Well. Yesterday went pretty well. I was feeling pleased with myself. Got up before 8am, went to a morning meeting without any ‘oh god, do I really have to get out of bed’ drama, mentally composing a post about how amazing my whole new way of living is. On the way back from the meeting, …
…since starting my ‘getting up early/at the same time as normal people’ project yesterday. One is that the violet tea at La Fromagerie is absolutely gorgeous. The other is that it’s really easy to park at Homebase at 8.30 in the morning. (Picture above is La Fromagerie. Homebase not pictured.) Yesterday was all pleasure. Woke …
I am not a morning person. Some people leap out of bed first thing in the morning, rejuvenated and ready to start the day. I am not one of them. When I wake up, my brain is mushy. It’s not even that I need coffee or want breakfast – I don’t even get hungry until …
Even though I haven’t written anything about it, I actually have left the house and gone places recently. Went to the very civilised Kalendar cafe in Highgate. Great food, plus this wonderful arrangement of dogs (sadly I think not a permanent fixture). And if you’re ever invited to a bookshop’s birthday party, my advice is …
I found this poem in the London Library’s Summer magazine (I have a pile of magazines, I work through them slowly). I worry about posting the work of writers online without permission – I know Wendy Cope is quite against it – but as Clive James posted it on his own site himself I hope …
Went to see Julie and Julia this evening, a movie which I rather expected to love since it combines two great passions of mine: writing and cooking (I really must write more about cooking here) and even Mark Lawson on Front Row had to admit that he’d loved it. Written by Nora Ephron, starring Meryl …
Oof. This part of the year is *full* of Jewish festivals. As full, to steal a Douglas Adams metaphor as a pomegranate is of pips, which is an apposite image because pomegranates are one of the symbols of the season (I think it has to do with fertility). So I am quite busy but in …
ITV3 is rerunning Brideshead Revisited at the moment and I’ve been watching it with a great deal of pleasure. I stayed away from watching or reading it while I was writing my novel. Working on a novel about Oxford, I thought it was important to steer clear. But I know that some elements of the …
Now, see, I *have* been to some new places lately. But I haven’t written about them, so maybe they don’t count. And I’ve given a couple of talks, one at the Interesting conference and one at a colloquium on ‘The Glory of Failure’ which I really have to write up and honestly intend to do …
So I’m just sitting around on a Sunday watching ‘Lucky Number Slevin’, a movie so complex that, by the time I was 40 minutes in it was very clear to me that I’d have to read the wikipedia entry if I hoped to understand it without multiple viewings. It’s a cute film though, and wins …