Here we go again

I used to make boring New Year’s resolutions every year and religiously break them. Even more mind-numbing, I used to make and break the same ones, which included growing my nails, joining a gym, and giving up gin. The usual twaddle doomed to failure because: my nails are naturally weak and brittle; every time I go to a gym I do my back in and have to rest up for weeks; as for giving up gin … get real!

The past few years I’ve tried to think of more interesting resolutions that I might have a chance of keeping. Others have been suggested by friends, some of whom are no longer my friends as a consequence. Here’s a sample:

Twitter Twitter little spat

Way back in mid-November (which feels like a decade ago), I announced to the world that I had joined Twitter, albeit incognito. ‘Twas a big deal for me, a truly momentous occasion, and I devoted a whole blog to it … so, so sad.

Why did I join Twitter?

Welcome Back and Merry Xmas to my mojo

Some aspects of the festive season have turned me off for the longest time:

• The pressure to buy imaginative gifts when all I can think of are socks and scarves;
• The struggle to suggest to rellies what I’d like for Xmas and who are never satisfied when I say, Oh just a bottle of gin will be fine. (Although, one can never have too many earrings.)
• Mistletoe that has to be replaced every few days … hmmm, is that a metaphor?
• Glitter and pine needles everywhere that even my ridiculously expensive Dyson can’t keep on top of. (Ugh – preposition at the end, sorry);
• Xmas cards that are bad for the planet. All hail, JacquieLawson.com!
• Squeezing into too-tight sparkly clothes that I wear just once a year. Thank goodness for Bridget Jones’ knickers.

Sex and the City

This post is my raunchiest yet (for me, that’s not difficult) and written for the Girlies. So, Gents, if talk of fashion, make-up, bitching and sex is a real turn-off for you, look away now.

When SATC first hit our screens, I sniffily avoided it. I’d read the hype and decided it was nothing but cheap porn. What persuaded me to get off my prudish high horse and give it a try was the realisation that one of its pivotal characters was Carrie Bradshaw’s love-interest (one of her many, that is) Big, played by Chris Noth.

Be still my beating heart.

A Tale of Two Darkest Hours

On Sunday evening, replete with roast pheasant, accompanied by potato and butterbean cakes à la Clarissa Dickson Wright, and a fruity pinot to wash it all down, we settled by the wood burning stove to watch Darkest Hour, the 2017 film about Winston Churchill’s first few weeks as Prime Minister in 1940.

A sentence like the one wot I just wrote used to be benign, boring even, but now it’s full of triggers for today’s wokerati. One by one:

• Eating pheasant is alarming to extreme vegans (the vegans I know are reasonable and tolerant and I don’t include them in this post);

Little things mean a lot

There’s something relaxing, bordering on the therapeutic, watching a soufflé rise: whether it’s smug satisfaction at having made it; anticipation as to how scrummy it’ll taste; maybe respect for the science behind the phenomenon; or just childish wonderment at the tantalising transformation from slop huddled in a dish to the master of all that it surveys.