Three books on the go at once is never a good thing

As you can probably gather from the amount of posts expounding on how glamourous, hectic and beautiful my life is below, I have no time for reading anymore. Wolf Hall has fallen out of favour and lies neglected by my bedside, it's complicated Tudor family connections too much to pick up for five minutes of an evening. I love Wise Children, although am depressed that I have read it before and cannot remember a thing about it. Wonderful though.



I have begun to pick up Russell's A History of Western Philosophy now and then. I'm enjoying reading something factual; it is very interesting, although sometimes it suffers from the same complexity that I find plagues Henry James... you get to the end of the paragraph, and they write "so that was the point, you see," and you realise that you have no idea what the point is, or what Orphic means, and you wonder why you try and read this shit in the first place.

Visitation from the parents

Mum (commonly known as Mummy, or Mamousse, depending on what silly mood I am in) and Diddy came to stay this weekend. It rained on Saturday, so we went to the Transport Museum for Dad and then to see Bad Lieutenant (film, recently out, got Nick Cage in) for Mum.

The film was pretty mental, very funny in places, and a little depressing. Nick Cage takes a lot of drugs, is a complete bastard, then everything goes right all at once. When he takes the drugs, reptiles appear and the camera angle goes all shaky (Mum looked this up; it is because he is cold blooded, get it?) I felt in places it dragged on a bit long, but at the end I couldn't remember what bits that happened in, so maybe it wasn't so draggy after all. It also has that woman who plays the downtrodden hairdresser in Legally Blonde in it, and she was pretty good.

Today we went to Kew Gardens, which I would really recommend if you've never been. I took very few photos, as my dad had his mahoosive dad camera and was snapping away. My photos don't really do the place justice; so if you read this, dad, send me a lovely photo to upload!

I would really recommend that anyone go to Kew Gardens if they get the chance; it is worth every penny of the £13.50 (I thought it was extortionate too, bear with me) it costs to get in. It is not just a park. It will take you all day to look round, the glasshouses are fabulous and they do the biggest ever slices of cake!

A weekend in Paris, part three.

On the way to the funny farming exhibition (which turned out to be very crowded and not especially notable), we randomly found an entrance to the Grand Palais - apparently it is rare that they open it. It was absolutely massive, and beautiful! There was quite a bit of moss on the floor and some very empty toilets (great, as the ones on the Champs-Élysées were queued to the max). Emilie had been to exhibitions there before but I had never been, and it was just the most beautiful structure (kind of reminded me of the glasshouses at Kew Gardens, just minus the plants).





The Arc de Triomphe is better to go up for sightseeing, as from it, you can see the Eiffel Tower!



Below are the radishes and pate we bought from the market to have as a picnic by the Seine. I had honestly never seen a bunch of radishes before (although I have eaten radishes, contrary to what Emilie may believe!). The French are insane about picnics. They BAKE QUICHES, real quiches, for picnics. They make salads in glass bowls, and dress them, and then bring them to the park. Emilie said that she even went to one picnic where someone had made a tiramisu to bring along! That is so crazy. In England, if you invite five people to a picnic you will end up with five pots of hummus and five packets of pittas. (The French people Emilie knows marvel at her for bringing hummus: "I'd never have thought of that!")



Possibly my favourite ever thing about Paris is the cycle hire system (aka Velib). Once I had been on it, I was hooked, and we velib-ed everywhere (English people: to velib is not an actual French verb. I made it up. As a side note, another holiday triumph was that I managed to teach some French men the phrase "what a shit," which is possibly my favourite and most useful English phrase.)

I velib-ed past Notre Dame and to the picnic, all the while making jokes about tiramisu.

A weekend in Paris, part two.

I never managed to catch up on the blogging about Paris this week, as I had Linds, Will and Chang over for Miffy gingerbread, tea and Eurovision and then had a sore throat and consequently sat about watching films, so, rather belatedly, here is the second installment of me drooling over Paris. To be fair to London, it is sunny today and as I had the afternoon off, I had a wander around Fitzrovia, which is almost as sexily European as Paris when the sun shines. So, not too shabby.





This is mint tea at the mosque, our first concession to guidebook-itus (it is featured in the Rough Guide for Paris). It was absolutely boiling outside, but the cafe was undercover. A man came round with a tray of mint teas (we had two each) and there were cakes on sale, and a few small birds swooping down and pecking up any leftover crumbs!



This photo was taken in Buttes Chaumont, a park where we went to Rosa Bonheur to drink cocktails made from peach liqueur, lemonade and rose wine. Emilie thinks Rosa Bonheur is owned by Johnny Depp. (I don't know if this is true or not!) After half seven in the evening, they stopped letting people in, it became all exclusive and empty inside but outside there was a massive queue! We felt special. Thanks, Johnny Depp.

A weekend in Paris

Bon soir, mes petits amis! This is going to be a long one, as I haven't written for ages, and have been away to Paris, which is possibly the most beautiful city in the world, to stay with my friend Emilie.



Emilie has the most amazing flat. It is like something straight out of the Toast catalogue, somewhere more Amelie Poulin than the makers of Amelie could even imagine. This courtyard is through a door off the main street and has gorgeous cobbles and a water tap and appropriate foliage (!).



There is an archway on the left of the courtyard that opens onto these steps - they are wooden, with beautiful tiles at the bottom. This staircase is so majestic, yet rustic at the same time!



We ate lunch in an extremely busy cafe in a farmer's market near where Emilie lives. I had a plate of cheese, and a little espresso in a lime green china tumbler with no handles - it matched with the table! The cheese and bread was so incredibly delicious and fresh.

A read for the Eurostar

I took Wise Children by Angela Carter to read on the Eurostar to Paris. I haven't finished it, or indeed Wolf Hall, yet, because the journey went so quickly, but I've read it before. Angela Carter has this amazing way of making these insane characters so plausible and their quirks just make them seem more real. I love this book because it is about theatre (one of my favourite things), and because it is so clever - as contrived as a modern life Shakespeare.

The Reader

Last night we ate home-made steak and chips by candlelight and then settled in to watch The Reader, the film Kate Winslet was parodying when she appeared as the nun in Extras and said, "I mean, I don't think we need another film about the Holocaust, do we? It's like, how many have there been? No, we get it, it was grim, move on. No, I'm doing this because I've noticed that if you do a film about the Holocaust, guaranteed an Oscar. I've been nominated four times. Never won. The whole world is going, "why hasn't Winslet won one?"

To be fair, I thought her performance was quite good, although the boyf hated it because of the montage in which Winslet cried - he isn't too hot on emotion (he says he isn't too hot on badly acted emotion, to which I usually reply that in his mind, any emotion is a badly acted emotion). Afterwards, he read an unfavourable Guardian review, and disliked it even more.

But I am a sucker for a love story, even one as offensive as the Guardian film critic felt it to be. It wasn't my favourite film, but was great for a night in with candles and wine.

The start of my second ever book group

On the way home the other night I stopped in Waterstones in Piccadilly Circus and made my way to the first floor (the Fiction section) to find Lauren Liebenberg's The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter and Jam, the first book that my new book group are going to read. I got them to wrap it up as books (especially new ones) tend to get wrecked in my handbag.

Dear Mr Cameron

I'm going to be honest, I didn't vote for you. I've heard stories about Tories, milk-stealing Tories, Billy Elliot mine-closing Tories, for my whole life. My parents were (and still probably are) staunch Labour voters. I can remember my Mum dancing in victory in her bedroom on the morning of 2nd May, 1997. I was ten years old.

But I want to say good luck, and I'm glad you're letting him lend you a hand. I truly believed that this coalition would never take place; I imagined you'd argue over electoral reform and that would be the end of it, but you've surprised me (let's hope it isn't for the last time).

And I think maybe because you've surprised me thus far, I should give you a bit of a break. I know that we can learn valuable lessons from history, but I'm willing to give you a chance. Don't let us down.

It sounds like you're pretty much up against it, being the leader of a government that could be "out of power for a generation" (if some predictions are true).

So here's one for you: sunshine on the Houses of Parliament. Good luck, Mr Cameron.

New beginnings

I have a photo of Big Ben, taken from our walk to the South Bank last week, that I was hoping to post once a new parliament had begun... but it was not to be. This must be the longest election night EVER. To think that I was concerned that I would miss it if I went to sleep!

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My friend Helen has begun an informal book group, to meet every six weeks in Angel Islington and discuss a book. We were all asked to nominate three books, and then exclude any we had read, etc. in a book-choosing process that seemed more complicated and almost took as long as deciding who will form the next cabinet. The book that has been chosen is The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter and Jam by Lauren Liebenberg. I plan on taking a long route home from work one evening via the bookshops on Charing Cross Road to locate it.

I am still devouring Wolf Hall, and am hoping to go on a trip to Hampton Court Palace when my mother visits in June. So far, it is wonderful - she manages to keep the story completely gripping even though you already know how it ends.

Come around to tea

Dance me round and round the kitchen

By the light of my TV

On the night of the election

Some more light verse

Today John and I took a late afternoon walk to the Southbank, stopping on the way back in Foyles on Charing Cross Road, ostensibly to look for yet another book on computing/by Dawkins/explaining the financial crisis/natural selection/Fermat's Last Theorem, but I was the one who inevitably ended up making a purchase.

The tree next to our balcony is now full of beautiful spring leaves, and on a particularly windy evening the bedroom where I read is dappled with moving rays of sunlight.