Hate and love

Love: The Man Repeller. Being funny and clever at the same time is hard. Being funny and clever about a subject like fashion is very hard indeed.

Hate: Mamamia.com.au Do I need to explain why? It's because they're shit, okay.

Love: A Girl Called Jack. I felt for Jack Monroe when I read her heartbreaking "Hunger Hurts" blog as a single Mum on benefits in the UK struggling to get buy on feck all money. I fell for Jack Monroe when I received her cookbook in the post (proceeds to charity ya'll, get on it) and found her recipes to be simple, charming and tasty as.

Hate: The level of condescension I've encountered in an, um, new work-related venture.

Love: The generosity of some people I deal with at work. I'm not a very generous person but I admire the quality in others and some people continue to astound when it comes to how freely they give of their time, ideas and words.

Hate: Logging onto Twitter. Okay, I don't hate it at all - Twitter is a hugely useful resource and mostly very entertaining. At the moment though... I just can't take it. Too much I say.

Love: Joel Dicker's novel The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair. The art of writing a well-written page turner never fails to impress.

Hate: Getting out of bed at 5.30am to go to the gym before work now it's dark and cold and Mr Whiskerley is usually draped over my head.

Love: Feeling strong and fit. I only started exercising regularly to lose some weight but the thing I love best, okay next to the fact I can eat cake and not put on weight, is the new muscles I've discovered in my arms and legs. I'm lame, this I know.

You did not eat that

I am on Twitter. I am on Facebook. But when it comes to Instagram I just... cannot. I have no... just no. I don't have a problem with other people enjoying it an all but I feel deep in my bones it is simply Not For Me. This little article on the Instagram account You Did Not Eat That is the first thing I've read that makes me think maybe I'm wrong and I'm missing out. Because, you know: heh.

Winging it

This is a lovely little column about one of life's greatest (for me, anyway, so far) realisations: that everyone in life is winging it. I wish someone could have convinced me of this face 10 years ago.

Happy Wednesday

"Since that moment it is all up with me. My last remaining shreds of happiness and self-confidence have been blown to the winds, I can do no more. Yes, I am unhappy; I freely admit it, I seem a lamentable and absurd figure even to myself. And that I cannot bear. I shall make an end of it. Today, or tomorrow, or some time, I will shoot myself. My first impulse, my first instinct, was a shrewd one: I would make copy of the situation, I would contribute my pathetic sickness to the swell of literature of unhappy love. But that was all folly. One does not die of an unhappy love affair; one revels in it. [ . . . ] But what is destroying me is that hope has been destroyed with the destruction of all pleasure in myself. I cease to write, fling the pen from me -- full of disgust, full of disgust! I will make an end of it -- alas, that is an attitude too heroic for a dilettante. In the end I shall go on living, eating, sleeping; I shall gradually get used to the idea that I am dull, that I cut a wretched and ridiculous figure."

(Thomas Mann, The Dilettante)

3 reasons Croupier is a great, great movie you should be watching right now.

1. Clive Owen. No really: CLIVE OWEN. I've long had a reasonably soft spot for Owen, with his symmetrical good looks and gravelly tones, but the last movie I loved him in was Sin City - quite some time ago - and I'd forgotten just how entrancing he can be when he's entirely on form. He is electric. He is fantastic. I want to have 300 of his babies. Or maybe just eat him with a spoon.

2. The whole movie is quietly full of really quite brilliant advice about how to live your life. As someone who has no idea how to live life I eat this shit up with a spoon. You're either a croupier or a gambler, Owen's character intones at one point, and I find myself thinking yes, yes you're so right. But my favourite, and a little line I use again and again on myself to recover from loss or disappointment? "Hang on tightly, let go lightly." How perfect is that? It's perfect it is.

3. "Now he had become the still centre of that spinning wheel of misfortune. The world turned 'round him leaving him miraculously untouched. The croupier had reached his goal: he no longer heard the sound of the ball." This is the opening monologue to the movie. If you can watch it and turn off the movie without watching a minute more then you, Sir, are mental.

"The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that 

will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If 

you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry." 

(Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms)

Modern curses

May you be seen crying at work. 

May the most substantive emotional support you can offer a grieving friend be the febrile sentiment “Sending good thoughts your way” in a Facebook comment.

May your partner never be awake when you whisper “Are you awake?” because you desperately need a... (Read the original entry here)

Sad things from the interweb

I'm not crying. I've just been chopping onions. I'm making a lasagna...