209. A Savoury Treat

This weekend I will be making Simon Hopkinson's Parmesan Biscuits. He won't mind. And thinking about making Parmesan Biscuits has reminded me of the infinite pleasure in a savoury treat. I don't mean crisps or Twiglets, though they are both savoury and pleasurable, I mean the home-made treat. A couple of weekends ago I made mini pigs in blankets, with a mustardy yogurty sauce. It's Nigella's. Delicious. Herself and I ate the whole lot.

Cheese straws, little sausage rolls, home-made flatbread with home-made hummus, toasted almonds tossed with chilli flakes and sea salt - I'm sure there are many others I have forgotten, but I'm so busy dreaming about Parmesan Biscuits I'm finding it hard to concentrate...

208. 'I Capture the Castle' by Dodie Smith

Back to books. Back to basics.

Yes, Dodie Smith wrote '101 Dalmatians'. So she is responsible for Pongo (named after her own dog), Perdita, Cruella De Vil, and the Midnight Bark. She is also responsible for this:

'I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.'

Sigh.

So we already know that we are forever in her debt. But then we get to read the rest of 'I Capture the Castle' and it just gets better.

Anyone who has ever been seventeen, ever been lonely, ever been filled with that mixture of anticipation and anxiety that precedes adulthood (and in some cases continues well into it), should read this book.

It was written in 1949, so it isn't modern. It hasn't got any technology in it, and you will not find the word 'digital' within its pages. She probably wrote it by hand, and then typed it on a typewriter while wearing a twinset and pearls. Then she probably had a cigarette and a martini before changing for supper.

I wonder if she had any idea that 62 years after she wrote it, her book would still be making people happy. Hope so.

207. Coleslaw

Or cold slaw, as Herself calls it.

One small white cabbage and four carrots will make you enough coleslaw for the entire post-Christmas period. I think you're supposed to wring the cabbage in muslin or something, to make it give up its water, but I like my coleslaw on the sloppy side, so I won't be doing that.

I do not add onion. I know, controversial. But Herself says that raw onion repeats on her and, frankly, I'd rather not live with a burpy onion-breather.

So you just grate your two main ingredients. Add mayo, some plain yogurt (if you want to be fancy) and some S and P. Mix. Leave to amalgamate and improve.

Serve with baked potatoes and leftover roast turkey/ham/beef/chicken. Slurp.

206. A Shelf of Books

In moments of genuine distress I look for a cuddle from somebody I love who loves me. This, I believe, is what everybody does who is lucky enough to love and be loved. It's certainly why we should all have a pet.

But the unanimity of our response ends when it comes to gentler moments of sadness or doubt. Some people drink. Others eat chocolate, bake cakes, pick fights, take vigorous exercise... You get the picture.

I stand in front of bookshelves and look at the books.

What do you do?

You can lose yourself in a bookshelf. And there, standing proudly or slumped disconsolately, are some potential sources of solace. So there is the peace of looking, and the potential peace of discovery.

(I loved being a bookseller, as you can imagine. Loved it. Would still be doing it were it not for the third-world wages and the customers.)

Today I took myself off to the second-hand bookshops on King Street and spent half an hour standing in front of bookshelves. I bought three books and returned to my desk a calmer person. This strange emotional dependence is only one of the reasons why I am against the closure of libraries and the rise of e-books. Also, bookshops smell nice.

205. Johnson's Spot Gel

I'm having a spotty time of it at the moment. There's a lot going on and most of it is sad or stressful or both, but you have to understand that I don't really get spots. I will allow all the other encroaching signs of age: grey hair, thickening middle, uncontrollable grouchiness, intolerable 'Iknowbetternyou'ness, but I will not have spots on my face. It's too much.

Anyway, of course I do get spots every now and again. I am only human, after all. But some years ago The Artist told me about Johnson's spot gel and I am now evangelical about it. It's not expensive, you don't need too much of it and it only stings a little bit. I'm using a tube of it a day on my face at the moment and it's doing a very good job. I had to wear my specs out with my mother the other day (which I don't normally do in case she takes them off my face so I can't see and then expects me to get the right bus home, like she did when I was a teenager) but that spot was enough to frighten small children, and the glasses covered it. Two days later, the spot gel has got it on the run.

Alternatively, you can use toothpaste. I'll leave it up to you.

204. Fran Lebowitz

On the effect of the smoking ban on New York's cultural life:

I said directly to Michael Bloomberg, “You know what sitting around in bars and restaurants, talking and smoking and drinking, is called, Mike?” He said, “What?” I said, “It’s called the history of art.”


On being a writer:

I never wanted to be anything else. Well, if there had been a job of being a reader, I would have taken that, because I love to read and I don’t love to write. That would be blissful. Sometimes you meet people who really enjoy their work. Those are the people I am most envious of, no matter what their work is.

On not writing:

When I started getting real work done, I realized how much easier it is to write than not to write. Not writing is probably the most exhausting profession I’ve ever encountered. It takes it out of you. It’s very psychically wearing not to write—I mean if you’re supposed to be writing.

On funny writing:

I learned tricks, but being funny is like being tall. That is surely a thing that can’t be taught or learned. Either you’re funny or you’re not funny. You either see things in a funny way or you don’t. It’s a reflex action with me or anyone I’ve ever known who’s funny—whether funny conversationalists, stand-up comics, or funny writers. It’s a reflex, the way things strike you. Being funny in writing, especially in the essay form, which is so distilled, I learned certain tricks. I don’t think they would be of real value to anyone else.

Several years ago, someone asked me to talk to a class at Yale—a humor-writing class. To me this was the joke. Really, why not have a class on how to have blue eyes? If I was a parent and I found out that my child, on whom I was spending eight billion dollars a year sending to Yale, was taking a humor-writing class, I would be furious. I can’t imagine a more fraudulent activity than teaching a humor-writing class. Certainly those people should be in jail. I would like to arrest them personally.


When I have dinner with Nora and Alan we're going to invite Fran.

203. Musical Theatre

My friend JT took me to see the musical Crazy For You at the Novello Theatre last night. We had the best seats in the house, which always helps, but you'd have to be in a sorry state not to enjoy the show, which is both insane (because the story makes no sense, really) and wonderful (Gershwin tunes, excellent singing and dancing, excellent sets, lots of laughs). We had a ball. And suddenly a sad and difficult week felt a little lighter on my shoulders...

I had to see Mary Poppins twice (and would have seen it many many more times had it not been prohibitively expensive). I will have to see Priscilla again before it comes off in January. I have a famous, and – for some – worrying, fondness for Rocky Horror. La Cage aux Folles made me happy even though I'd been made redundant earlier that day.

I could go on.

I am clearly a gay man trapped in a rather gorgeously curvaceous girl's body.

Lucky me.

202. Toast

I can, very easily, eat toast for my breakfast seven days a week. But that's not what surprises me. The surprise is that I don't get bored.

Why is that? Is it because I can have a different spread on my toast every day? Or is it just that two pieces of wholemeal toast, with butter and marmalade/Marmite/peanut butter/blackcurrant jam, is, in fact, the perfect food?

Sometimes, as I make my way to work, I contemplate having a different breakfast. I could stop and buy a croissant. I could have a bacon or sausage sandwich at work, or scrambled eggs, or cereal. I could have fruit salad. But I never want those things. I think about two pieces of toast and I know it will make me happy, and keep me filled up til lunchtime.

And then there's the power of toast at other times of day. What about baked beans on toast when it's late and there's nothing else to eat? What about toast with a bowl of soup when it's cold? What about toast when you can't face real food, and just need something in your tummy? It's medicine. It's therapy. And it's just hot bread.

201. GMB

So many memories of my uncle George make me smile. But as the days pass I realise that, funny as he undoubtedly was, it is his kindness and wisdom that I keep in my heart.

I've been thinking about all the time I spent with him over the years. He was the writer and star of a major TV show, and must have been both distracted and tired. But he always welcomed me with literally open arms, and looked after me as assiduously as if he had nothing better to do.

Those days with George were a source of real happiness. He had a special talent for making a person feel many times greater than the sum of their parts. He had a smile for anybody and everybody, but he only actually TWINKLED if he thought you were fab. Plus, he thought that each member of his family had the capacity to achieve whatever they wanted, provided they were willing to work for it. So he taught me to screw up the paper and stamp on it, or throw the book across the room and in doing so remember who is in control. Not the material - the writer.

Many many memories, most of them good. But it only took one moment to bind me to him forever...

It's the day of my father's funeral. George comes to the house before the ceremony - I don't think we could have kept him away. He takes me through my reading, helping me find the right pauses and rhythm. He reminds me to breathe. He's gentle, kind, but clear. He knows that too many squeezes and twinkles will prompt tears, and they are not useful at this moment. We have to get through it.

At the doors of the church. I must have been rather pale. My mother has three children - and the small one was really only tiny – but only two hands. She takes the two boys in with her. And the moment has come. I've got to go in there. It's really happening. Without pause George takes my hand in his large, warm one. 'You come in with me, Georgie.' he says. 'We can do it together.'

He never really let go of my hand after that, or I his.

GMB. 1931-2011.
RIP

200. Red Shoes

(200!)

My mother has always been very brave about having a resolutely un-girly-girly daughter. She gave up her dream of having a sweet little girl she could put in pretty dresses and nice shoes when I was about four, I think, and then again when the third baby turned out a boy.

But there were a couple of years when I was too small to protest, so there are pictures of me with a bald head and sticky-out ears, dressed in exquisite little garments - and red shoes. And now, over thirty years later, I still have sticky-out ears - and red shoes.

(There are also pictures of me with curls, sticky-out ears, a pot belly, not much else - and red shoes. These were taken slightly later, when I had learned how to take the exquisite little garments off. No flies on me.)

Anyway. My little brain saw the red shoes, saw that they were good, and that was it - a preference was born. My mother does not wear red shoes, I notice. I'm just glad she chose red, and not black patent.
Can you imagine?

199. My Grandmother's Ring

I miss my Granny very much. I always knew I would but there is little comfort in being right, in this instance.

(Pause to swallow lump.)

But I carry her with me, because I wear her ring. It isn't the original, the one my grandfather put on her finger on VJ day, because she threw that away with some potato peelings sometime in the mid-50s. But the replacement is now over 60 years old. It is plain and gold and becoming thin in places - the hallmarks appearing on the outside as well as the inside.

It only fits well on one finger - so I wear my grandmother's ring on the same finger she wore it on, together with the ring Herself gave me. And very well they look, too. I never take them off and never will. Granny's ring reminds me of her, and of her long happy marriage. And those moments of remembering make me happy.

198. Enough, already.

I want to make a public apology to all those people who read this blog regularly. I don't know who you are, or even if you're really there at all, but if you're reading - I'm sorry.

Why?

Because all the endless plangent bleating about whether or not I'll make it as a writer is nauseating and must drive you crazy. It's been driving me crazy.

So, my beloved bleaders, we're moving on from doubt and deprecation. We're going to try hard work, and hope, and see how we go.

Writing a book isn't easy. But nobody's forcing me to do it. Only I can decide if I'm going to put in the effort to write a story compelling enough for somebody to want to publish it - so in that respect alone there is no lottery. It's down to hard work, talent and luck – like everything else.

There are legions of talented writers who don't get published and I may yet join their numbers. But all I can do is my best.

So I hope you'll come along for the ride. No more bleating. Hear me roar.