I was not organised and did not get out swimming this week – in part it’s because I wound up with some kind of ear infection last time I went and it was painful. Very painful.

But I follow a bunch of swim related accounts across social media and stuff and there are themes from a lot of them which would leave you with the impression that swim culture is utterly toxic.

There are some seriously aggressive attitudes there. I don’t know why but there seems to be this underlying narrative that the swim world fights against that swimming is not a sport. They should try figure skating once in a while to know how it feels to be considered not a sport.

I wonder how much of this is driven by American culture. I wonder this about other things – women in tech is another example where I think specifically American experiences which are particularly toxic drown out the discussion world wide. And also, we have Uber because they can’t arrange taxis in some cities over there, and that to the detriment of functional taxi services elsewhere.

Anyway, swimming for me is exercise. I don’t do it to race, except against myself, and last week I swam – freestyle 800m. It’s not a lot for some people but as someone who struggles with freestyle rhythm, it’s good. It’s a pity about the ear infection afterwards but I will try again.