Some links

and Rick Astley and the best puffer coats

Nov 29, 2024

This post is free to read, which is the exception rather than the rule!

On Wednesday night Hatchards was a sort of zoo of authors inside, with a giant snaking queue down Piccadilly waiting to get in. Guess who had the longest queue of anyone on the first floor, and very possibly of anyone in the building? Nigel Slater, as is absolutely correct - not only a recipe genius but the nicest person.

Later this morning I’m going to go and sniff A Feast, the scent he collaborated on with Lynn Harris of Perfumer H - I’m thinking the incense ↓ might be really nice for Christmas (I’m a fan of Gold and actually any of the incenses would make a delightful and treat-y present for someone).

Loads of you came and got your books signed and it was so lovely to meet you - thank you very very much for traipsing out into the night and braving the insane West End crowds. There are so many huge gaggles of people just standing there gormlessly taking selfies of nothing that I’ve had to resort to saying BEEP every two seconds for the past two days to be able to walk at a vaguely normal pace.

Also Claire and Becks from The Trowel appeared at Hatchards and I nearly died of excitement because I love them. Also I was at a table with Tom Parker Bowles and he is extremely quidsworth.

It was Foyles last night. I was sitting there slightly despondently, in the way of the huge queue for Richard Aoyade, having signed all my stock and wondering if I could slink off early when guess who suddenly appeared?

RICK ASTLEY. I know, like a cheese dream. He’s written an autobiography and his own massive queue had temporarily abated, so he came to visit everyone else and bought copies of all their books. I said ‘you really don’t need a beauty book for middle-aged women,’ but he just said ‘Can you put ‘to Rick and Lene’ please, love’?’ and went on his way. Talk about charming. Also, magnificent, lustrous quiff.

Then my younger son and his girlfriend took me to dinner at Tao Tao Ju in Lisle St, which was delicious and which I share because despite having eaten in Chinatown for 40+ years I always go blank when standing there and trying to pick somewhere that isn’t Bar Shu or Dumplings’ Legend.

(We’d tried Milk Beach first - we hadn’t booked and it was rammed, but the very extra man at reception really gave it his best shot. When it became clear there was just no space, he looked distraught and said to my son, ‘Oh my darling I’m so sorry, I so wanted to accommodate you and mummy,’ which made me a) laugh for about 5 minutes and b) love him. This son and I do look very alike, but still).

Here are some things I’ve enjoyed reading this week:

Pandora Sykes’s conversation with Lili Anolik, author of Didion & Babitz. I also liked this review of the book by Becca Rothfeld in The Washington Post, which you can read for free by entering an email address. Maybe I’m not a lone Didion heretic after all.

I cheered for these escapee hamsters.

I was deeply freaked out by these robots and the robot gangleader who radicalised them (‘Follow me’), to the point of dreaming about it/them.

This by Livia Hengel is excellent on overtourism. I liked Alexina from Small Wins’s useful soup blueprint, and Christina Patterson on the slow death of newspaper journalism.

Ed Smith has a fantastic roundup of this year’s most notable cookbooks, which led me to buy this one ↑, which has instantly been promoted to the special shelf because I want to make literally everything in it.

Heather Taylor from The Frazzled Cook has a spectacularly good list of presents for foodies, by far the best I’ve seen anywhere (the ones in the papers are largely crap, I’m sorry to say), which is no wonder as she used to compile them for Jamie Oliver’s magazine.

Georgie Newbery, a very talented flower farmer whose online demos are highly recommended, joined Substack and wrote this excellent post about small businesses and social media. I loved Karen Karbo’s most recent list of furious gripes on Yeah, no. Not happening, and Mathew Lyons on Charles M Schultz.

(Today is Black Friday - as if anyone would let us forget it, my inbox has been an absolute toilet all week - so I also liked this from Total Rec).

Also: I stupidly came to London thinking lots of layers + thermal tights + a wool blazer + gloves + a beanie + a huge cashmere scarf would be enough, but it was so bloody cold yesterday that I spent 45 minutes closely inspecting the general High Street puffer coat offering - I must have looked at 10 or 12 of them up and down Oxford and Regent Sts. Conclusion: this one from Uniqlo (currently reduced) and this one from Arket are the nicest ones by far. In the end I kept warm by walking faster and reminding myself that I have a perfectly serviceable puffer coat at home, not to mention the coat of love.

Favourite Christmas window: this little side one from Selfridges.

Favourite whole building: Fortnum’s.

The facade of Dior is quite nice (the whole length of Bond St is yet another hellish human traffic jam of people standing in the road with their phones out, even though the lights aren’t especially great).

Now I’m off to meet friends for breakfast. Back with a post this weekend. We’re doing the Christmas tree on Sunday and I am beside myself with excitement. Have a lovely Friday and as ever, do give this post a ❤️ if you liked it. Thank you!