In brief: a party, Twitter emigrés, some links and some admin
Hello! I am back from my brief travels, which included an UNbelievably glamorous party at Claridges for Sunday Times Style’s 30th birthday. It was very fun and also guess who was there? Rupert Campbell-Black. All anyone kept saying all evening - including quite famous people - was ‘Oh my God, don’t stare but Rupert Campbell-Black is at 3 o'clock’.
It made me think that It must be strange to be at a party knowing everyone has seen your penis. I mean, sometimes quite a lot of people in the room have seen your penis because you’re that kinda guy, but I should think it’s quite rare for it to be absolutely everyone. Anyway. Great party. It also confirmed my view that a mountain of really good profiteroles is the best pudding.
It seems much of Twitter has decamped to Substack over the last few days. If that’s you and you’re finding your feet, it might be helpful to know that while Twitter is like running out into crazy, screaming traffic, yelling at the top of your voice to try and be heard/not squashed, Substack is more a Sunday morning stroll somewhere salubrious.
Also Substack maths is not like Twitter maths and the definition of viral is not at all the same (I can already see people going wtf, I was huge on Twitter, why has this Note only got 3 likes? 3 likes is fine to be getting on with, take it easy).
Also you don’t need to say massively dramatic or overwrought things for attention, unless you particularly want to. In this context it’s slightly like barging into a room and mooning - I don’t know that people necessarily adore it.
Things I’ve enjoyed reading on Substack: this is an extraordinary piece of writing. This is fantastic about politics and assumptions. Here’s the most beautiful garden from Clare Foster’s divine book - I’m slightly obsessed with that man and his house. I liked Arthur Parkinson’s branches in a pot, too, and Lucy Williams on the perils of a too-perfect room. Also look at this ice bucket in the shape of a pear (more Christmas present ideas coming next week, btw, and after that ALL my staying-sane-at-Christmas tips).
Important message for founder members: I have cleared Tuesday to do your beauty boxes. Please check your inbox on Monday evening for details.
If you’re thinking ‘what’s a founder member and am I one'?’, the answer is: founder members are the people who support this newsletter by paying the top price to subscribe. There are 3 tiers. You can 1) subscribe for free and access not much, you can 2) pay the normal price and access everything, or you can 3) be incredibly kind and pay even more than that, in exchange for which you get special presents if you live in the UK. (This year there’s another thing too which I’ll tell you about shortly).
Related: I want to get these beauty boxes out in one go, meaning that I’m going to temporarily pause founder memberships on Monday evening. I need to distribute box content evenly and that becomes difficult if people then straggle along later in dribs and drabs. Plus what if I run out of stuff? Nightmare. I’ll un-pause these memberships in January.
Now I’m off to catch up with everything and plant my violas before it gets dark (so dark! so early!). The boiler has conked out, obviously given we have people coming to stay and that it’s due to be really cold next week.
Back on Sunday with a food post, or maybe before. Meanwhile do give this somewhat insubstantial post a ❤️ if you liked it - I’ve kept it free for that reason, but do feel free to subscribe! - and have a lovely end of the week.
I think I must be the only person in England to have not seen that man’s penis and I’ve seen a hell of a lot of penises in my time. Not that I was a tart, just popular. Well, perhaps a little bit of a tart.
Imagine being at a party where everyone has seen your penis and you knew everyone had seen your penis and everyone knew that you knew they were thinking 'I've seen your penis'. You'd really want to have run a poll beforehand...eg was it a) impressive b) acceptable c) like a cock only smaller...where everyone had to answer and you'd seen the results before you agreed to attend