Dispatches from the Pavement Podcast

About Dispatches from the Pavement Podcast

Because if I look up, I might have to make eye contact. Voiceovers of my Substack essays. tobyisaacscomedy.substack.com (https://tobyisaacscomedy.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

Toby Isaacs

Category

comedy · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

1 Jan 2026

Latest episode

13 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

43 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   13 Oct 2026

   The Duty-Free Goblin and Other Airport NPCs

   I came to video games later in life than my peers. There was nothing particularly remarkable about this. I believe that if I were a child in this generation, I would not have a problem with screen time because we wouldn’t have any screens. I would, as I did back then, some 3 or more decades ago, envy other friends who had SEGA Mega Drives, Nintendo 64s, and PlayStations. These were missing from our family home. We did have other things, I have been told. I remember being incredibly excited about a new TV with Ceefax built in. “When I grow up, I’m going to have a TV and watch things with Ceefax overlay on all the time.” It was magical then. Today, it is a trend I am sure is out there somewhere. If you had to Google Ceefax, just wait until you realise you missed out on Bamboozle. Growing into my teens, we finally ended up with a family computer that was capable of playing video games of our own. Specifically, we would spend hours on FIFA ‘97. Three brothers are trying to play multiplayer with a keyboard and a mouse. Mouse controlling football players on FIFA ‘97 is equivalent to being a side character in ‘Alice through the Looking Glass.’ Your intent was entirely understood, and it would then make the players do the opposite. We once tried to play 45-minute sides to see how a real-time football experience would be. It took nearly four hours. Thanks for reading Dispatches from the Pavement! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. When I was younger and less responsible for the life I was living, the comfort of basically getting up in the morning and being dropped off at school or college and then successfully getting a bus back home, I discovered some pretty decent video games. And while you are given the illusion of freedom in a new virtual world, where you can escape the responsibilities you don’t have, you end up on a very particular trajectory which you realise around 6am on a Wednesday morning that you’ve reached the final boss of Metal Gear Solid 3 and you’ve been playing it all night and you need to get to a lecture in 3 hours. Whoops. But this is not limited to the virtual world. If you haven’t noticed, because you are allowed to browse that shop or eat that snack, trying to find the toilets on your way to the next goal, the journey you have been given is the same linear path with no return as is created in these digital creations. The scan of the boarding pass QR code is the entry point into this controlled world. As soon as you unlock the Security Checkpoint achievement, you are embarking on your mission. There is no turning back. You may only go onwards. There is an illusion of ‘open world’ exploration, but your canvas to live in is actually very small. It may feel massive if you’re wandering through Schiphol or Johannesburg, but if you’ve found yourself in Rotterdam airport, you’re just in a larger-than-average cardboard box with a shopping trolley filled with lukewarm water. One cannot ignore that you are not alone in this environ. Unlike other video games, where other people in the game are mostly programmed to move out of your way and just add a suitable amount of reality to the landscape, in an airport, various NPCs existing throughout this side quest will definitely be right in your way all the time. Regardless of whether you fancy a local snack or a local gift, someone, usually a man, usually oblivious to the amount of space he and his suitcase and satchel are taking up, will make this extra non-essential part of the adventure impossible to achieve. You could call it a bug in the programming. And you would be half correct. You will crash into many of these before you reach your departure gate. They will be the biggest obstacle, going at a terribly slow pace and looking entirely lost the whole time. All of the gate information is now readily available on your phone and can be accessed by the airline and airport mobile apps. This is a mystery to every other person who has entered the airport, and these NPCs will gather in bulk underneath departure boards that mostly make reference to other flights that aren’t yours and are delayed. You reach your gate. Despite clear information that ensures everyone knows it won’t open for 20 minutes, a queue is still going to form. All of the characters in this queue will be in business casual, have frequent flyer level 60 and are not worth engaging with. What you will experience is the next non-sequitur in this act. As the gate opens, you find there to be a mad rush of people. You can check your help section, but you are not mistaken; all of the seats are already allocated. They will all get on successfully and, aside from those delayed through transit, the plane will not leave without you. You are here. Chill out. Do not say this out loud. The fixed dialogue loop of the gate staff will remind people regularly to sit down. 14C isn’t going anywhere. You remain ready. You can do what you like, though. You are the main character, and the rules do not apply. Anyway, you do have one thing to work towards. The rest of the linear progression through the terminal has led you to this boss level. You need that overhead space, and you cannot let these NPCs get in your way. Be alert. Below are the classes of characters you will expect to find at this critical moment: Elbow Vanguard Loadout: Only elbows. Hands are firmly stuck in the bomber jacket. Difficult to pass. Passive ability: Unpredictable path, meaning they fill all unclaimed space and are impossible to pass on the airbridge. Special move: Builds momentum in lower lanes and can draft past groups 1-3, taking group 4 with them. The Hard-case Berserker Loadout: Heavily dented polycarbonate four-wheel spinner with one wheel gone rogue. If knocked at the wrong angle, the suitcase will explode, blocking the path of the considerate. Passive ability: Accelerates through the gate with the hard case used as a reverse battering ram. If you are passed by the case, your ankles take damage. Special move: Enrage. Regardless of the group called, all civilised behaviour disappears, and they charge the scanner with the urgency of a fire escape. Duty-Free Goblin Loadout: Unassuming traveller until provoked, then deploys multiple plastic bag cluster bombs, covering all nearby in gin and Toblerone shards. Passive ability: Will always find a space in the overhead lockers, even when told they are all full. The Decathlon Tank Loadout: An 80-litre expedition rucksack strapped to his back, counterbalanced by a 30-litre daypack worn on his chest. Attack Pattern: Turns abruptly to ask his partner if she has the passports, executing a perfect 360-degree spin that wipes out three fellow passengers and a small child’s packet of Smarties. As you scan your boarding pass, you should hear the comforting “Game Saved” chime as you pass through the sector. Travelling down the airbridge, encumbered by your luggage, you may glance outside at the unrendered tarmac of the world beyond. The distance stays there. It is a reminder that there is something out there that has been placed inside, but it is not for you. Out there, ambient scenery moves about, showing that you too will enter that space in time, but, for now, you must carefully, and without aggression (for fear of the Game Over screen as you are escorted out of the airport), follow the queuing NPCs who cannot remember a number and a letter when they are asked their seat number and fumble for their boarding pass that they had been holding in their hands moments ago to get to this point. There is some incongruence at this point. The safety demonstration that is mandatory on all flights is the unskippable tutorial you normally get at the beginning of the game, but for some reason comes at the end. They claim you have to pay attention, as it may be different from other aircraft. It is then exactly the same as every other aircraft. Which is reassuring, as you would hope that there is a base level of similarity in aircraft to ensure they can execute the essential mission of transporting passengers through the air. The best thing you can do is surreptitiously increase the volume on your headphones, the equivalent of turning the volume down because you’ve seen this bit a thousand times before. The bit right before the final boss, because you cannot get the right combination to weaken them at the right moment, and you’re stuck with the same section over and over and over and over. Only this time, it’s telling you to make sure you can breathe before checking if other people can. You aren’t going to pay proper attention, believing that you’ve played levels like this before, this is the same basic premise, should I need to deal with the various emergency procedures that you are preparing us for, I think I’ll be quite fine, thanks and I’ll just improvise, smashing various buttons over and over until the right combination, in this case, releases the emergency door. There is a certain comfort in the way that, as I am now more adult than before, the world has created these familiar video-game-like experiences which have as realistic graphics as you can get. Somewhere out there, Microsoft Flight Simulator has an abandoned Microsoft Passenger Simulator project that never, pardon the pun, got off the ground. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tobyisaacscomedy.substack.com (https://tobyisaacscomedy.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

2. 

   6 Oct 2026

   Your next Thought Leader: A profile

   Just when you didn’t think he could be a worse human being, you discover that he commutes to work on a Lime Bike. What are you going to do, though? Estate agents. He’s not. An estate agent. But the overlap is a Venn diagram that looks uncannily like a single circle. It remains permissible to despise estate agents, and he emanates this same aura. Thanks for reading Dispatches from the Pavement! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. It is probably why he chose the Lime Bike in the first place. “I am that kind of individual, and I must make sure I indicate this to my colleagues immediately. They may know the kind of person I am before I even let my mouth confess that my job title contains ‘Chief.’” But it portrays another confession that he will be forever numb to: the Lime Bike requires nothing from him. A small fee, and he can claim to be doubly better for the environment than the alternative. But he almost certainly drove to the train station from suburbia in an inefficient Sports Utility Vehicle. And his job title lets us all know the other thing: he is doing his job best once he’s left the meeting, so everyone else can actually make a difference. His name might as well be Frank Sparkes. But he would introduce himself before anyone could say, “Pleased to meet you, Frank.” With “Call me ‘Sparky,’” which no one was going to, but now everyone has to. Coerced into the idea that this man might contain more depth by having a nickname like Sparky, while inadvertently proving that he definitely doesn’t, because he forced it upon the workshop participants. It puts the problem on them. If they call him Frank, they are a pedantic grown-up, killing the vibe of this true ‘spark’ of genius that has entered their presence. If they call him ‘Sparky’, they immediately drop all tradesmen who add real value to your home when they arrive in the bin, favouring this guy who, we will find out, is not good at “detail.” They have succumbed to the school playground peer pressure and indulged Frank in believing he’s allowed to continue to use this moniker. An open-plan office can be a bit intimidating to an introvert. But the modern office seems to feature some common attributes, including, for some reason, plants as dividers. It can make the Urban Jungle feel like it isn’t a coined phrase to make people feel ok about the daunting prospect of commuting to the office from the leafy suburbs, and more like it was presented by the office outfitters as a design option. And the problem is realised in “Sparky’s” attire. His cargo trousers declare that he is a man who knows his own world. Creates his own future. He can do anything and match up to any real sparky should they appear at his home. Rather than a normal individual who needs to carry personal items with them, ‘Sparky’ has decided to make sure everyone knows he’s a modern tech-savvy thought leader. I, and I’m sure if you also have pockets in your clothes, you will be the same as me, put my phone in a pocket. It’s not usually visible. ‘Sparky’ likes everyone to know his tool of choice. His phone is wedged into a pocket that showcases, among other things, the torch, which is still on from some earlier task he was doing, or accidental. But it could have been that he was checking the fuse box, no matter the “Authorised Personnel Only” sign. That would put this guy off anyway. His bioluminescent thigh is only matched by the selection of whiteboard markers in the place where screwdrivers usually go. He has an idea of what work is and wears the costume. But he will make an exit before anything is truly required of him. This wizard’s work is about to commence. His staff is lit, and illuminating door handles as he strolls past other meeting huddles where work is genuinely happening, and into the large greenhouse of a meeting room at the prominent place in the open plan. He will not be found in a room that seats fewer than 12. This is because he is a believer in “achievement through collaboration.” At some point, someone needs to take him aside to tell him, “I don’t think that means what you think it means.” To everyone else, that would mean we all discuss, plan, add our perspectives, and move forward together. To Frank, he is not ‘a details guy,’ and will perform the ritual of walking into a room 8-12 minutes after the discussion has already begun, say he will “catch up as we go,” stand up in the middle of someone making a meaningful contribution and unharness his whiteboard marker. There is one thing that you have to respect is that he is fully aware of the guaranteed failure of whiteboard markers that are provided in the room. They are, within 6 hours of distribution, quickly reallocated so each room has too many of one colour and none of a necessary one in that moment. 80% of them will draw one clear and bold line before running out of steam and producing a ghostly trail for the remainder of the workshop. Someone will take a picture of the whiteboard discussion at the end of the allotted time, but will need to contact the local shaman to decipher the glyphs and spirit of the exercise. Being fully aware that this is his moment and he cannot be misunderstood, he produces his own markers, which he tested before work this morning; probably writing a list of things for the family members left at home to get done before he returns. Stepping up to the white canvas, he draws a couple of shapes, some rectangles, ovals, lines, and other childish graphics. They overlap, but each has a story. They tell of some wide and grand moment that we must all know is coming, and these shapes are how we will achieve our goal. As quickly as he starts, he stalls, realising he has reached the end of his understanding. But that is ok, because now the collaboration happens. There are experts in the room. So he points to them and declares, “I believe we have the right people here to put flesh on the bones.” Delegating the reality to others and leaving. The room will stare for a while at the whiteboard, trying not to openly disrespect ‘Sparky’ and then place this as something that is more of a landing zone where the strategy could live if it is ever articulated in plain English. And then he is gone, on his Lime Bike. Reminding all onlookers that he was right to trust others to flesh out his ideas, as he clearly hasn’t thought through the risks of the Lime Bike mode of transport. Aside from the increased likelihood of injury or death, people also make snap judgments about people that are, on the whole, incredibly accurate. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tobyisaacscomedy.substack.com (https://tobyisaacscomedy.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

3. 

   29 Sept 2026

   The Lime Bike as Public Infrastructure

   It would be remiss of me not to take a small detail and treat it with rigour that no one asked for. I could fool myself into thinking my readership asked for this, but I will not. I am not the subject of this treatment. I trust, however, that the broad helpfulness of my publications has not gone unnoticed. Readers should now be aware of how they are perceived on London streets. But the infrastructure itself is not without blame. It was lovely, recently, to visit some reservoirs in East London with a river of genuinely transparent, super clear water, being enjoyed by the general public and birdlife. There was not one cyclist. Not one lime bike. On the walkways or in the water. Thanks for reading Dispatches from the Pavement! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Cyclists are an easy target. They make it so and do not make an effort to change. There may be a few good actors in the collective, but they cannot win over the general public. Some may blame their tools. So let’s explore that for a moment. After the adult cyclist has gone, and the transportation lays dormant, we are left with a new contraption that is doing more than its fair share of tasks on city streets. It is a litter of Lime Bikes, which is the subject today. This is not some specialist equipment, the subject of Cycling magazines nationwide, or plastered across the glass -fronted windows of a Halfords. They do not claim to improve cadence, there is no special training plan with the subscription, they are not partnered with HUEL, and they do not have a clothing line. As an aside, during lockdown, posters started to appear around London that read: “Want to Save the climate, Get healthy, and Reduce Stress? Why not take up cycling?” In London, where the primary stress inducer to the population is cyclists. Their stress might be reduced by their pedalling, but the collective stress of the UK population is definitely going up because of the increased two-wheeled clothes dryers finding their way on the inside of traffic. It had started so innocently, as if it were a campaign for Yoga or some other meditation practice. But in the end, we are, once again, at the mercy of the Mayor of London’s cycling department. Lime, as a brand, has not bothered to jump on the fitness bandwagon. I’m not entirely sure what the campaign is apart from littering every street corner with single-storey climbing frames. Easy to find if you don’t want one. I have discovered I take up a lot more space on the pavement when I notice one poorly propped up on its little kick-stand in the middle of the walkway. They are left to block the pedestrian public, and I don’t worry if they clatter over behind me. Annoyingly, their centre of gravity is a bit too effective, and it’s harder than it looks to force them into a horizontal state. Not that I do that on purpose, mind you. The general purpose of a Litter of Lime Bikes is to make entrances inaccessible. They are offering public transport and increasing usage by blocking access to any other form of public transport. If you want to get on a bus, please hire the Lime Bikes in a certain order so you can dismantle a very bad 3D Jigsaw. Of course, they are now ubiquitous across the city. It is a strange day not to see a Lime Bikes. What I have noticed in recent months is that their front basket differs from their competition’s. Others have either some kind of core frame with bungees to secure one’s belongings, or the baskets are in some way perforated but with large holes to show they are modern baskets, and probably to allow for a degree of stability. Lime Bikes have a very special and servile basket. Which, as I’ve referred to above, is a large Green Bucket. And it is, importantly, not for a Lime Bikist’s possessions. That would be normal. No, these movable buckets are for the single-use coffee cups, food wrappers, and basically anything else that a passerby has decided is no longer their responsibility. In short, Lime Bikes are public bins that have developed wheels. It is why I use the collective noun so accurately: Litter of Lime Bikes. If one sees a collection of these hireable e-bikes on the street, one can consider them as a movable reconstructed refuse centre. They are then employed to carefully redistribute the litter across the city. You may have noticed that London’s streets are actually rather clean, and this is because they are no longer covered in litter, because the Lime Bikes are doing their public service. It is a working model that is likely to be adopted by other cities, presented with the problem of a bin shortage. They could use taxpayers’ money to buy and install more bins as cities continue to grow and more people move their lives to seek their fortune. OR they could ask a private company to become this mobile bin network and solve the stalled tram project at the same time. Litter-ally everyone wins. Though they have also recreated the problem by littering the streets themselves. For some reason, this version of littering is absolutely fine, and it is simply a matter of time before the London definition of ‘littering’ will be changed to “hiring and making use of a Lime Bike by riding it and leaving it anywhere.” The selling point of this mode of transport will be its downfall. One hopes. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tobyisaacscomedy.substack.com (https://tobyisaacscomedy.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1)

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