I’m turning thirty in just under two months, which is impossible because I’m obviously only 23. I got asked for ID when I walked into a Wetherspoons the other day, and watched his face crease as I told him I was born in 1995. Big flex.
I wrote the above a few days earlier and I’m not sure whether there was a point to it, a moral of the story, or if I wrote it just to boast. We’ll simply never know.
I’m away over the bank holiday so there will be no Offcuts next Monday. From September I’ll be back in the swing of a routine - see you in two weeks.
I think tomorrow I’ll finish Laurie Colwin’s Happy All The Time, but I haven’t been able to stop comparing it to Another Marvellous Thing, which I utterly loved. It’s not a competition, I don’t know why I have to make it one. Happy All The Time was first published in 1978 and I’ve felt nostalgic for Colwin’s world in which love exists. I am nostalgia for an idea of romantic love that is free of technology, social media and dating apps. Last week I forgot that I’d also started listening to Cleopatra by Natasha Solomons on Audible. We’re off-centre from retellings of Ancient Greek women but we’re on the same drift.
Links to other reads:
Thoughts on Palestine from a Genocide scholar
It’s a great time to be a toe
Climate change is making European summers unbearable
In defence of adulterers
I am desperate to get a sound bath booked in. I can’t remember the last time I went for one and I am craving the relaxation, rejuvenation and mindfulness it brings. If you have any recommendations for a good one in East London let me know!
The Splash! exhibition at the Design Museum threw up many forgotten swimwear styles of the past. There were jean-style swimming trunks (jrunks) from M&S in the 70s and costumes and ‘monokinis’ (topless bikinis). As fashion trends of the having been reiterating at lightening speed over the past few years it’s only a matter of time…
The best thing I’ve watched on TV recently is Such Brave Girls on BBC iPlayer. It’s a darkly comical satire about the dysfunctional relationships between two sisters and their mum. I need to publicly apologise to The Summer I Turned Pretty for making that statement. I still love you, too. Given it’s in the third and final season, if I make the distinction of best *new* thing I’ve watched on TV, then everyone wins.
I pre-empt everything. I am prepared for all possibilities and plan for the ifs, buts and maybes. No wonder, then, I am already starting to mourn the end of summer in the middle of a heatwave. I’ve seen a quote about August shared a few times taken from Natalie Babbitt’s novel, Tuck Everlasting - most recently by
in her newsletter last week. It all feels very pessimistically Sylvia Plath in a way I sincerely relate to.
Today, the first episode of The Real Housewives of London airs on Hayu. Yay. Why it’s taken them so long to have a series set in London, I cannot fathom. Ladies of London never hit in quite the same way. I hope Bravo has learnt a thing or two in the decade since. In their honour, I’d like to share some of Bravo’s most iconic one-liners. Those housewives are overflowing with bizarre quotes and quips.
