How I staved off brain rot: Cats, classics and cycling

My first experience of brain rot, as we call it now, was around six years ago when I came awake at 4 am, still in my work clothes, face half burrowed into a pillow and my phone lying next to my head – the last thing I had been looking at was an Instagram post by a friend who isn’t a friend anymore.

I’ve tried hard to kick the social media habit since the shameful realisation that night but it has felt like playing a video game that you’re bad at: phones and technology level up even as you get better, and there’s always that one level which sets your progress back.

Then a cat wandered into my life one summer day and her everyday antics are a compelling alternative to the internet’s doomscroll. Impulses to reach for my phone have been replaced by, “What’s the cat doing?”

Unless, of course, I need the phone to record what the cat is doing: chasing a squirrel up a tree, pouncing on an imaginary foe, sniffing flowers with the air of an English poet, fleeing her latest frenemy on the block – tail tucked – and usurping my grandmother’s favourite armchair.

There’s also the indulgent joy of...

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