Introduction

Hi! I'm Adam and like many other people, I subscribe to an endless stream of content spanning topics which cover my eclectic set of interests: Food, Finance, Film and Dota 2 (unfortunately I couldn't think of a 4th 'F' to complete the set).

Over the years I've toyed with the idea of starting my own blog, podcast, YouTube or Twitch channel, etc and having recently watched Ali Abdaal's excellent video on how to start an email newsletter, I've run out of excuses to put it off any longer.

A little about me: Having grown up in London, I currently live in a small village with my fiancée and dog. I work in the energy market (the electricity and gas type, as opposed to a 'vibe' or chakra) although have previously studied engineering, architecture, healthcare and finance in a clearly indecisive career path.

Why me?

Here are three super legit reasons as to why you might want to read a weekly newsletter put together by yours truly:

1. If you have an interest in any of the aforementioned topics, I'll be using this space to journal the interesting tidbits I discover each week.

2. I'm nothing if not consistent. Now that I've committed to writing this newsletter, you can expect some hot-off-the-press content straight to your inbox every Friday.

3. When I'm popular and famous, you'll want to be able to say to your friends and family that you were one of the first subscribers of Adam Saunders and knew him before he sold out.

Flavour(s) of the week

Food

We have an allotment plot and although our attempts to grow vegetables this year have been disappointing, we're at the height of courgette harvesting season, currently getting 3 to 4 of these bad boys each week.

This week I tried making a simple courgette pasta dish which turned out surprisingly good. So good in fact I made it again for us both a few days later!

Recipe (for 2):

• Chop one large courgette into 1cm slices and fry in olive oil on a medium to high heat in a large pan. Season well and cook for 5-10 minutes. Try to avoid prodding too much, to allow some colour to get to it. Turn occasionally to ensure all courgette slices are cooked relatively evenly.

• Finely dice one medium white onion and add into the courgette, along with a teaspoon each of dried oregano and basil. Cook for a further 5 minutes.

• Mince 3 garlic gloves and add in, whilst reducing the heat to medium-low.

• Allow the garlic to cook for 1 minute before adding a tin of chopped tomatoes, a splash of Worcestershire sauce, a teaspoon of sugar.

• Simmer the sauce while you cook your pasta. Taste to check if the sauce is appropriately seasoned and add more salt, pepper or sugar as required.

• Serve over pasta with some cheddar or parmesan.

Finance

I enjoy watching the PensionCraft YouTube channel, which is run by a chap called Ramin. His latest video talks about medium term (3-5 years) investment options.

The thing I found most interesting, which I hadn't considered before is the impact of investing in a non-domestic currency, which in turn increases volatility, without necessarily any additional return.

He shows how you are three times less likely to make a loss over a three year period if you can buy products denominated in your local currency and therefore avoid currency risk.

Check out the full video below:

Film

Just to be clear, I'm going to use this section to cover both films and television series, and don't be surprised if you get more of the latter. I used to watch, review and rate 100+ new films every year but more recently have found myself drifting towards series. There's something about discovering an excellent series and having (somtimes) tens of hours of footage to get through which I love.

This week I finally got round to watching Murderville on Netflix. It stars one of my favourite comedy actors Will Arnett as a bumbling senior homicide detective who has a new celebrity guest partner each episode to help him solve a murder. The celebrities (including Ken Jeong, Kumail Nanjiani and Annie Murphy) have no script and improvise the scenes, with some occasionally hilarious results. They have kept in footage of the actors breaking character which I love, although can easily see how this series isn't for everyone.

Dota 2

Dota 2 is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) video game which has a dedicated fan base around the world. It's a difficult game to get into with over 100 characters to pick from, each with at least 4 unique spells. I have been playing since the game was launched in 2013 and love trying to improve my own gameplay as well as closely follow the competitive scene where teams compete for tens of millions of dollars each year.

Given how niche this interest is, I will take no offence should you choose to skip this section and going forward will also assume prior knowledge of Dota when sharing my thoughts of the week.

One of the Major tournaments of the year is currently running, being hosted in Arlington, USA. We are closing in on the crux of the tournament with the final being played this Sunday 14th August after nearly two weeks of hard fought battles.

One thing I find interesting is how the meta of popular heroes shifts throughout the tournament.

We started with Timbersaw being first phase banned in nearly every game, however I noticed in last night's games it had lower priority. We've now shifted to 5 notable heroes being hotly contested:

1. Razor - picked most commonly in the offlane, this hero has pretty much one build: BKB, refresher. Even with a poor net worth, its impact can be felt as it removes the damage of one to two core heroes every fight and simply cannot be ignored. It's also a great refresher shard carrier if the game goes on late enough.

2. Chen - sporting a 73% win rate over 37 games, Chen is arguably the hero of the tournament. It's one of the lowest picked heroes in pubs due to the complex micro required to manage the army Chen builds, but in professional games it seems to be useful throughout the game, providing strong lane presence, whilst able to farm up an early mek and give every hero a large effective HP pool in team fights with his ultimate and the auras the army provide.

3. Tiny - Currently the most picked hero of the tournament, Tiny is versatile and can be played as a 2, 3 or 4. Tiny's ability to reposition heroes cannot be underestimated and the teams seem to agree with a 93% pick or ban rate across all games so far this major.

4. Puck - This is one of my favourite heroes, so I'm enjoying seeing it being played, however it is disgusting to watch. If the game goes late enough for Puck to get an octarine core, the hero becomes near unkillable with almost permanent up-time on his spells. Teams seem to be starting to figure him out, with counters such as Pudge or Nightstalker, so we'll see if the meta shifts again in the remaining days.

5. Marci - Like Tiny, this hero is all about repositioning. Facing Marci in a lane can feel awful and once the hero farms an aether lens and/or blink if can be useful throughout the game to separate a player from his team with the Dispose ability.

Sign Off

If you've stuck around this far, thanks for taking the time to read my thoughts. I hope to see you again for next week's newsletter.

Adam