Some Friday links
Hampstead, tote bags, rice, PIGS etc
Good morning! These fine pigs are drawn by marvellous Beth Spencer especially for readers of Home, which is YOU (thank you). They are in honour of one of my favourite recent reads - this highly evocative and beautifully written post by Rachel about her two pet pigs, Luigi and Smudge. I guarantee that reading it will improve your day.
Unlike the smooth and giant pink pigs above, Luigi and Smudge are fuzzy kunekune pigs and therefore a relatively manageable size. We very nearly got some pet pigs a few years ago, until I came to my senses. Although, never say never, with pigs. I’m very taken with Luigi and Smudge.
Here are some other things I’ve liked this week. I haven’t had time to read as much as usual because of writing my book, and I haven’t properly left the house since last weekend (I know) for the same reason, so today’s list is more discursive and personal than usual - more like a post for paid subscribers, in fact, though with added cabin fever.
(I’ve also had Do Not Disturb on for three weeks and it’s a total revelation - I might just keep it on all the time. You do get the odd person saying ‘why are you ignoring me?’, but there was a time when we didn’t all snap to attention and interrupt our train of thought the moment we were summoned. It’s not just that - the endless alerts also interrupt your train of mood and make it zigzag all over the place when really it should be more or less horizontal. Do Not Disturb feels a little bit pre-internet and I love it).
Here’s a fascinating short film about the set design of the house in Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, which I am so looking forward to seeing this weekend. [If you haven’t seen the film and have somehow avoided finding out how it starts, don’t watch this video].
The interiors of Bridget’s house were built on a sound stage at Elstree Studios, but the house is supposed to be a Victorian townhouse in Hampstead, north London. I love a really good interiors set because it’s like a whole extra narrative, and also I grew up in a Victorian townhouse in Hampstead, so I was curious.
Hampstead is now tremendously expensive, but at the time of my childhood and early teenagehood, it was more bohemian than smart. Once my friend Edwina’s mother refused to drive her over from their SW postcode because she claimed Hampstead was ‘full of opium dens’. If only!
But it was certainly more creative-arty than money-businessy. People’s dads didn’t work in City offices - the first time someone told me their father was a businessman, I didn’t understand what it meant (I still don’t, entirely). The vibe was more pottery than bone china, more wholemeal bread than not. Hampstead was a Birkenstock, not a Manolo, and therefore somewhat at odds with the glitz and gloss of the Eighties.
Girls with teeth and taffeta ballgowns may have been popping champagne corks in Sloane Square, but here the champagne, if present in the first place, would have been served in a Duralex tumbler, as if it was nothing (this is its own kind of snobbery, of course, but I still prefer it).
People’s mums wore no makeup and people’s dads were friendly and rumpled. Our neighbours were a botanist, a political activist and, admittedly, Boy George, though he came along much later. (His fans wrote tiny, neat messages to him on the bricks of the wall outside his house. What was strange was that they always kept within the confines of the individual brick - no scrawling beyond the mortar. Was this a collective decision? Was one person really neat, and then copied by all the subsequent people? Why didn’t anyone think ‘nah’ and get out the spray can? Maybe George came out one day with a cross face and said ONE FAN PER BRICK and they all gulped and obeyed).
Anyway: what I like about these Bridget Jones sets is that the interiors look to me like the perfect contemporary reimagining of the ‘old’ Hampstead of my memory, as opposed to the actual 21st century reality. They are just right, I think, so warm and comfortable and lived-in, with colour and pattern everywhere - it’s really interesting to hear the set designer talk about putting it all together. The attention to minuscule detail is incredible.
But what I love the most is that the ordinary debris of family life is so much in evidence. There are stickers on the kitchen table, put there by the children and never removed, cheerfully mismatched chairs, abandoned coffee cups, random life detritus in random places. The rooms are beautiful, of course, but it’s not the (gorgeous) Nina Campbell wallpaper that brings the warmth and life - it’s the little bits of life stuff, the things so many people would rush to hide or tidy away if they had visitors coming round, the things you never see in photoshoots. There’s a lesson in that, both in terms of interiors and in terms of being a person. Mess is fine. Mess is interesting. Mess is what makes things real!
(↑ This is exactly the sort of thing my new book is about.)
Speaking of Duralex tumblers: I replaced our ancient ones - some of them were 20+ years old - with these recently and I really like them. I think I might have seen them on somebody’s Substack but I can’t remember whose - do shout if it was you. They feel very nice in the hand. I don’t drink alcohol, but they work for water, wine, cocktails and anything in between. Also: sturdy.
The great(est) fashion photographer Tim Walker’s scrapbook diaries:
PINK Daunt Books bags!
If you’re a visitor to London, that’s your souvenir sorted. If you’re not, behold your summer tote, although see also these and these. Important: you have to fill them properly, especially if you’re a man.
I think the Aldeburgh Bookshop ones are the least obvious and therefore the chicest. Look at how well-travelled ↓ they are, including to the Chagos Islands, topically enough. And it’s not any old bag that goes to Nosy Be (it’s an island off Madagascar and I wish I hadn’t looked it up because now I’m going to have that stupid song in my head for DAYS).
You know what these bags are? Physically fit.
Pleasing discovery of the week:
I like this low-effort rice + 2 toppings formula from Khushbu Shah of Tap Is Fine! (She is the restaurant editor of Food & Wine).
Quite often I read pieces about ‘personal style’ and want to tell the writer, ‘this is a futile use of your precious time’. I loved this post by Maura Brannigan.
A friend texted me to tell me to make this spicy mushroom lasagne from Ottolenghi as a matter of urgency and my God, she wasn’t wrong. Crazily delicious. You could make the whole thing or just make the sauce, which is intensely savoury and satisfying - by far the best vegetarian take on ragù I’ve come across - and have it with pasta.
(While we’re on that website, this black pepper tofu is a staple of mine when there are 2 things in the fridge).
I liked this piece about marriage, expectations and the baggage we each bring with us.
I’ve mentioned Edward Bulmer Invisible Green paint before but we’re having some painting done at the moment and I must sing its praises again. It really is the perfect green - warm and cosy in bad weather, fresh and vibrant in summer, lovely in dim light at night. The name alludes to the 19th century idea of painting metal railings so that they disappeared into the landscape. This colour is amazing in a room that looks out onto a garden, but it still works beautifully even if there’s no garden in sight (and here’s a piece about using it from House & Garden). I’ll post a picture or do a little video next week.
Melissa Harrison on wanting to be seen and also wanting to stay hidden.
Idiotic thing that made me laugh for 10 minutes straight and then forward to my children, who of course had seen it ages ago 👵🏼. It’s not only the expert (benign) trolling but the fact that people then went to the trouble of turning the exchange into an operetta. You’ll need the volume up.
That’s it for today. As ever, do please very kindly leave this post a ❤️ if you liked it, and I’ll be back shortly. Thank you and have a wonderful Friday!
PS if you’re a paid subscriber and have for some reason missed it, have a read of this exclusive extract from my (and everyone else’s) favourite novel so far this year. It is so good, as will immediately become clear.
What a great start to Friday. A mention in India’s always brilliant lists. Thank you.
Even though I can cook, and I know the recipe reads far longer than it will take, I looked at the Ottolenghi mushroom lasagne recipe and immediately thought, no. But I do make the black pepper tofu one and it’s thrilling (and also brilliant over a bowl of rice, viz Tap is Fine).
As for Maura Brannigan's piece, the irony for me is that she bothered to waste her life writing it. I have really have had it with the onslaught of female me-and-my-angst writing. Just put on the bloody clothes you like and stop fretting!