216. The Pursuit of Love

A friend asked me to name my favourite book yesterday. I blinked. So she relented and asked me for my three favourite books. I"ve been thinking about it, but I'm not ready to commit yet.

One of the contenders, however, has to be The Pursuit of Love. Nancy Mitford has been described as 'literary Marmite' - a sobriquet I repeat here only to hint at the unbreachable gap between likers and haters. But I am my mother's only daughter, so I am a Liker with a big 'L'. I think if I had not been a liker the unbreachable gap would have been between me and my mother. Perish the thought.

I think I was 15 or so when I first read The Pursuit of Love and although I thought it was very funny I missed the point of most of the second half of the novel. When I re-read it now, however, I can see the darkness, as well as the light. But the early part of the story, when the children are young, is still my favourite. Some of the best jokes I have ever read cluster together in the pages of The Pursuit of Love. But its reach extends further than that...

I was thinking about William Fiennes the other day - another writer I like very much. His father is Lord Saye and Sele, and I was pondering if that made William an Hon. 'He's a triffic Hon' I said to myself, without pause.

I'm a sad geek - we all know that - but it made me laugh to go from English rules of primogeniture to the young Radletts clustered in the Hons cupboard. My walk through the cemetery is enlivened by these things.

Whether you like her, or loathe her, Nancy was an admirably good writer. The characters come up off the page in a way that makes me want to spit with jealousy, but the novels are tightly plotted too - nothing is wasted. Those who dismiss her writing as posh froth aren't paying attention.

So I'm struggling on with my 'Top Three' and it may well be that The Pursuit of Love will make the cut. In the meantime, I am enjoying what I consider to be essential research - a few evenings spent in the company of Nancy Mitford and her world.

215. This picture

It's the goggles. Gets me every time.

214. Properly, genuinely uncool music

One of the best bits of getting a bit older is that one can own up to all sorts of things the younger self insisted on keeping quiet. I have never been, and will never be, cool but when I was younger I liked to pay lip-service to the idea that somebody, somewhere, might think I was. (Until they got to know me, and then it would be game over.)

But I don't care about that any more. I think that exemplary grammar and usage are cool. I think that good manners and basic courtesy are cool. I think that doctors and nurses and scientists are cool - and 'reality' stars are not.

But it's still hard with music. Somehow, it's still almost impossible to admit to liking music widely deemed to be uncool. It verges on a cultural taboo. But I can't help it. So...

My name is Saltpig, and I like Coldplay.

There! I've said it. And I'm not going to delete it. I think that Yellow is still a beautiful song, I sing Viva la Vida very loudly whenever Herself will let me and Paradise gives me goosebumps.



Deal with it.

But of course Coldplay are not the only evidence of my deeply questionable taste in music. I'm going to add George Michael, Madonna and Kosheen to my list. I'm going to say that Elton John is a freakin' genius. Massive Attack are great. Phil Collins knows his way round a drum set. But there's one last that you might find it difficult to hear. I'll whisper it. Come closer. Ready?

Westlife.

Don't. I know.

Anyway, I've confessed now and I feel better for it. There should be no secrets between us.

213. Crunchy Nut Cornflakes

When I was 11, I was allowed to visit Auntie by myself. I was put on the coach at Victoria and when the door opened in Norwich there she'd be, beaming, arms wide. A couple of years later I graduated to the train - and there she was on the platform, beaming, arms wide. We'd get in her little car and go back to the cottage to see Percy the cat and all the Dorises (all her hens were called Doris. Saves time.) We'd go for walks, eat delicious food, and go to the pub with her naughty friends. Need I add that these trips were pretty much the thing I loved most in all the world? Didn't think so...

Having once expressed a preference, every time I visited Auntie would have bought a box of Kellogg's Crunchy Nut Cornflakes, just for me. Always. Without fail.

She paid for me to have my ears pierced, against the strictest maternal prohibition ever issued. She gave excellent advice on a range of issues and told funny jokes I could never remember. She read books, drank red wine, let me stay up late. She helped me pass my driving test.

Over all the years of my life, through teenage years and tragedy, through university and first jobs, and through all of her own trials and tribulations she has been there, with a box of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes somewhere nearby.

Aunts like this should be government issue; everyone should have one. And, greedy girl that I am, I have two. And no, I won't share. I still love Crunchy Nut Cornflakes, though, so you can have some of those, if you like...

212. Saturday afternoons in winter

The marketing is done, and the proceeds put away. The chores are done, and the dog has had a walk. Herself is on the sofa, reading the more obscure parts of the newspaper. This weekend, the Parent was on the red chair, reading bits of the paper that made her laugh. The Hound was on the sofa, on a blanket, reading the inside of her eyelids.

I'm ready to start cooking. It's all planned and I've worked out the timings in my head. So for now I'm reading Penelope Fitzgerald's sweet, funny letters, and waiting for 6pm when the sun will go over the yard-arm and I can have a glass of wine and a crisp.

Outside, the tide is receding. Gulls scream and wheel, curlews burble and whirr. The sky is pinked and hazy.

Inside it is quiet, but for the odd giggle from me or the Parent, and the dog's snoring. Soon we will stir ourselves once more, for dinner and chatter and a film. But for now we are quiet, separate, together.

211. Roast Chicken and all the trimmings

A couple of Fridays ago it was my great pleasure to have around my kitchen table a number of people whom I love dearly, who needed the kind of TLC that comes out of a hot oven.

There is only one choice at times like that - roast chicken. Plus roast potatoes, something green and crunchy, bread sauce and gravy.

And if the chicken has had a good life, and if you roast it so that it's almost falling off the bone but is still tender, and if you parboil the potatoes and roast them in very hot fat so that they're fluffy on the inside and caramelly-crunchy on the outside, and if you mix spring greens and green beans and dot them with butter, and if you make the bread sauce quite soft and heady with bay, and if the gravy is deep and hot and plentiful - then silence will reign for a moment, and you'll know that your task is complete.

Roast chicken is love on a plate. Which is why you'll never find anybody who doesn't like it. It is also why it is unacceptable to do it badly. Luckily, however, practice makes perfect...

210. 'Night by Night' - Chromeo

It is literally impossible for me to listen to this and sit still. It's everything that was fantastic about 80s synthesizer pop, with added noughties naughtiness. The video is fun, too.

Turn it up LOUD, and shake your booty.

Happy Friday.