Apr 30
Bella is back! Or at least she is for a week or two. She’s the flatmate who moved to Singapore last September, and she’s home for our friend Jo’s wedding this weekend. Jo and Bella are my two oldest friends and I’ve known them since we were 11. We stood awkwardly on the outskirts of school discos together, discussed our first periods together, and even dressed up like the Spice Girls together.
Bella, Jo and I as The Spice Girls.
I’m baby Spice. Obviously. Read more
*The following paragraph is in no way related to food*
A few weeks ago I went to my ten year school reunion. Even just writing that makes me feel old. I debated a lot about whether to go, as I was not, how shall I put this?, a particularly successful teenager. My school, like I’m sure most others, had a very definite social hierarchy, and one that I was acutely aware of. For the best part of seven years I had a fringe that refused to grow out, train-tracks and glasses (I really didn’t stand a chance did I?), and often felt that everyone else had been handed a guide to growing-up, and mine had some how got lost in the post. I felt like I had no right to talk to the cool kids, and spent most of my time with my head down, feeling embarrassed for just existing. I had a tendency to develop intense crushes on the popular boys, creating elaborate daydreams where they saw through the awkward blushes, feigned nonchalance (or so I hoped, looking back my affections were embarrassingly transparent), and fought for my love a la Pacey Witter. It obviously never happened. Yet I did manage to pluck up the courage to go to the reunion, and I was so pleased that I did. As while there were a few who seemed to hold on to the belief that our school hierarchy still held relevance today, one of these girls was wearing such a hideous dress and plastic white stilettos (seriously?) that any intimidation quickly melted away. I had longer conversations with some people over the course of one evening than I did in seven years, people I would never have spoken to, just because they were somehow deemed ‘cool’, and I, most definitely, was not. And those boys I had crushes on? One spent the evening lounging in his chair with one leg on the thigh of the other looking like a complete twat. It’s amazing what a difference ten years can make to your romantic inclinations. Read more
I tried for a long time to get Joe to move to North West London. I took him for long walks on the Heath, Sunday roasts at The Bull and Last, and coffee and doughnuts at Fields Beneath. And for a time it worked, he temporarily resided in Tufnell Park. Until about a month ago when he moved to South East London. Yep, about as far away from NW residing me as you can get (I’m trying not to take it personally). It may or may not have something to do with his new fella, who gleefully pointed out to me that just a few weeks after they’d started dating, while he was away skiing, Joe moved a 20 minute walk away. Stalker much? Joe says it’s just a coincidence… but I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions. However the flip side of Joe living on the other side of London is that it gives me a reason to explore a part of the city that I haven’t as yet. I’d only been to Peckham once before, to meet Sean and one of his friends for a drink. I came out of the station and turned the wrong way, ending up on a street that, in the dark and in heels, made me feel very uncomfortable. I called Sean who came to find me, and within a minute we were on a quiet, middle-class, suburban street, littered with gastro-pubs and the like. I love this patchwork quality to London, how in just the space of a street, the entire character of an area can completely change. Read more
After over an hour wandering around this exhibition I still have no answer to this question. None. Not even a smidgen. There didn’t seem a point as such to any of it, but I think maybe that is the point. Maybe.
Before I go any further I should probably say that I am not an art critic, not even close. The summation of my artistic skills is a rather wonky pottery pelican that currently resides on my parents’ mantelpiece. But I do like art, especially modern stuff, and I always enjoy an afternoon spent on my lonesome exploring a gallery. But I know very little about it, as this post will probably demonstrate.
Martin Creed’s What’s The Point Of It? exhibition in the Hayward Gallery at the Southbank Centre opened at the end of January. It takes over the entire space, and is a comprehensive survey of the Turner prize winning artist’s work. I knew enough about him to know that it wasn’t going to be a series of paintings on white walls with neat explanations pinned next to them, but I was still shocked, and to be honest, a bit annoyed, at how opaque it all was. Creed is a frustrating artist. We are trained to find meaning in everything (especially if you’ve done an Art’s degree) and his work resolutely denies you that pleasure. It’s like watching a film that ends in the middle of a disagreement between two protagonists. There is no resolution to it. Read more
What a gorgeous weekend! I love the first few days of spring, when Londoners emerge from their winter hibernation and, rather than hurry from place to place with their shoulders hunched, turn their faces upwards, soaking in every single glorious ray (and while it is still not quite warm enough for pot-bellied, pimpled-skinned men to walk around with their shirts off – never a pleasant sight). I think it is one of the nice things about living somewhere that doesn’t have continuous sunshine, we definitely fully appreciate it when we do get it! Apparently the week before was also lovely, but I wouldn’t know as I spent the lion’s share stuck inside the windowless Earl’s Court at the London Book Fair. Three days of back-to-back meetings, tasteless paninis, and far too many watery coffees, drank in a bid to warn off the 3pm yawns. I don’t chat about my day job much on here (I work at a Literary Agency), but for all my complaining it did remind me how lovely people who work in publishing really are, and how keen everyone is to find great books. Read more
Sometime in September 2011, outside the Bull and Last pub in Hampstead (review here) and whilst tucking into roast beef and drinking cider, Bella, Jen and I concocted a plan. We’d all done a fair bit of travelling pre and post university, but after two years in full time employment our feet were getting rather itchy. So we decided to use Christmas as a way of stretching our limited two weeks holiday into three, and explore Laos and Cambodia. We spent Christmas Day in the air, eating unseasonal Emirates food and then gawking at the amount of gold in Dubai airport. We changed in Bangkok and then flew into Luang Prabang in Northern Laos. I have two crystal clear memories of this journey. The first is the glint of a golden temple roof, peeking over dense mountain forest, seen through the propellers of our little plane which spun the rays from the evening sun into a web of shimmering light. The second is of the bridge into Luang Prabang. Airports and their surrounds often feel very generic, and it took this woobly wooden bridge, which improbably took the weight of our car, to make me realise just where I was. In Asia. For the first time. Over the next three weeks we travelled to the north of Laos, then flew down to the south of the country, before making our way overland to Phnom Penh, to Kep on the coast and then back up to Siem Reap and Angkor Wat, from where we sadly flew home. Read more
I often see events on Twitter, think ‘yes, I want to go to that’, then either forget or put off making plans, only remembering when it is too late and the pop up or exhibition is long over. This nearly happened with Asma Khan’s residency at The Sun and 13 Cantons in Soho. Nearly, but not quite. A glowing review popped up on my Twitter feed early last week, a week that was fortunately due to end with a Friday afternoon off. So I invited Sean, and his visiting-from-America boyfriend Adam, to come along with me and booked a table. And I am very glad that I did.
Asma’s takeover of the pub kitchen is part of a series, has run since February and is due to end on Friday. It’s mainly a lunchtime thing, although she does serve up early suppers to post-work punters. The food is specifically from her hometown of Calcutta, in Bengal, a fact that she is keen to emphasise. The more I learn about Indian food, the more I realise how unhelpful the term ‘Indian’ actually is. Each region has its own distinct flavours and personality – the food we ate in Rajasthan was quite rich, oily and meat heavy, whereas Bengali cooking is a bit lighter, with more fish and fruit, and coconut based curries (I also learnt about Goan cuisine here). Read more
During our recent trip to Amsterdam (read about what we got up to here) my parents and I stayed at the Lloyd Hotel, a ten minute tram ride from Centraal Station in the Eastern Docklands. It was built in the 1920s as a migrant hostel – the last European stopping point for those setting out for South America on one of the Royal Dutch Lloyd ships – and one of the staircases in the hotel serves as an exhibition of its history. It was reopened in 2004 as a design hotel, featuring the work of 50 designers and artists, and has a range of rooms from one to five star; from small single rooms with shared bathrooms, to beds big enough for eight and swings dangling from the wooden beams. My parents and I both stayed in three star rooms (I was pleasantly surprised that my mum had booked me a room the same level as theirs!).
There is no denying that it is a stunning, creative hotel, and when we walked into our rooms we gasped at the cleverness and originality of the design. But the problem with overtly designed hotel rooms is that they have to really work as comfortable places to stay or the novelty wears off after a few minutes. The main design feature of my room was the bathroom, tucked away behind a wall which then swung out to a right angle, sealing off the bed area and creating a wet room to shower in. It was clever in that, when closed, it created a very spacious room, far bigger than any other three star rooms I have stayed in. However, although the area in front of the bathroom was tiled and there was a lip in the floor to encourage water towards the drain, water did get everywhere and I had to place towels down to absorb the excess. Also the moving wall never seemed to want to stay where I wanted it, and it swung disconcertingly towards me as I showered! Read more
During our recent trip to Amsterdam (read about what we got up to here) my parents and I stayed at the Lloyd Hotel, a ten minute tram ride from Centraal Station in the Eastern Docklands. It was built in the 1920s as a migrant hostel – the last European stopping point for those setting out for South America on one of the Royal Dutch Lloyd ships – and one of the staircases in the hotel serves as an exhibition of its history. It was reopened in 2004 as a design hotel, featuring the work of 50 designers and artists, and has a range of rooms from one to five star; from small single rooms with shared bathrooms, to beds big enough for eight and swings dangling from the wooden beams. My parents and I both stayed in three star rooms (I was pleasantly surprised that my mum had booked me a room the same level as theirs!).
There is no denying that it is a stunning, creative hotel, and when we walked into our rooms we gasped at the cleverness and originality of the design. But the problem with overtly designed hotel rooms is that they have to really work as comfortable places to stay or the novelty wears off after a few minutes. The main design feature of my room was the bathroom, tucked away behind a wall which then swung out to a right angle, sealing off the bed area and creating a wet room to shower in. It was clever in that, when closed, it created a very spacious room, far bigger than any other three star rooms I have stayed in. However, although the area in front of the bathroom was tiled and there was a lip in the floor to encourage water towards the drain, water did get everywhere and I had to place towels down to absorb the excess. Also the moving wall never seemed to want to stay where I wanted it, and it swung disconcertingly towards me as I showered! Read more
The Very Hungry Londoner 