A great treat last weekend as I headed off with Child 2 to watch the Jane Austen movie, Love and Friendship. Child 2 was poking her nose briefly into the outside world after a dreary few weeks of revising. I feel such a pang for all the poor 16, 17 and 18 year olds across …
Forgot to tell you about a lovely thing that happened a couple of weeks ago. I was taking part in the Dulwich Artists’ Open House, selling my crochet at the house of a very talented friend, Clare Nicholson, who is a superb printmaker. I was sitting there chatting with Clare and with Janet Whittaker, who …
Gosh, there’s nothing like a celebrity ding-dong to get everyone going, is there? I’m afraid I have found the whole business between Johnny Depp/Amber Heard/Vanessa Paradis/the illegal stowaway dogs completely fascinating, even before we got to the thrown iPhone and the brandished magnum of wine. I’ve never found Johnny Depp at all attractive and, maybe …
I was a bit disappointed by Kenneth Branagh’s Romeo and Juliet, at the Garrick Theatre. I saw his version of the Winter’s Tale at the beginning of the year and it was so wonderful that we then went to see Harlequinade – quite light but still really good. This play, which I was expecting to …
It’s the blog conference season – and I’m not going to any of them this year. It’s not that I am intrinsically anti-social (though frankly I am a bit). I’ve been before, and quite enjoyed the bustle – and the hustle. It’s fun to put names to posts, to meet old blogging friends and make …
The highlight of my trip to New York was seeing Streetcar Named Desire in its new venue, the rather amazing St Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn. I’d seen the play during its triumphant run at the Young Vic, and watching the luminously beautiful Gillian Anderson come a slow, Southern cropper had been harrowing but mesmerising. She …
I was in New York about four years ago for the launch of Disney cruise ship Fantasy – what a lark that was! – and spent some time with a lovely friend who lives an effortlessly glamorous lifestyle in the Downtown area. She took me to the Ace Hotel which had then just opened and was …
Only a few days have passed since I wrote my last post, but it seems like a lifetime as I’ve been in New York and things happen all the time and at twice normal speed there, as we all know. So in only a few days we saw three plays, visited four museums and walked …
I was very moved by Louis Theroux’s BBC documentary, Drinking to Oblivion, on alcoholics being treated at King’s College Hospital. It was very tenderly filmed and Theroux did not seem to be sitting silently in judgement on the drinkers, but seemed genuinely baffled and saddened by their passion for drink and the havoc it wreaked …
I was making lunch yesterday in a desultory sort of way while listening with one ear to Radio 4’s Food Programme. I’m not a great fan of cookery shows in general as I find the more I watch, the less I cook – no matter how delightfully last-minute and unstuffy the chef is, there is …