All the things I do instead of writing…
I spend a tiny bit too much time in Shepherd's Bush at weekends. Westfield is my second home, to the extent that I know the location of pretty much every single one of the 300 shops in it - I've never not known the answer when asked for directions. Yesterday, I actually wanted to buy... Continue Reading →
I do love weddings, and this year seems to have had a particularly plentiful supply. This weekend's specimen was a little unusual, since I had never met the bride or the groom. A recently single friend asked me to accompany her in her ex boyfriend's place. She spent the entire time saying "This is Freya,... Continue Reading →
As ever, when anything changes in my life, I descend into introspection. For no particular reason, I start to find my gilded existence tragic, and turn into a navel-gazing drama queen, nervously necking champagne at a wedding and sloping off home in tears because they’re playing Oasis and I have just drunkenly stepped on my own... Continue Reading →
I've not seen any of Terrence Malick's other films, but am told they are very good. I'm a tiny bit wary of auteur cinema, even if there are plenty of examples of so-called highbrow films which impressed me - Dogville, Solaris, The Royal Tenenbaums (although I'm not sure anything with Owen Wilson counts), The Seventh... Continue Reading →
This week has been quite a professionally trying one. In fact, I've been having quite an extended period of professional tedium for the last few months. The restlessness has got so unmanageable that I've in fact made quite a hash of a number of obligations over the last few days, in favour of a bit... Continue Reading →
This whole Royal Wedding/ May Day bank holiday weekend has been quite strange. I enjoyed watching the wedding on Friday much more than I thought I would, and somewhat embarrassingly found it quite touching, particularly the Queen's somewhat melancholy facial expressions. On Saturday I bought a car. Spending quite so much money on a "thing"... Continue Reading →
Last week seemed to have a bit of a non-stop schedule of activities based in the city, which made today's 10km run through the Arundel Estate in West Sussex all the more enjoyable. Still, I also went to the rather more rarefied spectacle of an evening at the Royal Opera House. I had got some... Continue Reading →
I was reading a comment article in The Times this morning entitled "If you're not Kate Moss, smoking isn't cool". I don't think she looks cool smoking at all, or certainly not in the Louis Vuitton catwalk image. It was following the well-trodden path of generating controversy for greater press coverage, and the whole effect... Continue Reading →
I have for so long imagined little scenes in my life as they might have turned out, but as they never do for anyone, because everyone is reticent and risk averse - unless of course they're completely wasted and staggering around Covent Garden in London so drunk that they walk into a glass door at full pelt... Continue Reading →
I'm quite disconcertingly comfortable with my own company. When I'm not at work (which is most of the time), I have all the head space I need - I can read the papers, construct bizarre diet plans I won't stick to, shout at the morons on breakfast TV, indulge in antisocial personal habits like picking... Continue Reading →
The resting writer 