Witterings about lots of things.
‘I don’t ever remember feeling this awake’ – Thelma It starts the way all films should – two gals, a convertible and a loaded gun, off on a road trip together. They’ve got high-waisted jeans and enormous swaying hair. They’re getting away from hard work, boredom and Thelma’s cretin of a husband. What could possibly... Continue Reading →
“Secrets, silent, stony, sit in the dark palaces of both our hearts: secrets weary of their tyranny: tyrants willing to be dethroned.” James Joyce, Ulysses Maybe it's a symptom of living in almost certain safety, to find the idea of banned books romantic. Imagine: the soft crackling of a paper bag containing a hard-back first... Continue Reading →
I get all excited about Christmas. I start making plans around August. Oh, the snowball cocktails; the consensual glitterfication. I’ve been contemplating layering. How much merino is too much merino? Do patterns clash if there’s nobody there to see them? While I wait for everyone else to get interested, I went out today and found... Continue Reading →
Christmas is here, season of goodwill and morning drunkenness. It’s my favourite time of the year. Everyone wears wool. We all eat pastry a lot more than usual, and take a moment now and then (lackadaisically dusting pie crumbs from our jumpers) to think of those less fortunate than ourselves. So let’s do that. Join... Continue Reading →
I’ve been thinking about the word feminist for a long time. I’ve been thinking about it, but for most of my life, I haven’t been saying it. There were big reasons and small reasons. For the most part, it was to do with my feelings about privacy and the right to be a weird little... Continue Reading →
Whenever I talk about Doris Lessing, I tend to become a little incoherent with infatuated love, and talk about her I do, a lot, to anyone who is reluctantly cornered and can't get away. I first encountered Doris Lessing when I read The Golden Notebook at twenty-one. I was an immature twenty-one. I flailed around... Continue Reading →
Lorna Sage's daughter, in this wonderful article, describes an early memory of 'clomping alongside' her mother on a walk across a park, in ugly Clark's shoes, while Lorna was 'barefoot and wearing a slinky catsuit zipped down to her naval'. Lorna Sage wrote about Plato, John Milton, Doris Lessing and Angela Carter as Professor of English... Continue Reading →
Amy Jardine 