Thoughts about the whole EP

U2 when they’re being experimental, when they’re not trying to be commercial, when they’re singing about things that matter very deeply to them.

How this EP feels like a more mature version of U2 from their The Unforgettable Fire days.

Everyone has a chance to shine on this EP but, for my money, I think Larry Mullen Jr is the star of this album.

The EP title is a nod to Patti Smith’s 1878 album Easter, which I wouldn’t have otherwise sought out and listened to.

A few things to note:

• The list below covers only the typefaces I enjoy writing in the most, along the heading typefaces I usually pair them with.

• Happily, the list of honourable mentions in each section covers most of the typefaces I enjoy reading in as well. I do occasionally use these typefaces for writing, but only when the need arises.

• Within each section, typefaces are listed in alphabetical order.

• Paid typefaces are flagged with “(%)” after their name.

• The first time I mention a typeface I’ve added a link to where you can download or purchase it, or just find out more about it.

In case you’re interested, I have a separate post about my favourite ebook typefaces and an ongoing series on cool type pairings I’ve found on the web.

For completeness’ sake, I should say that I don’t always pair typefaces. Sometimes it’s just best to use the same typefaces for headings and titles as well :)

Serifs

I do most of my writing in serif typefaces using LibreOffice.

Calluna

I almost always pair Calluna ($) with Calluna Sans ($). If I hadn’t purchased Calluna and Calluna Sans together, I’d probably pair Calluna with Whitney ($) for its elegance, Neue Montreal ($) for its neutrality, or Brother 1816 ($) for its geometric elegance.

Crimson Pro

I usually pair Crimson Pro with Work Sans since the two have a similar vibe or with Nebula Sans for a slightly more elegant vibe. Other good pairing options are Avenir Next ($) for its elegant geometric nature and Fact ($) for its squarish geometric nature (which provides a nice contrast to Crimson Pro).

Crimson Pro is a modern interpretation of Garamond. Nebula Sans is a version of Source Sans 3 that’s been adjusted to look like Whitney. Fact is a modern interpretation of Frutiger.

ETbb

I usually pair ETbb with Public Sans or Nimbus Sans, both of which are on the friendlier side of neutral. Other good pairing options are Brother 1816 ($) for is geometric elegance and Neue Montreal ($) for its slightly-friendly neutrality.

That said, when I’m using ETbb as a reading typeface, I almost always pair it with itself.

ETbb is a version of ET Book, Edward Tufte’s modern interpretation of Bembo. Public Sans is my favourite modern interpretation of Franklin Gothic. Nimbus Sans is a version of Helvetica that’s a little more like Univers, which I really like. Neue Montreal is a great, slightly friendlier alternative to Helvetica.

Goodchild

I almost always pair Goodchild ($) with Nicholas ($) since Nicholas is the “tight but not touching” headline version of Goodchild. Another good pairing option is Hint ($) since that adds a touch of neutral elegance.

Goodchild is a modern interpretation of Jenson.

Mercury

I almost always pair Mercury ($) with Whitney ($) or Whitney Narrow ($). Other good pairing options are Metropolis ($) for its neutrality and Calluna Sans ($) for its elegance. The Mercury + Whitney combo is my default in LibreOffice Writer.

Metropolis is an interpretation of Gotham, the latter being from the same type foundry as Mercury and Whitney.

Source Serif 4

I almost always pair Source Serif 4 with Source Sans 3. Other good pairing options are Fira Sans to add a bit more character, Merriweather Sans to add a bit more elegance, and Public Sans to add a more classic, friendly vibe. The Source Serif 4 + Source Sans 3 combo is what I usually use when sending an editable document to someone (with fonts embedded).

Public Sans is my favourite modern interpretation of Franklin Gothic.

Stempel Garamond

I pair Stempel Garamond ($) with Rethink Sans since they have a similar vibe or with Nebula Sans for its solid elegance. Other good pairing options are Jost* for its geometric elegance and Cabin for its geometric friendliness. Stempel Garamond also works well with something neutral like Helvetica.

Stempel Garamond is a modern interpretation of Garamond. I’m not a big user of Garamond, but this version is my favourite. Rethink Sans is a fork of DM Sans, which itself is a fork of Poppins. Jost* is a modern interpretation of Futura. Cabin is a modern interpretation of Gill Sans.

TT Jenevers

If I’m not pairing TT Jenevers ($) with itself (usually its Extra Bold weight), I pair TT Jenevers with Cooper Hewitt for its classic, geometric vibe. Other good pairing options are Merriweather Sans which adds a bit of geometric elegance, Public Sans which adds a bit of friendliness, and Whitney ($) which adds a bit of friendly elegance.

Willy Caslon

I pair Willy Caslon ($) with Public Sans, since they both have the modernised-classic vibe. Other good pairing options are Neue Montreal ($) for its friendly neutrality, Neue Haas Unica ($) for its warm neutrality, and Trade Gothic Next ($) for its classic, friendly vibe.

Willy Caslon is a modern interpretation of Caslon. Public Sans is a modern interpretation of Franklin Gothic. Neue Montreal is a modern interpretation of Helvetica. Neue Haas Unica is modern interpretation of Unica, which was an amalgam of Univers and Helvetica. Trade Gothic Next is a version of News Gothic, which is the regular-weight version of the original Franklin Gothic.

Honourable mentions

These are the body text typefaces I use for writing only when the need arises, along with the typefaces I like to pair them with.

• Bitter: Montserrat, Cabin, Work Sans.

• Chaparral ($): Myriad Condensed ($) (modern interpretation of Franklin Gothic), Chaparral Display/Subhead ($)

• Charis (updated version of Charter): Inter, Cooper Hewitt, General Sans, Cabin.

• Heuristica (extended version of Utopia): Cooper Hewitt, Public Sans, Cabin, Inter.

• Libre Baskerville: Montserrat, General Sans, Cabin, Arimo.

• Merriweather: Merriweather Sans, Oswald, Poppins, Brother 1816 ($).

• Novela: Nimbus Sans, Metropolis, Figtree, Fira Sans.

• Sabon Next ($): Neue Haas Unica ($), Nimbus Sans, Avenir Next ($), Ideal Sans ($).

• Sentient: Nimbus Sans, General Sans, Nebula Sans, Merriweather Sans.

Finally, I should mention that, even though I don’t currently use these typefaces (they’re on my wish list), the Untitled Serif ($) + Untitled Sans ($) pairing is excellent.

Sans serifs

Calluna Sans

I almost always pair Calluna Sans ($) with Calluna ($). If I hadn’t purchased Calluna Sans and Calluna together, I’d probably pair Calluna with Mercury ($) or Heuristica for their authoritativeness or Gentium (probably Extra Bold) for its warmer vibe.

Heuristica is an extended version of Utopia and is a good, free alternative to Mercury.

Fact

I usually pair Fact ($) with Bitter since the letterforms of both are based on rounded rectangles. Other good pairing options are Caladea for its friendliness, Faustina for its modern rounded-rectangular warmth, and Mercury ($) for its authoritativeness.

Fact is a modern interpretation of Frutiger.

General Sans

I usually pair General Sans with At Hauss ($) since they’re both quite similar (ie At Hauss could almost pass as the display version of General Sans). Other good pairing options are Jost* for its geometric sharpness, Charis for its modern friendliness, and Sentient for old-school its charm and warmth.

Jost* is a modern interpretation of Futura. At Hauss may be a paid typeface, but its non-commercial version costs only €9!

Hint

I usually pair Hint ($) with Emy Slab ($) since they’re both slightly elegant but otherwise solid typefaces. Other good pairing options are Editorial New ($) to add some modern style, Audela ($) to add a little chunkier solidity, and Calluna ($) to add some friendlier style.

Hint is my preferred alternative to Avenir.

Ideal Sans

I almost always pair Ideal Sans ($) with Sentinel ($) since they both have the same vibe and are from the same type foundry. Another good pairing option is Metropolis for its modern solidity.

Metropolis is an interpretation of Gotham, the latter being from the same type foundry as Ideal Sans and Sentinel.

Nebula Sans

I usually pair Nebula Sans with Mercury ($) since they have a similar vibe or with Clab ($) if I want a slightly more solid vibe. Other good pairing options are Goodchild ($) for its modern elegance and Heuristica for its modern friendliness.

Nebula Sans is a version of Source Sans 3 that’s been adjusted to look like Whitney. Heuristica is an extended version of Utopia and is a good, free alternative to Mercury.

Officer Sans

I pair Officer Sans (free) with itself or with Caladea for its friendliness.

You can get the basic version of Office Sans for free, but there is also a full Officer Sans family that you can purchase.

Public Sans

If I’m not pairing Public Sans with itself, I usually pair it with Sentient since they have a similar vibe (friendly, classic). Other good pairing options are Georgia (or Gelasio) for its retro charm, Roboto Slab for its solidity, and Heuristica for its modern friendliness.

Public Sans is my favourite modern interpretation of Franklin Gothic. Gelasio is an open source version of Georgia. Heuristica is an extended version of Utopia and is a good, free alternative to Mercury.

Rig Sans

If I’m not pairing Rig Sans ($) with itself, I usually pair it with Sentient since the latter adds a bit of classic charm to the text. Other good pairing potions are Literata TT Subhead for its solid warmth, Clab ($) for its elegant authoritativeness, and Goodchild ($) for its modern elegance.

Rig Sans is the typeface I go to every time I’m tempted to use something like Verdana.

Source Sans 3

I almost always pair Source Sans 3 with Source Serif 4 since they’re part of the same family. Other good pairing options are Manuale for its rounded-rectangular sharpness, Roboto Slab for its solidity, and Charis for its modern friendliness.

Charis is an updated version of Charter.

Whitney

I almost always pair Whitney ($) with Mercury ($) since they have a similar vibe. Other good pairing options are Sentinel ($) for its old-school vibe, Metropolis for its solidity, and Goodchild ($) for its modern elegance.

Metropolis is an interpretation of Gotham, the latter being from the same type foundry as Whitney and Sentinel.

Honourable mentions

These are the body text typefaces I use for writing only when the need arises, along with the typefaces I like to pair them with.

• Avenir Next ($): Futura ($), Blacker Display ($), Quador Display ($), Clab ($)

• Brother 1816 ($): Faustina, Heuristica, Goodchild ($), Zilla Slab

• Fira Sans: Merriweather, Roboto Slab, Heuristica, Inter Display

• Inter: Sentient, Heuristica, Caladea, Roboto Slab

• Neue Montreal ($): Editorial New ($), Nicholas ($), Sentinel ($)

• Roboto: Roboto Serif, Roboto Slab, Bitter

Finally, as mentioned in the serif section above, even though I don’t currently use these typefaces (they’re on my wish list), the Untitled Sans ($) + Untitled Serif ($) pairing is excellent.

Monospace

I’m only including this section for completeness’ sake because, whenever I use a monospace typeface, I pair it with itself.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The monospace typefaces I use most often are JetBrains Mono, Berkeley Mono, and Cascadia Code. I will also occasionally use Drafting* Mono, At Textual, and Clack.

Concluding thoughts

Sorry for the long post – I had a lot to get through!

If you’ve made it all the way to the end, tell me what your favourite or go-to typeface pairings are.

😆

Last month it was Julia from the “Square Space Security Team”.

And this week we have “Collins” reaching out from the “Squarespace Security Team” so at least they got the name of the company right. “Collins” was even helpful enough to leave the quotation marks around his name. Good on you “Collins”.

“Passengers on the platform are reminded to stand behind the yellow line until the train comes to a complete stop”

— Repeated pre-recorded announcement made over the public address sytem at all train stations in Melbourne.

I can imagine the discussion the pre-teen and their mother had on platform 10 at Southern Cross railway station just before I took this photo. That’s because, the second the mother looked away, the pre-teen quietly stretched one leg and tapped the forbidden side of the yellow line with their toe before quickly pulling their leg back 😛🙄

Days or Ash is good, but Easter Lily is excellent. And both are a true return to form.

In fact, I think maybe 80% of the music I’ve listened to since Easter Lily was released on 2 April has been this EP played from start to finish!

The post from 21 April 2026 reads:

This Is Just To Say

I have turned off
the AI features
that were in
the update

and which
you were probably
hoping
to monetize

Fuck you
they were stupid
so unnecessary
and so annoying

I took only a handful of photos with it on today’s short walk though. I was having more fun talking with Nadia that I was with taking photos :)

Suburban electricity pole

Statue in a garden

Colourful windmill on a fence

Buying solar panels in Australia is surprisingly straightforward these days. Here’s how I went about getting them.

1. Researched solar power for the home

These were some of the resources I used:

• Introductory webinars from Solar Savers, organised in association with several local councils across Melbourne. If you want to want to watch one of these, here’s the August 2025 webinar on ‘Solar, Batteries, and EV Chargers’ on the Zero Carbon Merri-bek website.

• Solar Hub from Solar Victoria, a program from the Victorian Government.

• Solar 101 from SolarQuotes or, really, their whole YouTube channel.

2. Figured out what we wanted from solar, now and in the future

In our case this was:

• Short term: install as many solar panels as possible.

• Medium term: replace our gas stove with an induction one and our instantaneous gas hot water system with an electric one (either storage or heat pump).

• Long term: add a home battery and, once we buy an electric vehicle (EV), add an EV charger to our solar system.

This meant we didn’t want to get a basic solar system that would serve just our current needs. We wanted to get a system that would support our future electrification plans.

3. Found solar installers and got quotes

Finding good solar system installers can be a challenge but, fortunately, these two services got me free quotes from qualified and vetted installers:

1. SolarQuotes, which is the service recommended by CHOICE. I’ve been a member of CHOICE since 2011 and those folks have never once steered me wrong.

2. Solar Savers, which is a joint local government initiative that helps residents make the switch to solar power.

I ended up requesting two quotes from each service.

I also got a recommendation from a friend who’d had their solar system installed last year.

4. Picked a solar installer and a solar system configuration

Most of the installers got in touch with me pretty quickly and I had good chats with all of them.

Three of the installers submitted formal quotes and we ended up picking the one that recommended the most appropriate system for our house and also had the best customer service.

This wasn’t the cheapest option presented to us, but it was the one that would give us the most bang-for-buck for our type of roof, because it turns out we have a “complex roof”.

Finding an installer who does complex roofs

We have a concrete tile roof but, as you will have seen in the photo at the top of the post, instead of two large, flat surfaces that run the length of the house above the first floor, our roof has lots of smaller segments that are oriented (and, therefore, angled) towards different compass directions. Also, we have roof segments on both the ground and first floor.

Designing and installing a solar system around this type of segmented, multi-level roof takes time, effort, and money, which is something many (if not all) large solar installers don’t want to do. I learned this from the first installer who contacted me about providing a quote.

He was from a large company that (I learned) only does standard installs, which is probably why that company’s pricing is so competitive. After looking at our roof using his web mapping tool, he said he wouldn’t be submitting a quote. He then recommended I find a local, more specialised installer who would take the time to build a personalised and optimised system for us. This would cost us more, he said, but it would get us the best system.

The installer we ended up going with was Specialized Solar & Electrical (aka Spec Solar). Their system designer built us a customised system that, while more expensive than a similar design from another installer, was still within our budget.

Here’s a depiction of the physical layout of our final install, as shown in the SolarEdge smartphone app.

The Spec Solar designer managed to squeeze twelve solar panels onto our complex roof, but:

• only six of these panels are oriented north (ie facing the sun all the time);

• seven had to be installed as single panels on their own little roof segment; and

• four had to be installed on ground-floor roof segments because there wasn’t enough space on our first-floor roof segments.

Complexity limits your choice of technology

Given the way we had to spread the solar panels out across different roof levels and orientations, as well as our plan to add a home battery in the future, our best option was to go with an optimised inverter system from SolarEdge. (The second-best option was a microinverter system from Enphase.)

The benefits of the optimised inverter approach are:

Optimised power: With a power optimiser sitting under each solar panel, our system can maintain the highest overall power output regardless of the output of each individual solar panel. Meaning the system’s overall output isn’t limited by panels that are producing the least amount of power at the time (because they’re in the shade or because they’re facing east or west) which is what would happen with a conventional string inverter system.

Battery ready: All SolarEdge inverters are hybrid inverters, which is the type of inverter you need if you want to add a home battery to your system. Had we gone with one of the cheaper quotes, we would have had to upgrade to a hybrid inverter once we were ready to install a battery. (And if we’d swapped to a hybrid inverter in that cheaper quote, its updated price would have been close to the quote we did end up going with.)

Future proofing: Even though our solar panels can produce a maximum of 5.7kW from the sun, we went with a 10kW inverter to convert all this DC current in to useable AC current. We wanted that extra capacity so that our future battery wouldn’t be constrained by the limits of our solar panels. EV chargers, for example, run at 7kW minimum. So to be able to use our (future) battery to charge our (future) EV, or to power the whole house at night off the battery, we’d need an inverter that could handle this higher load.

There is one downside to picking the optimised inverter system we did, and that is being locked into the SolarEdge ecosystem. I’m okay with that though. SolarEdge is more expensive than its (relatively new) optimised-inverter competition, but its current line of products are reliable and they come with a good warranty.

In case you’re interested in the details, these are the components we got installed:

• a SolarEdge SE10000H single-phase hybrid inverter and

• twelve AIKO NEOSTAR 3S+54 dual-glass 480W solar panels (with SolarEdge optimisers under each one).

SpecSolar had actually quoted us for AIKO’s 475kW solar panels but those were out of stock at the time of installation, so they upgraded us to the 480kW panels without an extra charge.

5. Got the installation and inspection done

Once we agreed to proceed with SpecSolar, everything moved pretty quickly.

On 2 February the solar system designer came over to do a site inspection, after which he tweaked the design and sent us a final quote. We signed the quote that same day.

On 10 February the team from SpecSolar came over and did the installation. That took several hours, from 7am to around 3pm.

They don’t switch on your solar system the day they install it, by the way. The electrical part of this installation (the bit installed in our garage) needs to be inspected and signed-off by a licenced electrical inspector first. That happened on 19 February.

So 44 days after I first requested quotes, our solar system was switched on and connected to our house.

6. Activated our feed-in tariff

The final (and technically optional) step in this process was getting our electricity retailer and electricity provider – Momentum Energy and Jemena, respectively – to receive the excess solar power we were generating from our panels.

That whole process took over a month but, happily, SpecSolar managed it all on our behalf.

Our solar feed-in was switched on on 25 March. That means our excess power is now going back into the electricity grid, for which we are being paid a tiny amount ($1.18 for the six days in March that this was active, for example).

7. Profit

So how is everything going? It’s going pretty great, actually!

We generated a good amount of power

March is the first full month we’ve had these solar panels and, over the course of that month, they produced 125kWh of power. We, however, used only 24% of this power.

It didn’t come as a surprise that we used less than a quarter of the power generated. In fact, that was part of the plan.

This solar system wasn’t provisioned for use in just the sunniest days of summer, it was provisioned to provide us with sufficient power even on the gloomiest days of winter.

The proportion of solar power we use in winter will be much higher!

We generated that power in spite of gloomy weather

March 2026 was actually a pretty cloudy month. Here is a table showing the month’s daily weather observations from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.

The “Cld” (ie cloud cover) column under the 9am and 3pm sections shows the fraction of sky covered by cloud. This is measured in eights, meaning a score of 4 tells us that four-eighths (ie half) of the sky was covered by cloud.

This table tells us that, on 16 of the 31 days of March, we had cloud cover of 4 or above at both 9am and 3pm. And if you count-up the days in which we had cloud cover of 4 or above at either 9am or 3pm, there were 23 of those days in March.

What does this mean? It means we managed to use only 24% of the power generated by our solar panels during a month in which half the sky was covered in cloud for more than half the time :)

Basically, it means I’m confident that our system is provisioned suitably for whatever winter will throw at us.

We used a lot less power from the grid

What about the other side of the equation? How did generating solar power affect the amount of electricity we pulled from the grid?

According to our electricity bills:

• In March 2025, we drew 291.9kWh of electricity from the grid.

• In March 2026, we drew 157.1kWH of electricity from the grid – which is 54% of what we used this same time last year :)

That result is pretty much exactly what the Spec Solar predicted for us, by the way: an approximate halving of our electricity bill.

But wait, there’s more!

Getting a solar system installed on our roof isn’t the only energy upgrade we did to our house this year. We also upgraded the insulation in our roof.

The roof above our house already had some insulation (likely around R4) but there were large gaps in the batts where there was no insulation at all. Also, the roof above our garage had zero insulation.

‘R’ is a measure of thermal resistance, by the way, and the level recommended for roofs in Melbourne is between R6.0 and R7.0.

What did we do?

We got R4.1 insulation added to our garage and to the gaps in the rest of our roof. And then we got R2.5 spray insulation added on top this R4.1 insulation.

This means our garage now has R4.1 insulation and our house has about R6.5 insulation :)

Because of the reduced heat transfer from inside to outside, it will now cost us less to cool our house in summer and to heat our house in winter. In fact, as the weather in Melbourne has cooled, we’re already noticing that the temperature in the upstairs rooms doesn’t drop as quickly at night as it used to.

(We used Solar Savers to get quotes for this insulation installation too, by the way.)

What next?

Those are the only energy upgrades we had planned for this year.

With an approximate halving of our electricity bill, it should take us roughly seven to eight years to pay off our solar system investment. This includes the cost of regular cleaning and maintenance of the equipment we’ve just had installed.

Electric vehicle

If we drove our car a lot, upgrading that to an EV and getting an EV charger installed would be next on our list.

But we drive so little that we only fill-up on petrol every six to seven weeks, so upgrading to an EV is not worth the investment. (And EVs sure are expensive, especially first-hand ones!)

Household appliances

We’ll probably look into upgrading our stove and hot water system next, since both of those currently run on natural gas.

I don’t think that’ll happen for at least another four or five years though.

Home battery

Depending on how well our solar panels perform in winter, though, we might consider getting a home battery installed sooner rather than later.

The largest chunk of our annual electricity expenditure goes towards heating our house in winter, especially at night. If we find that our solar panels are generating enough excess energy during the day in winter – energy that’s enough to cover most or all of our nighttime heating – then it makes financial sense to store that excess in a home battery to use at night.

This will increase our payback time on the whole system, of course. The payback time on a home battery is about as the same as it is on solar panels: seven to eight years. But if the winter daytime excess energy numbers are good, then the total payback time of the combined systems might increase to only ten years instead of doubling to fourteen or fifteen years.

I’ll keep an eye on the stats over winter and we’ll make a determination either way in summer next year.

Enough solar for now

For now, though, we’re just going to enjoy having the sun power about half of our lives.

Sometimes there isn’t even much for the sun to power. A couple of weeks ago, for example, Nadia was teaching at uni and I was working from home. Even though it was a cloudy day with intermittent drizzles, our solar panels still managed to generate enough energy to export most of it to the grid!

(Things would have been different had I been running the air conditioner, dish washer, or washing machine, of course. But that’s not something we do every day in summer.)

For now we’re just happy with what we have. The rest we’ll figure out next year.

Coffee and dessert options at West Street Cafe in Hadfield

Wine display at West Footscray Wines

Wine display at West Footscray Wines

I already have the TTArtisan AF 27mm f2.8 prime lens (41mm full-frame equivalent on my APSC-sensor camera), which I shoot with all the time.

So when TTArtisan announced the TTArtisan AF 17mm f1.8 Air prime lens (26mm full-frame equivalent), I bought it 97 minutes after I got the email :)

And it took me that long to place my order only because I was in a work meeting when the announcement email came through!

With both my favourite focal lengths now covered with a prime lens each, I am a very happy man.

Sadly, I’ve been able to take my new lens out on a walk only once, but at least I got a couple of nice photos with it.

Spray paint marks the path

Rectangular topiary

I’ve been trying to take a good photo of this tree/bush for several months now. Happily, this time I was using a lens with the exact right focal length at the exact right time of day on a very lovely day :)

Just a little off the top

Get ready for the road ahead

Sadly, I haven’t had the chance to try these out on a proper photo walk yet. All I’ve managed to do so far is test them on a short walk after work.

Still, aside from the tiny bit of vignetting at the highest density level, the results I got with them were great, and I managed to take two really nice, richly-coloured photos of objects on a bright, sunny day.

Hopefully I’ll get the chance to play around with these filters properly over the coming weeks.

So much depends…

A very Australian problem

Nadia, grinning, at the gate

Nadia looking off to the side

Nothing to see, just a totally normal inspection

A normal inspection was carried out

Keep left on the bike path

Shattered paint on a bike and walking path

Scooped right out of the hedge

Context: where I read my ebooks

Like most people, I started reading ebooks on a Kindle ereader, though I have since moved on to a Kobo ereader.

Over time I have also compiled a fairly large collection of DRM-free ebooks.

I read these downloaded ebooks in one of three ways:

• Transfer them to my Kobo ereader.

• Read them on my Linux computers using Foliate.

• Read them on my Android devices using ReadEra.

ReadEra is great, by the way, and I even purchased ReadEra Premium (for one-time fee of $24) since that supports the developer financially and, relevant to today’s topic, also lets you add your own fonts to the app.

First-choice typefaces

The typefaces I use to read almost all my ebooks are Bookerly (download) and Literata (download basic, download full family)

I use Bookerly on my Kindle, Literata on my Kobo, and I switch between the two when reading in Foliate and ReadEra.

Second-choice typefaces

New books

If, for some reason, I don’t want to use Bookerly or Literata, my second choices are usually Caecilia (purchase) or Bitter (download).

Caecilia is Kindle-only; Bitter I can use on Kobo, Foliate, and ReadEra.

If I don’t want to use a slab serif, however, I usually go with Vollkorn (download) or Merriweather (download), depending on the vibe of the book I’m reading.

Classic books

Those are all great typefaces for reading books in my favourite genres of science fiction, fantasy, crime, mystery, and thriller. However, it just doesn’t feel right to read ebook versions of classic books or older books using a slab serif or otherwise modern typeface.

In an earlier post, I’d listed the four Latin-script typefaces that come to mind when you think of what older books, magazines, and other text-heavy material used to be printed in:

• Bembo (released in 1496),

• Garamond (1549),

• Caslon (1725), and

• Baskerville (1752).

When I want to read the classics, poetry, or just generally older books, these are the typefaces I turn to.

Of those typefaces, the ones I like to read ebooks in are Bembo and Caslon. The specific digital versions I use are ETbb (download) for Bembo and Willy Caslon (purchase) for Caslon.

Another good Bembo version/alternative that I like is Spectral (download), though I don’t use this very often.

Much as I like Garamond and Baskerville, for reading ebooks they just don’t do it for me.

If Garamond and Baskerville do float your boat though, my recommended free(ish) versions of those typefaces are:

• Garamond: Crimson Pro (download), which is a little on the small size, and Novela (pay what you like), which is a little on the large side

• Baskerville: Libre Baskerville (download), Baskervville (download), and Begum (download)

The Conversation website is a great example of Libre Baskerville in action, fyi.

Children’s books

While I rarely read children’s books these days, I did go back and read some of the Enid Blyton books I first read when I was as a child. The typefaces I use when reading those ebooks were Besley* (download) and Century Schoolbook (download).

Typefaces I don’t use

I know this is a post about the typefaces I do use, but I should also mention a couple of default and popular ereader typefaces that I actively don’t use.

For example, I almost never use a sans serif typeface unless the book – usually a textbook or non-fiction book – specifically calls for it.

And I don’t use any of the other serif typefaces available on most ereader devices and ebook reading software – typefaces like Palatino, Rakuten Serif, Noto Serif, Georgia, and Malabar (which you used to get on older Kobo ereaders).

Rakuten Serif is the default serif typeface on Kobo ereaders, by the way. I did read a couple of books using this typeface when I first got my Kobo, but I never got comfortable with how the text looked. This typeface is too much like Baskerville for my liking (at least when it comes to reading ebooks).

The one ereader typeface I haven’t used, but would like to at some point, is Amasis, which is a typeface available on Nook ereaders.

Final thoughts

It makes sense that the typefaces I’ve settled on were designed for reading on screens, and specifically for reading ebooks on ereader devices and through ereader apps. And I love that most of the typefaces I’ve mentioned above are easy to download and free to use.

What typefaces do you use for reading ebooks? I know from chatting with folks online that there’s a wide range of opinions out there. I’d love to hear about which typefaces you’ve tried and which ones you find yourself using more than others.

Some examples

Here are a few examples of older and newer books in our collection that mention the typefaces they’re printed in, as shown on their copyright pages.

The typefaces used in those books are:

• Dante in The Dark is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper from 1984

• Bembo in Terra Nullius by Claire G Coleman from 2017

• Minon in The Endsister by Penny Russon from 2018

• Sabon in Bloody Hello! by Mona Eltahawy from 2025

These are all classified as Garalde or old-style typefaces, by the way, and I love all four of them.

(I haven’t written anything in Dante myself, but I do enjoy reading books set in it.)

A tiny peek behind the curtain

Reading through the copyright page at the start of every book taught me so much about publishing and printing. In fact, that’s probably where I first came across the concept of typefaces.

Those pages also introduced me to things like copyright, ISBN, editions, prints, and the cities and countries in which book designers, typesetters, and printers were located.

I loved learning and nerding out about all this when I was younger and, to this day, I go through the entire copyright page of every book I read. [1]

Of course I get an extra thrill when I find a book that tells you what typeface it was set in.

It’s even cooler if it tells you the font size and line spacing used. Those are the numbers separated by a slash that are sometimes printed just before the typeface name, by the way. So, “10/12 pt Sabon” means 10 point Sabon with 12 point line spacing (or “leading”, as it was traditionally called).

It takes almost no effort to add this information to a copyright page and I wish more publishers would do it or more authors would insist upon it.

Oh well.

[1] This is one of the things I find incredibly annoying about Amazon Kindle ereaders. When you open a new book on those devices, they jump straight to the main text. That means every time I open a book, I have to manually make my way back to the cover so I can read all the front matter before starting the main text. Conversely, I love that Kobo ereaders open new books at the cover, so you get the chance to read through all the front matter every time. Having read books on Kindles for many years, reading books on Kobos now brings me a lot of joy :)

tl;dr

Caslon is an underused typeface, and for good reason: it isn’t well know, its has some design quirks, and it has very few good/complete digital versions.

Latinotype has just released an excellent contemporary revision of Caslon with five weights (plus italics) named Willy Caslon, and it’s on sale at MyFonts right now (60% off!).

If you’ve always wanted a good digital interpretation of this style of typeface, now is your chance to pick one up.

There’s also nice write-up about Willy Caslon in WE AND THE COLOR.

Caslon doesn’t get much love

When you think of classic, Latin-script typefaces used in books, magazines, and other text-heavy printed material, a handful to mind:

• Bembo (released in 1496),

• Garamond (1549),

• Caslon (1725),

• Baskerville (1752), and

• maybe Bodoni (1790). [1]

Putting Bodoni aside for the moment (since that’s not as general-purpose as the others), if you want to use one of these classic typefaces in your work in 2026, you have several high quality digital options (both revivals and interpretations) to choose from.

Of those options, these are my favourites:

• Bembo: Bembo Book (Monotype); Minion (Adobe); Spectral (Production Type; free)

• Garamond: Adobe Garamond (Adobe); Garamond Premier (Adobe); Stempel Garamond (Stempel/Linotype); ITC Garamond (ITC); Garamond (URW); Sabon (Linotype); Sabon Next (Linotype); Minion (Adobe); EB Garamond (Georg Duffner, Octavio Pardo; free); Crimson Pro (Jacques Le Bailly; free)

• Caslon: Adobe Caslon (Adobe); Caslon 540 + Caslon Bold (Paratype); Libre Caslon Text (Impallari Type/Arrowtype; free)

• Baskerville: Baskerville (URW); ITC New Baskerville (ITC); Libre Baskerville (Impallari Type; free); Baskervville (ANRT; free)

Everyone has heard of Garamond and Baskerville, and some people may also have come across Bembo because it used be bundled with Microsoft Office, but I bet most people won’t have heard of Caslon. (Though if you’re a macOS user you’ve had a version of Big Caslon included since, I think, macOS Sonoma.)

Why is Caslon not more popular these days? There are two reasons for this.

History

Caslon, developed in London by William Caslon I, was hugely popular in the British Empire and British North America when it was released in 1725. American polymath Benjamin Franklin used nothing else, for example, and the US Declaration of Independence of 1776 was printed in Caslon.

But Caslon wasn’t popular elsewhere in the world (eg in Europe where a lot of other Latin-script typefaces were being being used and developed) and then it fell out of favour globally as transitional typefaces like Baskerville rose in popularity from the mid- to late-1700s.

Caslon did have a bit of a revival in late 1800s/early 1900s, but it was again eclipsed by both newer typefaces (like Plantin, Times New Roman, Sabon, and Palatino) and revivals of older typefaces (like Bembo, Garamond, and Baskerville).

Digital versions

When the world moved to digital type, the classic typefaces that were popular at the time were the first ones digitised, sold, and bundled with operating systems and with design and desktop-publishing software. [2]

On the sans serif side, that meant we got typefaces like Helvetica, Arial, and Futura instead of Franklin Gothic, Univers, and DIN. And on the serif side, that meant we got typefaces like Garamond, Baskerville, and Times New Roman instead of Bembo, Caslon, and Sabon.

Operating systems and design software did sometimes bundle limited versions (only one or two weights) or lower quality versions (oversimplified) of less popular typefaces, but that was about it.

I’m a fan of Caslon

I haven’t had the opportunity to use Caslon in my own work very much, but I really like it. It looks great in the The New Yorker, for example, and that publication uses Adobe Caslon in both its print and digital editions. I also prefer Caslon (an “old style” typeface) to Times New Roman (a “transitional” typeface).

That said Caslon isn’t a go-to typeface for me, which is why I haven’t felt the need to purchase a copy of Adobe or Paratype’s Caslon yet.

The main reason I don’t reach for Caslon very often is because its digital revivals are, well, a little too accurate to the original design. [3] The original Caslon’s design has a few quirks that makes it less than ideal for the majority of my use cases.

One repeated complaint about Caslon’s design, for example, is that its uppercase characters are noticeably taller and darker than its lowercase characters. So when you’re reading a block of text, those uppercase characters jump out on the page a little, making the overall colour of the page uneven. Adobe Caslon faithfully replicates this quirk.

What’s cool about the Latinotype interpretation of Caslon is that its designers removed the original design’s metal-type, print-era inconsistencies and added more precision and uniformity – all without neutralising the typeface’s essential character.

(Dirk Petzold’s article in WE AND THE COLOR goes into more detail about Willy Caslon’s design, if you want a deep dive.)

This is why the text set in Willy Caslon in the graphic below looks more uniform. And because it is slightly darker overall, this typeface works great on screen and in print.

(FYI, the design of Libre Caslon Text fixes the size and colour inconsistency between uppercase and lowercase characters, but leaves the rest of the design as is.)

Why am I so excited about Willy Caslon?

There are many digital versions of Caslon available (see Fontspring, MyFonts, and Type Network), but very few are fully featured and useable in modern publishing contexts.

Most are available in just a single style (regular). A few include italics or bold; some include italics and bold; and very few include the basic set of regular, italic, bold, and bold-italic.

Some versions are distressed fonts, which make them more suited for graphic design than for body text applications.

And some, like Matthew Carter’s Big Caslon, are display fonts and not text fonts.

The handful that do include the basic font set (and sometimes more, like the semi-bold and black weights) are:

• Adobe Caslon (Adobe)

• Caslon 540 + Caslon Bold (Paratype)

• William Caslon Text (William Berkson)

• Caslon Pro (SoftMaker)

• Caslon FS (FontSite)

• Libre Caslon Text (Impallari Type/Arrowtype; free)

I don’t have first-hand experience with all these typefaces, but the problem with pretty much all of them is that they’re either too faithful to the original design or they simplify the design so much that some of the original Caslon character is lost.

Willy Caslon benefits from the recent trend of type designers releasing digital interpretations of classic typefaces that retain the character of the original but are now suited to the needs of modern digital and print publishing. [4]

I, for one, am thrilled that a really good, high-useable version of Caslon is now available, and I’m looking forward to using Willy Caslon wherever and whenever I can.

[1] If you keep going forward in time, you can add these to the list of popular editorial typefaces too: Plantin (1913), Goudy Old Style (1915), Times New Roman (1931), Janson (1937), Ehrhardt (1938, 1680s), Palatino (1949), Dante (1954), Sabon (1967), Palatino (1949), Minon (1990), Hoefler Text (1991), and Adobe Jenson (1996).

[2] Yes, yes, I know I’m greatly simplifying things here. A lot went into deciding which typefaces got digitised first, including considerations around licensing, availability, practicality, and personal preference.

[3] Another reason I don’t reach for Caslon very often because its free version, Libre Caslon Text, works best at 16pt and above, so that only works for web pages and not for documents.

[4] Kris Sowersby’s Martina Plantijn (Plantijn) and American Grotesk (Franklin Gothic) are prime examples of this trend.

The cactus does not fear the barbed wire

A quiet spot along Merlynston Creek

Stormwater culvert that helps manage flooding on Merlynston Creek

It is dark in the stormwater culvert

Naturally, I brought my camera along and took a few photos while I was there :)

Introduction

Thuy On kicking off the ‘Poetry & Wine’ session

Jaidyn Attard

Jaidyn Attart is a street poet and I actually posted a photo of one his poems back in 2024 :)

Jaidyn Attard reciting his poetry - 1

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Nadia Niaz

Nadia Niaz getting ready to recite her poetry

Nadia Niaz reciting her poetry - 1

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Thuy On

Thuy On reciting her poetry - 1

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Random photo

Outdoor LED lighting at West Footscray Wines

Lili Ward

Lili Ward reciting her poetry - 1

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Volunteer photographer

Footscray West Writers Fest 2026 volunteer taking a photo - 1

I like taking photos of photographers and videographers, the folks who are usually on the other side of the lens. I even have an album on Flickr with all such photos I’ve taken over the years :)

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Magan Magan

Magan Magan reciting his poetry - 1

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