Yves Saint Laurent Dies

I am very fond of the word philistine. I hate to use it, yet I find myself compelled to do so over and over, as those of you who read these pages and write to me have noted on several occasions. As a defender of popular culture and its great social potency which I referred to in multiple posts already, it is imperative that I combat philistines every time I come across them, if only by putting the opposing viewpoint out into the open. Usually, the written word is an excellent mean to do so, especially when the philistines themselves are so fond of it, despite their usual lack of sensible grammar, spelling and/or syntax. News reached me today that Yves Saint Laurent died in Paris. I know nobody lives forever, but even though Yves retired a few years back, just knowing that he was alive was enough to make me feel like he was watching over our fashion innovations and blunders with characteristic panache, sense of humour and drive. To know that he is no more is saddening. Yves's legacy to popular culture is enormous. As Alexandra Topping from The Guardian rightly puts it:


Diana Vreeland, the legendary American fashion magazine editor, dubbed him the "Pied Piper of fashion. She said: "Whatever he does, women of all ages, from all over the world, follow." Saint Laurent's nipped-in trouser suits, slinky tuxedos and safari jackets still look perfectly modern decades after their shocking debuts on the runway. In an industry where most clothes are deemed passé after six months, such longevity is as rare as a healthy looking model. Saint Laurent's influence can still be seen on any high street in any western country.

His styles epitomised a certain kind of seductive, wealthy, intelligent French woman - Catherine Deneuve, in other words, who frequently sat in the front row at his shows, and it's a look that is still as desirable today as it was 40 years ago. His shamelessly sexy clothes dovetailed perfectly with feminism's inception, as did his advent of trousers for a woman's daily wardrobe, and his frequent references in his collection to art and other aspects of modern culture. He was one of the first to use black models and he also is credited with beginning to democratise the fashion world by shifting the industry's attention from the rarefied and frankly extortionate world of haute couture to the relatively more accessible one of prêt a porter, with his Rive Gauche line.

You see, I couldn't stop at this spot-on and fair recollection of Yves's work. I had to go and scour for philistines. Amazon's reviews are usually a really good place, but one that is equally as good, if not better, given its great timing, is the BBC Online Have Your Say page. Here, no matter the discussion at hand, philistines abound. They can talk about council tax, about terrorists, about under-age drinking, about movies, about fashion, about music, about anything, about all, about nothing; philistines know it all. They flood the debate with gusto, they grow on trees, they scatter themselves like cornflakes, they rise like an unstoppable tide, they sneak up on the unaware reader like Brutus and his dagger. I often think that the BBC likes to censor sensible opinions and only publishes the idiotic ones. Where would the entertainment value be otherwise? I will just consider one out of the very many imbeciles that have commented today. Reviewing them all would take more time than I care to waste. A certain Maggie Jones from Cheltenham sends in her pearls of wisdom:

Yves St Laurent, was a clothes designer thats all! His contribution to society was minimal, I can think of a lot more people who deserve to be mentioned on BBC HYS other than a clothes designer.

Maggie, you're a moron. An uncultured, hopeless, worryingly illiterate moron. Yves's contribution to society was minimal, was it? Empowering women to dress like men and therefore surge to the unprecedented level of boardroom members in the corporate world was minimal, was it? Reinforcing the message of feminism and unleashing it within fashion and therefore throughout all levels of society was minimal, was it? Using black models at a time when the most iconic black woman of all in popular culture was a servant was minimal, was it?* And who are the more deserving people you're thinking of that the BBC should mention in its Have Your Say pages? People like you perhaps, who are educated enough to show contempt and unrivalled ignorance of one of the greatest icons of popular culture whose legacy will live forever? If there is a pair of pants in your wardrobe, you can thank Saint Laurent. If there is a formal jacket, you can thank Saint Laurent. If black women in the media are at least being considered as worthy of work, you can thank Saint Laurent. If you can shop at cheaper places thanks to the great and wide democratisation of fashion, you can thank Saint Laurent. If women in the workplace are now free to wear both feminine and less feminine garments and can excise choice on a daily basis, you can thank Saint Laurent. And for your unnerving and entertaining showmanship of moronic ignorance of sans frontieres Gargantuan proportions, we can all thank Saint Laurent as well who, even in death, brought us something so dazzling ignorant that we can rejoice in our sober, non-philistine state.

* That's Mammy from Gone With The Wind. You didn't get that? Yes, I wouldn't have thought so.

Lego Ergo Sum

‘Tell me what you eat and I’ll tell you what you are’ was an original classic before it was replaced with the more succinct ‘you are what you eat’. I also heard of ‘tell me what you watch’ or ‘tell me what you listen to’ or even ‘tell me how you shag and I’ll tell you what Sex and The City character you are’. The ‘tell me what you insert verb, and I’ll tell what you are’ article re-surfaces in magazines and newspapers at regular intervals. Now it’s all about ‘tell me how you spend’, in the eighties it was ‘tell me how you exercise’; countless re-incarnations of a say that very much rings like a media proverb have infested printed matter for years and years. There is one at least in my mind that seems to always hold true; tell me what you read and I’ll tell you what you are. But does it, really?



I live in a small house with lots of books. I have books in the usual places, the bedside tables, the bookcases, the dining room table, and then I have books in the overspill places such as the boiler’s cupboard, the bedroom corners, the lounge’s floor, the kitchen’s tiny flip-down table. I have some piled up on the printer, some on the window sills, some in the filing cabinet and some abandoned in desperation when I have run out of neat columns. I was recently reading a thread on Ravelry, ‘Can you have too many knitting books?’. I have not added to the thread itself but I found myself thinking about the question many times over. You can’t have too many books, that’s a simple one to answer. The question can perhaps be, can you have too many useless books? Can a book be useless? Oh dear, when is a chair not a chair?



Years ago I scoffed at a friend reading a Mills and Boon. She said she didn’t find reading Mills and Boon an insult to her intelligence and that she liked to fill her spare time with unchallenging crap. This too, gave me reasons to think. I thought about websites that ask you for your hobbies; many people automatically type in ‘reading’. But is reading really a hobby? Isn’t a hobby something we do to fill our spare time? More importantly, what defines spare time? Is spare time the one we do not spend in a 9-5 job? What about a person that does not have a 9-5 job, does that mean a lot of spare time? 24 hours a day of spare time? I don’t have hobbies; that’s because a hobby is something that is relegated at the bottom of a never-ending list of tasks that invariably take priority. If I think of some horsey friends, I wouldn’t say that horses are their hobbies either. They are a way of life. How else to describe someone willing to drive 10 miles to her horse on a dark winter’s evening in order to school him? That’s not a hobby, that’s a second passion. Or a first one, depending on the rest of your life.



I don’t read in my spare time. Spare from what? Spared from the washing up? Spared from walking the dogs? In fact, is walking the dogs a job-like form of tyranny or a hobby? Hobbies do not exist. It’s like talking of work-life balance, something that comes up over and over in the corpo emails I re-route to the junk folder. Work-life balance; isn’t work supposed to be part of your life? I smirk when I think of the French; try and mention the work-life balance to any French person and you’ll be met with a supercilious, and oh so very appropriate, smile. There is no such thing as work-life balance outside of the Anglo-American world, there’s just life. And if there’s always time for books it’s because I make time.



If I were to squeeze them into my usual schedule, I’d never read a thing. I’d never write a thing. But reading, like writing, is a form of discipline. Recently, I was reading The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp. A propos scratching, which could be defined as a method that brings inspiration to the artist, Twyla says: ‘If you read for inspiration, read the top-drawer writers, and read their masterworks first. [...] Scratch among the best and you will automatically raise the quality of the ideas you uncover’. I am no literary snob; if I were, there would be no Trinny and Susannah on my bookshelf, no Helena Frith-Powell, no guides on how to walk in high heels. However, they sit side-by-side with Michel Foucault and Jacques Lacan, next to John Keats, to the Norton Anthologies, to TS Eliot, to Les Guides Blues and, yes, next to Gianni Versace’s books and next to Mario Testino’s, all part of a multi-faceted paper carnival that may, or may not, say something about me to those who have never met me. I wouldn’t dream to scratch for ideas among a good 80% of the depressing fiction offerings on Waterstone’s tables, mostly because they are of dubious quality.



As I ponder on Discipline and Punish, I wonder whether I may seem too serious, an adjective I would never pick to describe myself, or indeed my reading habits. As I flick through Two Lipsticks and A Lover, I wonder whether I may seem too shallow, the sort of girl that reads Cosmo (or Mills and Boon), rather than Prospect or TIME. I’m both and the reason that leads me to light-hearted non-fiction is to be found in Foucault’s work not in magazines; the reason that drives me to horror literature is sociological, not voyeuristic. It is not what I read that defines me. It's The Reading. I read therefore I am. Then my eyes wander to the top shelf of the library where the DVDs sit tight together, too many soldiers jostling for space. I think you can tell a lot by what people watch. But I’ll talk about that another time.

Assessing May

I don't know why I wrote Assessing January. It was ok at the time, but then I persisted in giving out a lame account of each and every month's exploits ever since, despite little reason to do so. Now I have started, I cannot stop. I have been waiting to write this post for thirty days. May is one of those months that seem to drag on forever; next one to dread is July. Riding-wise it was a very lame month; I went on my first course, which was really good, but didn't get much riding with my trusty steed. He is still lame and I will have to wait in the sidelines for a little longer. However, I decided to go for Wilf and see where that takes me. I heard he is very good on the lunge and I am sure I can get a (supervised) ride on him. This coming week will be ideal since I am pretty much off work, bar some (also lame) training, and if the weather holds, I should be able to do something unencumbered by persistent rain.

May has been good in this respect. Spring has blossomed and my very tall grass has already gone to seed. The front garden is in its usual messy state, while the back has been duly tended to. Sage, mint and rosemary are beautiful and fragrant and just looking at them makes me want to start cooking something other than boiled veggies. But I need to watch it; I need to fit back into my silk pants by my birthday (that's three months tomorrow) and considering how quickly the year has passed so far, I do not regard three months as a very long time. Or as a long time even. The pressures of being female... I have to knock out a piece for the agent that requested it and for a couple of others that I have identified will be interested in my chosen genre. So I suppose that, despite the sourness of having left my current work project, this slow-down will probably assist me in knocking out a fair amount of writing I usually have to split over multiple evenings. I am off to London at the weekend and to a Bon Jovi concert at the end of the month. I am not enamoured with June, but at least there is something to look forward to. Sorry, no pic today.

A Sweet And Sour Slice Of Life

Today was one of those days. I left the project I joined last autumn among plentiful gasps from colleagues that just did not expect me to move on at this point, when there is still a lot of work to do. I have yet to speak to the project manager to see whether he has anything in mind, but for the moment, I went quietly, gathering my teaPigs, the Starbee travel mug (which I never used) and the sack of computer cables that follow me everywhere. It was very sour. I don't know why it feels this way. It didn't use to be like this before my sick leave. Now that I cannot take roles away from home, I feel like I am offloaded from project to project, which is very different from moving from project to project. Dean accompanied me to the carpark and once again I had proof that you do not go and seek friendship, you do not look for it, you do not scour places in its search, you don't find it; it finds you. It finds you in the most unexpected and hostile of environments, when you close your eyes in the morning and brainwash yourself into believing that you'll soon hit evening and you will hardly have noticed. It finds you when you flap like a fish out of water until an unknown hand puts you back where you belong and so you can swim again. I had to fight as we talked. I fought hard. I could feel that hateful tremor that only ever erupts inside of me when I am in the presence of those that allow me to drop the mask and be the real me. It's a miracle I didn't burst into tears to a symphony of it's not fair.

I arrived home to the one thing on earth that without fail manages to cheer me up every time. The latest VOGUE. I had my first flick and my heart fluttered in excitement at two little words: pre Fall. How fabulous. Pre-Fall. Pre-Autumn. Autumn. Then I bulked at the very narrow silhouettes; fantastic tweed pencil skirts that will hardly fit a real pencil, let alone my enormous bottom. And so I cooked on the lean side for dinner (all boiled), as I have done for the past three days, not that I can detect a change, other than greater hunger. But it's Saturday tomorrow, and seeing that Merv is lame, I will hit the bike in the morning instead. But for now, it's bed and VOGUE.

Cast On, Off and Away

Oh utter joy. Just about all my friends know that I knit and crochet. What they do not know is how truly unskilled I am at both of these. Or I should say they did not know how truly unskilled at both of these I was. Last night I graduated to my first decent piece of lace after twenty-two attempts and now I feel up there in the Olympus of all exquisite things, up there in the Olympus of Lace Knitting. Not many people know that lace can be tatted, knitted or crocheted. I love it all, especially so when it is done with a slightly hairy fibre that gives the item a hazy aura. I have seen fabulous pictures of lace items in One Skein Wonders and I now feel ready, willing and able to attempt something more complex once this scarf is done. I am knitting this for Ma'. I am using Addi Turbos in 4 mm, the pattern is from Debbie Bliss Pure Silk Collection but I am using Louisa Harding Mulberry silk (in rose) because I find it is a better silk than Debbie's. It is not as slippery and doesn't split as easily.

As I was working at it earlier today, scenes from Cast Away re-played in my mind. Chuck trying to make fire, Chuck pulling his tooth out, Chuck leaving the island trying to save himself, Chuck returning to the life he once knew, except life does not recognise him. And I thought about a deserted island and about what I would do, or whether I would even survive. People often say they would like to escape the everyday rut by migrating to a deserted island. Much as I detest most of my necessary routines, I would never want to spend time on a deserted island (unless I had a plane and a dashing pilot with me), not even if I could cast on and off at will in order to pass time. What would I knit anyway? For I start it would take me months to strip bark off trees and then I would need to knot it together and then I would need to make wooden knitting needles. You know what, that's too much trouble for anyone, alone or otherwise. It's funny that I say so, because when I think of the good times in my life, I was actually alone in all of them. I like to be alone very much. Being alone does not mean being lonely, I just happen to be a very independent person who likes her company very much, without being une misanthrope. In fact, I'll tell you more, if my friends knew half of what I have written on here they would be flabbergasted to the ninth. Every time I speak to Dean, he is surprised to acquire some new bit of information. The other day he told me that I lead three parallel lives and maybe he is right. He would love to read the My Dimension Jump post if only I revealed my blog's address to him. I challenged him to find out by himself which, really, is as easy as being a cast away for four years and then finding his way back to civilisation by drifting off for 500 miles on a raft he himself put together. But who knows, he may make it. This is for you Dean; tomorrow I'll bring you the scarf you heard so much about, so that you can see that it was worth all of the effort and all of the swearing.

Hope Of Deliverance

I returned home drained. Not even my feel good shoes saved me. I spent the day on a wretched financial spreadsheet that quickly got me seeing static instead of rows and rows and rows and rows of nasty little figures. When I reached for a Starbee in desperation, I didn’t even feel like drinking it and that’s saying something. My role on this project is coming to a close this week. My tasks have trickled into nothingness, the daily meetings progressively shrinking until they were no more. I cannot say I am sad, were it not for the need to find another role preferably before the whole pyramid starts fretting in order to shuffle me about into some other capacity. Onto the next crap! I am so spaced out that even brushing my teeth will be too much effort.

Meanwhile, I received a mail from an agent I had forgotten I had written to. S/he (you cannot really tell what they are when they call themselves RECEPTION) requests three chapters together with the proposal. Damn. I have the proposal, all 5,000 words of it, and that’s what my spec letter was plugging, but I don’t quite have three chapters. I have one. And a bit. For now.

Sydney Pollack Dies

I read today that Sydney Pollack died. To me, he was not the Oscar-winning director, the man behind Out of Africa, The Way We Were, The Firm or many others. To me he was George Fields, Michael’s agent from the effervescent Tootsie. Tootsie is very often referred to as a run-of-the-mill comedy about a man in drag. Those who think of Tootsie in this way flabbergast me, because to reduce this movie to a comedy about a man in drag is, quite frankly, as appropriate as referring to Port as ‘yet another red wine’ or to Michelangelo as ‘a sculptor that was also good with a paintbrush’. Only a philistine would do this but judging by Amazon’s reviews, there are many philistines out there. Amazon’s reviews make for quite a depressing read actually; to think that barely literate people consider themselves capable of a review is mind-blowing, but this is a dangerous veer off topic for which I must apologise.

Tootsie is rife with multiple sub-texts; unfulfilment, performance anxiety, sexism, creativity, and the gambles one needs to take in order to answer to a greater call. It just happens to be extremely funny as well, with superb acting, writing, photography, comic timing and directing. I first watched Tootsie many years ago, when I didn’t even comprehend the difference between a job and a vocation. In fact, I didn’t even know a difference existed. Now, if for whatever reason I am mulling over what happens or, as is often the case, what does not happen in my life, I play Tootsie and finish the day smirking to myself, with that deep knowledge of self-validation stirred inside of me like only the movies that speak to your creative abilities can stir, like only I and George and Michael know that secret. When I wrote my piece about agents, those of you familiar with Tootsie will have detected a self-conscious nod to it. The scene between Michael, enraged because George hasn’t put him forward for a job, and George, who tries to defend his decision on the basis that no-one wants to hire troublesome Michael, is one of my favourite moments of movie entertainment. I am reproducing it here as a homage to Sydney Pollack who has created so much unforgettable magic in his life, and who has gifted me personally with my favourite movie moment ever. Don’t just read it; go and watch it and learn the secret.

George: Hang on. Michael, will you wait outside? I'm talking to the Coast.

Michael: This is a coast too George. New York’s a coast too.

George: Oh, boy. Sy, are you--God-- Look what you-- Margaret? Get him back. I cut myself off. What is it, Michael?

Michael: Terry Bishop's doing Iceman Cometh on Broadway. You promised to send me up for that. You told me I'd get a reading for that. Aren't you my agent?

George: Stuart Pressman wants a name.

Michael: Terry Bishop is a name?

George: No, Michael Dorsey is a name, when you want to send a steak back. Wait, wait, wait! You always do this to me. It was a rotten thing to say. Let me start again. Terry Bishop is on a soap. Millions watch him every day.

Michael: That qualifies him to ruin Iceman Cometh? I can act circles around him. I played that part in Minneapolis.

George: lf he wants a name, that's his affair. People are in this business to make money Michael.

Michael: I'm in it to make money too George!

George: Really? The Harlem Theatre for the Blind? The People's Workshop at Syracuse?

Michael: Wait a minute. I did nine plays up at Syracuse. I got great reviews from the critics. Not that that's why I did it.

George: God forbid you should lose your standing as a cult failure.

Michael: You think I'm a failure?

George: I will not get sucked into this conversation. I will not.

Michael: I sent you my roommate's play to read. It had a great part in it for me.

George: Where do you come off sending me a play for you to star in? I'm not your mother., I’m your agent, I don't find plays for you to star in. I feel offers. That's what I do!

Michael: Feel offers? Who told you that, the agent fairy? I could be terrific in that part.

George: Nobody's going to do that play.

Michael: Why?

George: Because it's a downer about a couple that move back to Love Canal.

Michael: But that actually happened.

George: Who gives a shit?! Nobody wants to watch people living next to chemical waste! They can see that in New Jersey.

Michael: I don't want to argue about it. I'll raise $ 8,000 and will produce Jeff’s play. Send me up for anything. I don't care. I'll do dog commercials. I'll do radio voice-overs.

George: I can't put you up for that.

Michael: Why not?

George: Because no one will hire you.

Michael: I bust my ass to get a part right!

George: And you bust everybody else's ass too! Who wants to argue about whether Tolstoy can...walk when he's dying or walk when he's talking--?

Michael: That was two years ago and that guy's an idiot!

George: They can't all be idiots Michael. You argue with everybody! You've got one of the worst
reputations in this town. Nobody will hire you.

Michael: Are you saying that nobody in New York will work with me?

George: No, I am saying nobody in Hollywood will hire you either. I can't even get you a commercial. You played a tomato and they went two days over schedule because you wouldn't sit down.

Michael: Yes, it wasn't logical.

George: You were a tomato! A tomato doesn't have logic! It can't move!

Michael: So if he can't move, how's he going to sit down George? I was a stand-up tomato. A juicy, sexy, beefsteak tomato! Nobody does vegetables like me! I did vegetables off-Broadway! I did the best tomato, the best cucumber! I did an endive salad that knocked the critics on their ass!

George: I'm trying to stay calm here. You are a wonderful actor.

Michael: Thank you.

George: But you're too much trouble. Get some therapy.

Michael: Okay, thanks. I'm gonna raise $ 8,000 and I am gonna do Jeff's play.

George: Michael, you're not gonna raise 25 cents. No-one will hire you.

Michael: Oh, yeah?

Oh pants...!

Unwanted weight approaches slowly yet determined from afar, like debt or a pushy relative on Christmas Eve. It bursts into your life with that same SURPRISE factor and elicits the same eye-narrowing scepticism of the credit card bill and of the relative. But while you can scan transactions for fraud or you can try and slam the door in the face of the scrounger, resisting the surprise, the shock and the self-loathing that follow weight gain is a much harder, if not completely impossible, task to muster. I know that while I have successfully identified fraud and I have successfully refuted scroungers, I have also stood in front of the mirror, mouth aghast, forehead scrunched up, hands pulling hard against two wretched bits of fabric that would just not come together. I use one particular pair of trousers as my benchmark for fatness and perhaps this itself sets me up for failure.



As every woman knows, there is much more levee in a skirt than in a pair of pants, but this is exactly why success resounds so much louder when the zipper pulls up with ease on the drainpipes, rather than on the pencil. I can guarantee that within ten days my currently slightly tight narrow skirt will fit like it did a few months back. The silk trousers are an entirely different challenge. I bought these bits of fabulousness in early 2002, just before my first trip to New York. I can leaf through old pics and see myself wearing them everywhere. The Empire State Building, Fifth Avenue, the plane, the Waldorf. I inspect my face for signs of fat; it surely did look rounder then. Could it be that now I am approaching 30 I simply look haggard in the face and fat in the ass? Is that the difference between early and late twenties? I also recall wearing them on the way to work, standing on the Farringdon platform, denim jacket on top, huge fringed John Galliano wrap carefully thrown on my shoulders (there is no such thing as effortlessly done dahhhlin’, remember that). I recall wearing them for lunch with a friend in early 2006 and catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror. They were loose, loose like they had never been before. At the time I was returning to work on a part-time basis, which allowed for twenty hours of exercise to take place religiously, Monday to Friday, at my local fitness centre. I was trying to strengthen my back, what I got into the bargain was not a weight loss, as testified by the scales receipts that insist on reading the same over a period of three months, but a de-puffing and toning up that I have not experienced since. And fact is, I want it back.

Friends are currently doing liquid diets, the sort that deflate you before you go on holiday, and that move you back to the land of the fatties as soon as you stop the shakes and go back to solids. Much as I’d love to be a stick, I love solid food more. I cannot exercise twenty (or more) hours per week because I cannot fit so much into my schedule any longer. I am up early to go to the office, not to walk to David Lloyd for a workout. When I return in the evening, I am too hungry to contemplate a 3-hour sweat-out. In fact, the thought of it makes me queasy. And of course Merv having been off the radar for the past three weeks hasn’t helped either. One thing is to potter around him and quite another to go for a two-hour trotting hack. Even then, I recently noticed that I do not get as tired (read, as pumped up) any longer, probably because the work on the exercise bike with a view to increase my horsey stamina has started to pay off. And yes the exercise bike. I cannot think of anything more boring than a stationary bike (lie, I can, Gangs of New York), yet it has proved invaluable at a time when Merv was lame and I really wanted a proper sweat-out. However, I have the peculiar habit of pedalling with a Nigella or Jamie DVD playing in the Mac and I can tell you that if this helps the workout to fly by (or very nearly), it most certainly does not help its aftermath.

So I resolved to cut-back with a low-fat diet devoid of just about everything. I began last night by preparing a wrap with paprika flageolet beans and Philadelphia extra light. I also threw a low-fat, low-calorie soya dessert into the bag and already felt thinner just by placing it in the fridge ready to go this morning. Except I drove to work and left it at home. Since I was in extra early, and was so very angry for having forgotten the food, I had a grande (skinny) caramel macchiato at Starbee. Believe it or not, even a cup the size of a vase laced up with caramel sauce only has 120 calories provided you ask for skimmed milk. I am beginning to wonder whether Starbee at large may be part of the problem. Since I started work at this client, with a Starbee in the building, I seem to have gotten… well… fatter. I hate even typing that. I plead on here, right now, to stop the vicious circle. I will prepare my own food at home, I will remember to take it with me, I will stop the snacking at 3 pm and I will reduce the number of Starbees (to… maybe… just xx a day). And I will fit back into those bastard pants if that’s the last thing I do before my birthday in September.

The Short Of It

Oh holy Jesus. It's Tuesday tomorrow and I suppose that is the only good thing about it. It will feel like Monday but it will already be Tuesday. I have been off work for the past few days and it has been great. In fact, great is a great understatement. I have been intellectually and physically active and I feel fabulous for it. The thought of getting into the car tomorrow morning to mindlessly drive somewhere I have little reason to be is, quite frankly, mind-numbing. To think that I will have to sit at my desk, struggling to concentrate on the ins-and-outs of a piece of code that is so bugged it needs disinfestation makes me physically sick. I had such a fantastic time as of late; reading, writing, taking pictures, making plans, expanding my intellectual horizons. Tomorrow I will have to sit down for nine hours of mental martyrdom when I could be home doing something of value instead. Such as beginning a diet. I thought I did today, and sprinkled a long walk on it as well, but then I think I may have spoilt it all with tea and biscuits. There's always tomorrow... If all else fails, and it will, my currently un-zippable Escada pants should give me something interesting to focus on.

Sunday Cooking

It is a truth universally acknowledged that even those who have never read anything by Jane Austen know of this sentence ‘it is a truth universally acknowledged’. It is a truth universally acknowledged that writers, would-be writers, bloggers, journalists and just about everyone who has ever written anything will find a moment in life when a universally acknowledged truth will come to mind and will be paired up in the most improbable manner with just about anything, from lying politicians to overflowing wheelie bins. The universally acknowledged truth that came to mind today is that a Bank Holiday must be in want of lousy weather. So lousy that I did not even venture out of the house, but spent the day drifting from book to hook and, as is often the case, from bedroom to kitchen. The kitchen yielded a minty asparagus frittata.



500g medium stemmed asparagus
6 whole eggs
a splash of milk
10 leaves of mint, chopped up
a drop of olive oil
200g of feta, in cubes
one clove of garlic, skin on
a pinch of salt
soy sauce

Drop some olive oil in the frying pan and sizzle the mint and the clove of garlic. Add the cut asparagus and continue to sizzle. Add the soy sauce and cover on low heat so that the asparagus can become tender but not cooked throughout. Meanwhile, crack the eggs in a jug, beat quickly, add a splash of milk, a good grounding of black pepper and a pinch of salt. Throw the feta in the frying pan, remove the garlic, quickly stir and level (and I do this with a good whacking on the side) and finally pour the eggs over. Put back on a medium heat until firm. If, like me, you cannot flip a frittata without having to wash the floor afterwards, place it under the grill until it’s cooked through. If you can flip successfully, go for it! This is particularly good when left in the fridge overnight and eaten between two slices of bread the day after. Not that it happens often at my place...

I didn't just eat today, I also started practising the pattern for the crochet blanket I spoke of yesterday. Because it is a truth universally acknowledged that a happy hooker in possession of a good stash must be in want of a work in progress.