#93 The Offcuts
Shakespeare and the chocolate love egg under a pink full moon
What a week it’s been! Pranksters were out in full force on Wednesday as we awaited a glimpse of a pink full moon, bringing with it seasonal transition as we settle into spring. Artemis II blasted off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, making Christina Koch the first woman and Victor Glover the first black person to pay a visit to the moon. It’s been one week since British Summer Time began, and we’ve just about recovered from our jet lag to appreciate those 7:30pm sunsets. So, we find ourselves here at the end of a gorgeous four-day weekend. The sun is shining. I am tired and in need of some extra rest and softness this week, but my cupeth overfloweth with reasons to be joyfully hopeful.
My reading has definitely slowed this week. It’s what Julia Cameron was asking of me during The Artist’s Way week four, and I am simply following instructions. I finished Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos, and I really enjoyed it. Reading a piece of one-hundred-year-old comedy by a female author felt so special. Life as a young socialite in 1920s New York has never seemed so appealing. I started Three Summers by Margarita Liberaki (translated from Greek to English by Karen Van Dyck). Originally called ‘The Straw Hats’, Three Summers is a coming-of-age story about three sisters growing up in the countryside outside of Athens before the Second World War. It is an enduring tale of girlhood. First published in 1946, a version in English wasn’t available until 1995.
I’m continuing to make my way through the audiobook of All That Glitters by Orlando Whitfield. All the secrets and the smoke-and-mirrors of the art world make for a very engaging story.
Other reads from the week:
The full network of clitoral nerves has been mapped out for the first time - 30 years after the nerves of the penis
A Muay Thai competition look book
Real Housewives of Salt Lake City’s Jen Shah breaks her silence in first post since prison release
It’s impossible to keep up with the Mormon Wives and their MomTok drama, and Jessi Draper shared divorce updates on Call Her Daddy
Degen Pener from The Ankler - Cigarettes are back
Claire Venus ✨ - Navigating your personal brand
Loretta - Liberated through bondage
Olivia Petter (for Vogue) - The TV show Love Story demonstrates the slow fracturing of a long-term relationship
Alex Elle - Before the world tried to narrow love into something small and private, we knew it as collective - on platonic love
Manage to get your hands on a “Lovehoney x Playmate Aphrodisiac Chocolate Easter Egg with a Sexy Surprise”? Chocolate and sex, Lovehoney knows how to please a girl. Once again, Easter treats are the best, and I won’t hear any arguments against. Until next year, my friend.
I am not a practical joker, but it only felt right to have a small April Fools' round-up. My favourite this year would have to be Dazed’s claim that Timothée Chalamet has been taking lessons for a role in a new Billy Elliot. Very topical, very recent, har har. Heston Blumenthal shared a prank of Fools’ past he was involved in - “licking” technology on the front page of a print newspaper. I remember the BBC website launching its “sniff” technology as a child and thought it was hilarious. PR agency Unearth also collated other good 2026 contenders, including matcha mayo and chicken nugget toothpaste.
Not Going Home came up on my Instagram last week. The series documents a summer across the UK in 1998 by photographer Mischa Haller. He sought to capture partygoers in the early hours of the morning, capturing moments of limbo. The images show a lapse in spaces of belonging as the clubs close and the rest of the world is yet to wake up.
Thought about the Marble Arch Mound the other day. Often, I have wondered if it was all entirely a figment of the imagination. A post-Covid coping mechanism constructed in my mind as something tangibly weird and symbolic of the year that passed before. How Westminster City Council ever thought such a monstrosity would bring in willing, paying customers is bizarre. Still, what’s £6 million spent on constructing an artificial hill during a pandemic where thousands of people died, and numerous businesses suffered, when among friends, hey?
For words of wisdom this week, we shall look no further than a man of classic proportions, for we may never have too much of a good thing. Shakespeare’s Sonnet 98 associates April with the spirit of youth. The first three lines are below. Do something that would make your younger self proud, queen.
From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything
