It’s been a while since I’ve had romantic advice from a cab driver, I think. But then, it’s a while since I’ve been taking cabs on my own late at night. Sure sign, I suppose, of a lady who needs romantic advice. From a cab driver.

How long have you been here? says the cab driver.

Eight years! I say, because I am incapable of lying to cab drivers, of pretending that I am a tourist. Even though I make a convincing tourist.

Have you met Mr Right? he says.

No! I say, with utmost cheer.

All the good ones are married and the handsome ones are gay! says the cab driver.

Sure! I say.

Let me tell you a story! says the cab driver. The best-looking woman I ever went out with – no offence to my wife - she was Australian. And I took her to a pub and I said, ‘what do you want? I’m having a pint of lager’ and she said, ‘I’ll have one too’ and I said, ‘I can’t buy you a pint of lager,’ and she said, ‘well, this isn’t getting off to a very good start’ and I said, ‘no’ and then she left!

Hm, I say. You can let me off anywhere here, I say.

£9.20, says the cab driver who won’t buy a woman a pint.

Keep the change, I say, giving him ten quid.

Keep looking! he says, with utmost cheer.

OK! I say. And then I slam the door.

  11:47 pm  |   January 25 2012   |  6 notes   |  View comments  

“A man who assisted in autopsies in a big urban hospital, starting in the mid-1950s, describes the many deaths from botched abortions that he saw. ‘The deaths stopped overnight in 1973.’ He never saw another in the 18 years before he retired. ‘That,’ he says, ‘ought to tell people something about keeping abortion legal.’”

— Sunday was the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade (via motherjones)

  11:47 pm  |   January 23 2012   |  1,194 notes   |  View comments  

Anonymous asked: How many books do you read a week?

Sadly, only about 1-2 these days. Just yesterday I was recalling the heady days of 1992-1993 when I read a novel a day, usually by Agatha Christie. What a lifestyle that was! Maybe it will happen again when I am retired.

Edit: I was 11 in 1992-1993. I went to school for 6 hours a day and with the exception of  a brief dinner break, spent all other waking hours reading. I had no other activities OR talents!

  4:42 pm  |   January 21 2012   |  1 note   |  View comments  

“I doubt that I was in the majority among my classmates in choosing to abstain from sex. But since almost all of us received the same sex education, I’d be willing to bet that the rates of pregnancy and STDs at my school were below average: because our health educators did their best to teach us to value and understand safe sex. And we were taught to value and understand it together: co-ed sex education sent the message that everyone was responsible for making smart decisions about sexual activity – not just the girls. Most of us ended up having sex with members of the opposite sex, so it made sense that we learned about it together, too.”

—

Jean Hannah Edelstein on why good sex education is not about preaching abstinence

(via guardiancomment)

  5:52 pm  |   January 20 2012   |  7 notes   |  View comments  

80strand:

Some books do (extra) special things. In this case, Tom Bullough’s new novel, KONSTANTIN, out March 1st.

This is a rather beautiful idea.

  4:22 pm  |   January 20 2012   |  7 notes   |  View comments  

Even though I’m not looking to move imminently, every so often I have a gander at property ads to see what else I could get for my money. Everyone does, right?

Anyway, I really feel that only in Britain would this photo be used to help market a studio flat: the perfect home to drink away your loneliness.

  2:26 pm  |   January 20 2012   |  4 notes   |  View comments  

Anonymous asked: I've applied for Editorial Assistant jobs at magazine and book companies. For this type of job, is it usually a one-to-one interview or a group interview? Thank you!

One-to-one, in my experience! 

  10:28 pm  |   January 19 2012   |  View comments  

Anonymous asked: I really hate that Paul Auster book. What are your thoughts on it?

I’m enjoying it, in a read-a-bit-before-bed kind of way (as opposed to a inhale-while-walking-down-the-street kind of way). 

  10:28 pm  |   January 19 2012   |  View comments  

Feeling quite pleased with my completed infinity scarf! Also known as ‘a regular scarf that had to be turned into an infinity scarf because I ran out of wool and the knitting shop didn’t restock the right colour’.

  6:17 pm  |   January 19 2012   |  17 notes   |  View comments  

Currently reading! What an amazing cover. Sadly my edition does not have this amazing cover.

Currently also wheezing, which is dull.

  11:06 pm  |   January 15 2012   |  View comments  

I. It struck me, like never before, somewhere in the sixth or sixtieth hour of my flu-induced confinement (but probably the sixtieth, because I believe in the first throes I was delerious) that the only thing more unforgivably banal than composing, in my head, a 140-character remark about my suffering (vile suffering; in the grand scheme of possibility, gentle suffering) would be sharing the remark with an audience of hundreds: a handful my closest friends; a further handful of colleagues and professional contacts; dozens of brands and spambots.

I was suffering, to be sure, not just from ‘flu but from a lack of witnesses. Does a sweaty four-day battle with a virus really happen if you live alone and permit no one to see you because no one is obligated (by blood relationship, or by romance), and because although you’ve lost your sense of smell you have an inkling that it is a blessing? What a tedious urge, I thought, as I pressed ‘delete’. So many friends have sent kind messages, offers to deliver orange juice, condolences. And yet. I am not just ill. I am banal.

II. I re-read the AG Sulzberger piece on vegetarianism, the one in which he complains, among other things, of midwesterners being forced to cook their own food because barbecue restaurants don’t cater to their needs. A little light background, confirming his position as heir to the New York Times fortune, but also his unexpectedly mature age.

I shared the piece with my American friend at work, with whom sharing things about America that make us sigh and roll our eyes with expat American world-weariness is a frequent and enjoyable past time. I suppose it is a form of fellowship roughly equivalent to when British people talk about the weather.

I mean, he is our age, I say about AG Sulzberger. It’s like writing a letter home to your mum to say that you don’t like the food. When you’re 30! Except it’s like writing a letter to the nation! You would not do that. My American friend shakes his head in disgust and I laugh and laugh and I say what is wrong with our nation? and then I am crying as well as laughing, both profusely. Which is, perhaps, because I have taken a lot of cold medicine over the last week. But perhaps it is also a small part of my self in throes of grief.

You are wrong with our nation, it weeps. You are laughing at this picky, privileged eater, Jean, but if you were the heir to the New York Times fortune would you not be writing articles about how sad it is to have the flu when you are far from home and no one is watching? 

  10:11 pm  |   January 12 2012   |  4 notes   |  View comments  

stryker:

nerdshares:

From this article: “Even though the region boasts some of the finest farmland in the world, there is a startling lack of fresh produce here.”

My mother-in-law is a vegan who lives in the woods (yes) in southern Ohio. And even though it’s an hour and a half to the nearest grocery, she and my step-FIL are still alive. People who actually cook for themselves instead of going to restaurants every night like they’re Lorenzo de Medici don’t have such a “struggle” for “survival.” Have your manservant go to a supermarket, A.G.

“The mentality of the Midwest is, green is garnish,” explained Heidi Van Pelt-Belle, who runs Füd, a vegetarian restaurant in Kansas City.

Lol, Heidi Van Pelt-Belle, you are terrible.

“Some say they have learned to cook for themselves…”

(Source: maura)

  3:01 pm  |   January 11 2012   |  58 notes   |  View comments  

Reading the Islington Tribune – “Open to All, Coerced by None” – on Saturday is a weekly pleasure: it’s a unique mash-up of hyperlocal news with stories of national import.

(She was asked to dress down by the school head; the kids complained she ‘didn’t look like a proper princess’.)

  4:04 pm  |   January 7 2012   |  2 notes   |  View comments  

“

SETTLING in a chair in the interview suite of the press office at the National Theatre in London - a small, ugly beige room that completely belies the grandeur of the theatre itself - Simon Russell Beale is wincing.

He hasn’t broken a leg, but almost: last night, in the middle of his performance as Joseph Stalin in Collaborators, he tripped on the multi-levelled stage, aggravating an old foot injury.

”

— Simon Russell Beale kindly talked to me for The Australian, even though he was in a lot of pain!

  6:13 pm  |   January 6 2012   |  View comments