295. We Don't Eat by James Vincent McMorrow

If our inner lives are like onions – layer nestling next to layer, with the sweetest, most vulnerable bit protected at the centre – then this song hits me somewhere near the middle. Not sure why, it's just one of those things. It has special resonance just now because it's about him moving to the coast to write his album, but it stopped me in my tracks long before we thought to move to the seaside.

I've attached it here - have a listen. Tell me if your throat swells.

294. This...

I've written about Nora Ephron before, but I'm including this because a) it still makes me laugh, b) I'm still sad and c) I can.

With all due respect to the New Yorker, and the pen of Nora Ephron.

The Girl Who Fixed the Umlaut 

There was a tap at the door at five in the morning. She woke up. Shit. Now what? She’d fallen asleep with her Palm Tungsten T3 in her hand. It would take only a moment to smash it against the wall and shove the battery up the nose of whoever was out there annoying her. She went to the door.

“I know you’re home,” he said.

Kalle fucking Blomkvist.

She tried to remember whether she was speaking to him or not. Probably not. She tried to remember why. No one knew why. It was undoubtedly because she’d been in a bad mood at some point. Lisbeth Salander was entitled to her bad moods on account of her miserable childhood and her tiny breasts, but it was starting to become confusing just how much irritability could be blamed on your slight figure and an abusive father you had once deliberately set on fire and then years later split open the head of with an axe.

Salander opened the door a crack and spent several paragraphs trying to decide whether to let Blomkvist in. Many italic thoughts flew through her mind. Go away. Perhaps. So what. Etc.

“Please,” he said. “I must see you. The umlaut on my computer isn’t working.”

He was cradling an iBook in his arms. She looked at him. He looked at her. She looked at him. He looked at her. And then she did what she usually did when she had run out of italic thoughts: she shook her head.

“I can’t really go on without an umlaut,” he said. “We’re in Sweden.”

But where in Sweden were they? There was no way to know, especially if you’d never been to Sweden. A few chapters ago, for example, an unscrupulous agent from Swedish Intelligence had tailed Blomkvist by taking Stora Essingen and Gröndal into Södermalm, and then driving down Hornsgatan and across Bellmansgatan via Brännkyrkagatan, with a final left onto Tavastgatan. Who cared, but there it was, in black-and-white, taking up space. And now Blomkvist was standing in her doorway. Someone might still be following him—but who? There was no real way to be sure even when you found out, because people’s names were so confusingly similar—Gullberg, Sandberg, and Holmberg; Nieminen and Niedermann; and, worst of all, Jonasson, Mårtensson, Torkelsson, Fredriksson, Svensson, Johansson, Svantesson, Fransson, and Paulsson.

“I need my umlaut,” Blomkvist said. “What if I want to go to Svavelsjö? Or Strängnäs? Or Södertälje? What if I want to write to Wadensjö? Or Ekström or Nyström?”

It was a compelling argument.

She opened the door.

He handed her the computer and went to make coffee on her Jura Impressa X7.

She tried to get the umlaut to work. No luck. She pinged Plague and explained the problem. Plague was fat, but he would know what to do, and he would tell her, in Courier typeface.

 Plague wrote.

She went to the bathroom and got a Q-tip and gently cleaned the area around the Alt key. It popped into place. Then she pressed “U.” An umlaut danced before her eyes.

Finally, she spoke.

“It’s fixed,” she said.

“Thanks,” he said.

She thought about smiling, but she’d smiled three hundred pages earlier, and once was enough.

293. Sam Mendes

I have a colossal crush on Sam Mendes. I bet he gives great hugs. And he's got a lovely voice.

292. Kindle

Farsands and farsands of books, all on one little thingy no bigger than a real notebook made of paper. Joy.

There are some downsides. Reading is just not the same without covers and rustling pages. I live in constant fear that somebody other than me will peek at my library and instantly fall over laughing and then never speak to me again. (There really ought to be a lock on Kindles - Amazonians, please take note.) If you drop it in the bath you die. Possibly, haven't tested that particular theory. Certainly the Kindle would die. No draping it over a radiator and forever having a weirdly fat, crinkly book.

Anybody want to tell me that my fondness for Kindle means I am not a true bibliophile? Meet you outside the British Library tonight at dusk. I'll be carrying a Kindle and a knuckleduster fashioned out of my copy of War and Peace.

291. Nicknames

It's my mother's fault. Each of her three children had at least four regular nicknames, so I must have caught it from her.

Even if you don't know that I have a nickname for you, I do. If I don't, it's because I don't like you very much. The more I like you, the more nicknames I'll have for you. This is a simple equation, no?

290. Crab sandwiches

The best crab sandwich that I have ever eaten came from a tiny caravan at Blakeney Quay, north Norfolk. It was just crab, butter and bread, but it was juicy and creamy and intensely, delicously, crabby.

Herself is obsessed with crab, so I have tried to make crab sandwiches and they're good, but they're not great. This is clearly an issue of alchemy - or maybe she has to be outside, in Norfolk, on a sunny day. It's not for me to say.

The second best crab sandwich I have ever eaten was from Cromer, north Norfolk. Crab, bread, butter.

The third best crab sandwich I have ever eaten was from the Nelson pub, Southwold, Suffolk. Crab, bread, butter. Inside, no sun, but accompanied by chips (result) and beer.

Right, I am challenging myself to a challenge. Crab, bread, butter. Take Herself to a sunny place in East Anglia and make her run about a bit so she's hungry, then win the ultimate crab-based accolade. Or give up and have crab sandwiches join the list of other foods that are best made by somebody else.

289. Planning a menu

Herself wants to go out for supper. But the restaurant we're most keen to try is booked up, so I offer to cook/make mezze. It's a lovely day and Herself's passion for hummus knows no limitations, so I thought I might be on to a winner.

As soon as I was given the thumbs up, I started planning the menu. Homemade hummus, obvs. No tahini, she doesn't like it. Tzatziki, obvs, with mint from the garden. Sumac lamb, grilled so it's blackened in parts but pink inside. Slices of aubergine, baked in the oven and scattered with feta and oregano from the garden. Halloumi. Tabbouleh.

Then she decided she just wanted lamb and new potatoes and green beans. Delicious. But not a feast and no menu planning needed.

Never mind, I will deliver my feast another time. Any takers?