For the second time in my life, I have bought a new car. I say that with the kind of pride usually reserved for first-time parents or those who manage to grow tomatoes in hanging baskets. Most of my twenties were spent driving my dad’s cast-offs — including a white Ford Escort estate, which felt less like a car and more like a penance. I ask you: a white Ford Escort estate. It was less “motor vehicle” and more “mobile filing cabinet.” Then came a series of small, second-hand affairs: a green 2CV that got me through a year in Stratford — though the first time I pressed the accelerator, it went through the floor like a cartoon. That was followed by a bright orange Mini called Sebastian who gamely carried me through late-night rehearsals and even later-night chips in Soho. After Sebastian, there was Tristram Polo — a tank by comparison. Tristram was the scene of a minor disagreement with the law over the alcohol content of a bottle of Pinot Grigio. He was sold off quietly and cheaply, li...
I’ve always read in bed. Always. For as long as I can remember, really—since before the age when memories begin to settle into things you could recount. It’s never felt like a habit. More like an instinct. A deeply ingrained, highly enjoyable ritual, as natural as brushing your teeth, only infinitely more rewarding. In the little back bedroom of my parents’ house—next to their shops in the Soviet Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire—my first lamp stood on a marble-topped wash-hand stand. The only other furniture was my bed and a chest of drawers that looked like it had given up trying. The lamp itself was a silver lady, balancing on one leg, arm raised to the heavens, in the manner of the Rolls-Royce Spirit of Ecstasy, only this one had a perforated purple lampshade and an air of resignation. It was by her light that I discovered my first loves: Enid Blyton, the Fife-Finder Outers, the Seven Seeker Uppers, and Alfred Hitchcock Investigates—anything in a series. I was mad for a serie...
Fear No More the Heat of the Sun (Cymbeline Act IV sc2) Living on a boat, as we do, you become rather more aware of the weather than your average house-dweller. They check an app and think “Showers. I’ll wear my cagoule.” We, meanwhile, live it. We hear it. We occasionally have to mop it up with an old towel and a resigned expression. In winter, we go full cosy. There’s the reliable hum of central heating, the cheer of a decent wood-burner, and the comforting percussion of rain on a cambered roof. It’s like living inside one of those nostalgic Channel 5 Christmas films—only without the snow budget or the Canadian actors pretending to be British. There’s a smugness in being warm when the world outside looks like a scene from Chernobyl: The Musical. But come spring, we begin to crave the change. A proper sunny day—deck doors open, light pouring in, shirtsleeves and sunglasses at 6pm—feels like reward for good behaviour. Recently, we’ve had a string of such days. The kind of late s...
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