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SEEKING APPROVAL FROM MY FARROW & BALL MOTHER.
AUDIO QUACK. Let me read for you! Skip Introduction: 1:37
A couple of years ago, I was inspired by Pinterest to paint a dark green statement wall in my bathroom. One evening, I got out my paintbrush, put on an audiobook (Curtis Sittenfeld’s American Wife) and changed my white bathroom to a green one.
By 1 am, I was sleepy and sloppy, so when I stepped back to admire my work, I found it to be a bit…’splatty.’
I lived with my ‘splatty’ bathroom for a while before I realised I couldn’t bear the sight of it. Whenever I tried to relax in my bubble bath, the green splodges on the skirting boards would catch my eye. It also didn’t help that whenever Mum came to visit, she would give her criticism, which would be artfully disguised as a throwaway comment.
“A light terracotta would work in here.”
“But I just painted it green.”
“Oh yeah….”
“You don’t like the green, do you?”
Her pitch would go up. “No. No. I do like the green. The green is nice.”
I would usually do the sensible thing and ignore my Mum, but Mum, unfortunately, knows what she is talking about. It’s her thing. She’s been the interior designer for a pub, a townhouse, a holiday home, a ski chalet… She can list the names of Farrow & Ball paints as if they were her nephews and nieces.
“I see some Elephant’s Breath on that skirting board.”
“This alcove needs to be Broccoli Brown!”
“Make it Cooking Apple Green!”
Growing up, Mum was always doing something to the home. When her first child, Jack, was born, she painted the skyline of our local town Didcot on his walls. For the first year of his life, he slept next to an illustration of the power station.
One of my earliest memories was watching Mum paint the lounge a dark plum. I stood by her and sprayed a bit of polish on the wall because I wanted it to sparkle. That was when I learnt you do not polish walls, especially freshly painted ones.
Mum saw the house as her canvas. There wasn’t Pinterest back then, but magazine cutouts and paint samples were always piled on the kitchen table. It was exciting living in a home that was constantly changing. One day the hallway was yellow, the next it was white. One day there was a wall, the next there wasn’t a wall.
My favourite time was the summer when Dad had his 40th birthday party. The kitchen was being gutted out, so to make it look less like a building site, fish, flowers and shapes were painted across the walls. At 8 years old, I was living in a real-life fairy house.
There was a constant smell of paint and the noise of a builder’s crackling radio. White dirty cloths would cover floors. Sometimes, there would be no floors at all, just beams that made for an excellent obstacle course. Dusty men would congregate in the kitchen for tea breaks with their paint-splattered trousers and shell-dry knuckles.
One of the first loves of my life was a blonde plasterer named Luke. I was six—he was sixteen. To the enjoyment of the other tradesmen, I followed Luke around until my Mum rescued him.
“Leave Luke alone,” she said, dragging me away.
“But I love him….”
There were tradesmen who would come and go, like Luke (who was scared away), and then there were more consistent ones.
In Year 1, I was tasked to draw my family. So, I did. I drew Me, Joe, Jack, Dad, and Mum. Next to Mum, I drew two other men, one bald and the other with dark scribble for hair and a beard. When the teacher came round to check the work, her eyes widened.
“Who are the other two men, Mary?” she asked carefully.
“That’s Andy, he does the lights. And that’s Lorenzo, he does the bricks.”
Fast forward to my thirties, and I’m standing in my green bathroom on a video call to Mum, asking what colour she thinks would be best.
“Yes, I think that very light terracotta would work well. Setting Plaster is its name,” she said as I moved the phone around the room. “And what are you going to do about that cabinet on the wall?”
“You don’t like the cabinet, do you?”
“No. No. I do like the cabinet. The cabinet is nice…”
So, before I painted, I risked my life by unscrewing the bathroom cabinet and balancing on the toilet lid as I removed it from the wall.
Then, it was time to call for help from the Dom of Painting – Hermione. (Whip sound).
Hermione is often dragged in by friends to help with painting, because she does the job with her teacher’s head on. I hesitated to press send on the text asking for help, knowing what it would entail, but it had to be done.
She arrived at my door with brushes and tape. Mountains of tape…
As expected, she had zero tolerance for slackness. She stood over me, inspecting my tape work.
“It needs to be at the edge! This is why you had splatty walls!” She peeled it off and re-stuck it again. After she was satisfied that all the tape was correct, we were finally allowed to paint.
We did it in one afternoon, and then, because I didn’t have a boyfriend, I used her boyfriend, Sam, to put up the shelves. He sat like a toddler in the hallway, organising the screws and plastic things as Hermione and I had coffee on the sofa. He was done in no time, and I had shelves where the old cabinet used to be.
Hermione was happy because she very much liked seeing Sam doing DIY. And Sam was happy that she was happy. And I was happy because now I could show Mum my new bathroom.
I put her on a video call.
“Better. So much better. I’m loving the Setting Plaster. And the door, it looks like that Railing colour.”
“It is Mum!”
“Looks beautiful!” she said. I sighed with relief. My bathroom had my Mum’s approval. But suddenly, she said, “What about one of those stand-alone baths?”
“You don’t like my bath, do you?
“No. No. I do like your bath. Your bath is nice…”
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#BODYGOALS
Can’t be bothered to read? Let me read for you | Skip introduction 1:54
Gym-uary. That’s what this month should be called. I don’t know why we get ourselves so motivated in January – It’s not like anyone sees you in February. (Unless you can be bothered to clip a suspender belt around your waist for Valentine’s Day).
But here we all are again, posting photos of dumbbells with captions like, ‘Let’s go.’ The Christmas jumper is now stuffed in the back of the wardrobe. And the Sweaty Betty sports bra is back to work. My friends are all at it; Hermione and her boyfriend Sam, told me they’ve signed up for a class every single day.
“Yelly lady yelled at me in boxercise. Then, in spin class. And now she’s going to yell at me in abs,” Sam said, resigned to his fate.
“It’s also heaving,” Hermione said, then straight after. “You should come.”
“As appealing as that all sounds,” I said. “I don’t like gyms at the best of times, so I’m certainly not going to go now, whilst everyone is there sweating out their mince pies. Besides, yelly instructors make me cry.”
“It’s important to build muscle, though,” Hermione nagged. She then mimed her workout in the middle of my kitchen. “I do this,” she said, opening an arm out one at a time like a very slow cheerleader. “And this.” Her arms curled up and down.
It brought back haunting memories of when I tried to do the gym in my twenties. I would sit on metal machines sprayed in Dettol to disguise the stench of humans. And I’d push the heaviest weight I could to try and get Rachel Green’s perky boobs. I must have been doing something wrong though, as all I got was robust armpits.
So, no gym for me, but that’s not to say I’m not doing anything. I’m just doing it out of public view. It was only yesterday that I used Sian’s Peloton login and did a 30-minute Pilates video in my living room, with an enthusiastic Californian instructor. I’m sure she wouldn’t have been as enthusiastic if she could have seen me.
“Well doooooone!” she encouraged from 5,000 miles away, as I wobbled in my side plank.
“Thank you,” I said through a tight breath.
“Work that core!” She cheered.
“What core?” I cried.
When I was a teenager in the early 2000s, the core was only something in the earth’s centre or the stick in the apple that weirdos would eat. Those were simpler days – when muscle was not required.
Size 0 was the trend back then. A quick flick through Heat magazine, and you were met with photos of celebrities with arrows pointing at ripples on their thighs. CELLULITE. It was claimed that Victoria Beckham was living off Nobu’s Edamame Beans. The teeny-tiny Olsen Twins were pictured in Manhattan holding black-americanos-Starbucks the size of their heads. It was accepted they had eating disorders, along with Nicole Richie… but they looked so cool in their boho clothes, so it didn’t matter. And there were also the shiny, tanned, lean magical creatures called Victoria’s Secret Angels, who strutted down the catwalk in lingerie as one of their rockstar boyfriends cheered them on from the sidelines.
As a teenager, I absorbed it all as I tried to learn what the world required of me as a woman. In my copious eyeliner and Abercrombie & Fitch hoodie, I researched the Victoria’s Secret model’s diet and believed that if I lived on steamed spinach and white fish, my body would be just like theirs. Maybe my legs would even grow ten inches.
At the age of 13, I began recording the food I ate and my weight. Once I learnt what calories were, food became a very unfun game: the fewer calories, the more points. An egg had 70 calories, even less without the yolk. Score.
There was little out there about exercise. The one workout I heard about was Britney Spears doing a zillion crunches a day. Apart from that, the sole purpose of a woman exercising was to burn the calories she had so naughtily consumed.
Despite all my efforts to steam vegetables, count calories and burn them off on a treadmill like a lab rat, at 16, I still wasn’t even close to a Size 0. I was short and hippy – and not in the cool Nicole Richie way.
“It’s easy to be a woman and lose weight because all you have to do is not eat,” a date told me once. In theory, he was correct. In practice, it’s harder than it looks. Once, I fasted for a day, and by 5 pm, I was such a hangry goblin that I could have jumped on someone’s shoulders and ripped their head off like the vampire in Twilight. I realised if I were to continue this fasting method, I would end up being skinny but lonely…because I would have murdered everyone.
And so, I would watch the Victoria’s Secret fashion shows and grab my hip fat, twisting it, wishing I could tear it off. On nights out, I would use every suck in clothing I could find and wobble in heels in an attempt to trick the world into thinking I was a tall Scandinavian model. I painted my body in biscuit-smelling-sheet-staining-St Tropez, disguising any dips in the skin. And I would crop photos before I uploaded them on Facebook – my friends and I standing in a group without our legs. It may seem obsessive, but that’s what you are when you’re a teenage girl. Throw in a trend like Size 0, and it all becomes a little sad.
So, as much as I groan about gym-uary, I appreciate the body-positive era. The emphasis is on health and strength…. rather than how many bones we can count. I like that Victoria’s Secret returned last year, and the Angels varied in shape. I like that Hermione showed me ways she’s pulled weights rather than telling me how many calories she had eaten that day. I’m glad the Size 0 days are gone.
– Or are they?
“Good evening, and welcome to the 82nd Golden Globes—Ozempic’s biggest night,” joked Nikki Glaser, the host of this year’s Golden Globes.
Ozempic was initially designed to treat diabetes but is now being used as a weight loss drug by Hollywood stars, Influencers, and anyone who can afford it. In the last year, we have seen celebrities shrink before our eyes. Ariana Grande, an icon to Gen Z, sparked concern when she turned up at the ‘Wicked’ premiere with a visibly thinner frame. Fashion experts have commented on the rise of extremely thin models. In their spring/summer ‘25 size inclusivity report, Vogue Business commented, “We are facing a worrying return to using skinny models.”
Trends recycle. In my lifetime alone, I’ve seen baggy jeans, crop tops, and bushy eyebrows come and go and come again. But I really do hope, for the sake of teenage girls absorbing the world right now, that the Size 0 trend is not making its comeback.
As for me, I’ll be on my mat, alone in my living room, trying to locate my core with help from my Californian Peloton friend.
(Thank Sian for the logins).
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HOW TO GET GUTS WITHOUT ALCOHOL
🎧AUDIO QUACK 🎧
Skip Introduction | 1:30.
On New Year’s Eve last year, I was in a bar in Balham, swapping New Year’s resolutions with a random man. I told him that mine was to do karaoke. The man was shocked—it was as if I had told him I had never tried Marmite.
“How have you existed for over thirty years and have never tried karaoke?” he said, exasperated.
His reaction made me determined to achieve my goal.
But it’s now 2025… and I have yet to try karaoke. And there is no excuse – I had the perfect opportunity at a cosy sing-along piano bar.
A mother in her late fifties with a bob haircut was with her daughter, husband and daughter’s friends when she chose Rizzo’s solo from Grease. ‘There Are Worse Things I Can Do.‘
A young doctor requested “Somewhere Only We Know” by Keane but surprised the bar by changing the lyrics to a pro-vaccine song. The perplexed pianist played the familiar tune as the man sang the lyrics off his phone. “You can get it if you contact infected blood…or certain other bodily fluids…” He ended the song with, “go and get your vaccine….”
I was sitting at a high-top table, skimming the list of songs available. I had fantasised about what my karaoke debut would be like.
I always liked the idea of singing Black Velvet. I saw myself casually wandering around the bar, perhaps rubbing the hair of some unexpected man. Possibly hop onto a table as my gravelly, leathery voice filled the room.
I spent most of the evening in this dream state until the pianist announced it was time for the last requests. My belly fluttered. It was now or never. Yet, I couldn’t bring myself to raise my hand. I realised that if I was ever going to achieve my goal, I either needed singing lessons…. or alcohol.
Unfortunately, my 2018 New Year’s resolution was getting in the way of my bravery. I was 26 when I decided to do Dry January, and I haven’t had a drink since.
I suppose I should encourage my friends who are choosing to dry out this month with my sobriety wisdom. I should say something like, “The clear mind is a free mind, my child…” whilst wearing a robe, holding a stick and standing on a rock.
But I tell you now, it’s not one big kebab-free-rose-garden. In my seven years off the booze, I have found the lack of courage to do karaoke is just one of the downsides of not drinking.
I have watched bad-ass women in films come home from a day at a crime scene, kick off their heels, and pour themselves a massive glass of wine on their marble island. That’s cool. I want to be her. But then I remembered I can’t be as cool as her…. because I don’t drink.
The trickiest part of sober living though, is not in your kitchen when you want to be Gillian Anderson, but on nights out when you have to explain why you’re a full-time party-pooper.
Alcohol is one of the greatest tools for socialising. What’s a wedding without champagne? What’s a rugby match without Camden Hells? What’s a date night without a Malbec?
I have found the alcohol-free drinks quite handy in this department. If you hold something resembling champagne or beer, you at least look like you’re part of the event. If you still don’t feel like you’re fitting in though, I recommend dancing badly. Being brutally honest with everyone. Maybe cry at one point for no reason.
People will soon forget that you’re sober.
If you’re curious to know what the alcohol-free drinks taste like, Well, some taste like Fruit Shoots, whilst others are pretty accurate. But even if the taste is there, alcohol-free drinks cannot offer you that courage which pushes you onto a karaoke stage or even more minor things, like walking into a party all by yourself.
We’ve all been there. A gathering in a room above a pub. Some people you know, most you don’t. You shuffle in and hover next to a group. A man is dryly explaining his job as a zoo accountant.
You ask a stupid question like, “If the finances are in trouble, what is the first animal to go?”
And he replies with a straight face. “The zebras.”
The awkwardness continues. Someone says something you don’t quite hear. The small talk is fake. The laughs are exaggerated. It’s all so uncomfortable. It’s no wonder we gulp down our first alcoholic drink at the speed of light.
I remember how my first gin would go in a flash. It was there. It was gone. Magic. I saw alcohol as fuel for my social engine. Without it, I simply couldn’t…. go.
But after experiencing every social situation sober, I have accepted that the initial minutes are always going to be a little stiff. It’s like the first few steps of a run or the first sentence of a chapter – It just takes time to warm up.
An hour into the pub gathering, the zoo accountant is doing his best impression of a lion. (He roars in your face). So, you give him your best impression of an armadillo. (Collapse on the floor and roll). He still thinks your beer has alcohol in it.
I love AI. It made me wonder if perhaps the same strategy applies to karaoke.
It must always start awkwardly. You nervously step onto the stage and grip the mic like you’re trying to squeeze a fish to death. The pianist begins to play the heavy chords. You glance at the faces staring at you. They’re confused. What a strange song.
The first few lines come out quiet and shaky. “Missi…ssippi in the middle of a dry spell…” But by the time you get to the chorus, you are warmed up. You are on a table, belting. “Black velvet with that slow southern style!!!” You are a rock star. You are Alannah herself. Except your voice is not a leathery, sexy sound; it’s flat and broken. But it doesn’t matter because everyone thinks you’re absolutely wasted.
And so, this 2025, like unused annual leave, I am transferring my New Year’s resolution across. This will be the year I finally do karaoke.
If you are drying out this January I highly recommend reading
This Naked Mind: Control Alcohol by Annie Grace. I found it super helpful when giving up booze.
The Quack is also available on all popular podcast apps.
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A CHRISTMAS TREE FOR ONE.
🎧 AUDIO QUACK. (If you despise reading) 🎧
Skip introduction: 1:38. Also available on all popular podcast apps.
In December 1880, Queen Charlotte, the German wife of George III, put up a Yew tree in the Queen’s Lodge in Windsor for a Christmas party.
“Charlotte, why is there a tree inside the house?” George III yelled.
“It’s something we do back in Germany. I thought, perhaps, it would be nice to introduce it to England.”
George III rolled his eyes. “Are you barking mad? The Englishman won’t allow trees in their homes!”
Forty years later, Queen Victoria’s husband, Albert, announced he would bring his home country tradition to England by having a fir tree in the house for Christmas. He had been quite bored recently and, therefore, quite irritating to Queen Victoria, so she was happy he had something to do.
“What a wonderful idea, Albert!” she said.
And every year after that, it was Albert’s job to set up the tree. In 1848, an illustration of the royal tree was printed in the press, and soon, every Englishman had a tree in their home at Christmas.
Most people can remember at least one decoration that hung on the tree in the home they grew up in. Our tree was in the living room, dressed with purple baubles and gold reindeers. I remember the sweet pine scent that would overwhelm the room. And the way the branches got in the way of the telly for anyone sitting on the far left of the sofa.
I haven’t bothered with a real Christmas tree in the last few years. Trees are for families, couples and kids. Not for thirty-somethings, living on their own.
It seemed bleak to have a proper Christmas tree for my pleasure only. I had this image of it glowing in the corner as I watched The Office with my baked potato on my lap. Maybe it would get so bad that I would grow attached to its presence in the room and say goodnight to it.
I would switch off its lights. “Good night, tree.” And leave the dark, silent room.
This year, I had a change of heart. I would get myself a proper Christmas tree, even if it was only for me.
On Sunday, I went to the Covered Market in Oxford, the home of the oldest piece of ham in the world. (It’s proudly displayed in a butcher’s window). In the centre of the market, below the floating White Rabbit, is the best florist in town, ‘The Garden of Oxford’.
Their Christmas trees were lined up, starting graciously tall and ending short and stout. I needed to carry the tree back home, so as elegant as the tall ones were, realistically, I would have to go for the plumper option. I lifted the shortest one to see if I was strong enough to carry it. Just about.
As I inspected its branches, a couple in their fifties came striding over. The man in a buttoned-up Barbour jacket went to the grandest tree of the bunch.
“How about this one, Cupcake?” he said to his partner.
The lady, or ‘Cupcake’, scanned the tree as if doing some mental photoshopping.
“Mmm. Maybe this one?” she said, gesturing to a tree at least three inches shorter.
The man inspected Cupcake’s tree, his tree, and then Cupcake’s face. This wasn’t a discussion.
“Yeah, alright then,” he muttered. He dragged the tree out and brought it into the shop.
While all this was happening, I hovered by my tree like a creep, unsure if we were allowed to take it into the shop or if we were expected to wait for someone to serve us. Thankfully, Barbour Jacket and Cupcake answered my question. I pulled out my chosen tree, like King Arthur, retrieving the sword from the stone. The flower shop girl cocooned it in a white net, and the journey home began.
If you want to attract attention to yourself, I highly recommend walking around with a tree. I felt like Father Christmas, spreading joy throughout the town. One elderly woman wrapped in a green scarf on her mobility scooter scooted past with a smile and said, “How Christmassy.”
Nobody needs apps. They just need to walk around with strange objects.
By the time I got to my apartment, I was ready to ‘de-tree.’ It seemed to have gained weight on the walk. Either that or my feeble arms were failing me. The needles kept pricking me too. Why did we pick the sharpest tree there was for this tradition?
I took one big breath before tackling the three flights of stairs, then dramatically piled into my flat and fell onto the sofa, where I watched an episode of The Office as I recovered from the excursion.
The art direction of the tree was influenced by the hints of orange in my rug. I probably should have played some Wham or put on The Holiday whilst I decorated it, but Jim and Pam had just got together, so…..
My holiday craftwork isn’t outstanding, so the tree didn’t take long to decorate. Like my Halloween pumpkins, it was pretty… basic. The lights were a little wonky, and the baubles hung without real thought. There was one final thing to do, and that was to put the angel on top. I didn’t have an angel. I had something better. I had Mr. Darcy.
One of the best things about having your own tree is that you can decorate it exactly how you like without being questioned. (Even if that tree ornament is a felt version of Mr. Darcy from Etsy).
“Why is a tiny man in a suit hanging off our tree?”
“It’s not just any man, Steven, it’s Mr. Darcy.”
“Was he like, one of the three kings or something?”
But there was no Steven, so this conversation did not take place, and Mr. Darcy stayed on the tree without question.
Later that evening, I settled on my sofa. Baked potato on my lap. The Office on the telly. It could have been any old evening, except now I have a glowing tree in the corner – all thanks to Queen Charlotte.
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‘TIS THE SEASON TO FACE THE MUSIC.
🎧 Audio Quack 🎧
CBA to read? Let me read it for you. Skip Introduction 3:05
When I was a kid in the 90s, there were two ways to mark the countdown to Christmas. The first was the humble chocolate advent calendar. The second was the Coca-Cola ‘Holidays are Coming’ TV advert.
The countdown has changed a bit since then. For one thing, it starts earlier. In late November, the John Lewis advert premiers on our TV and dominates the office chat the following day. “The Fox? Yeah. When it’s jumping. Bawling.”
December arrives, and you open the first door of your not-so-humble advent calendar. Gone are the days of the teeny-tiny chocolate. Brew Dog and Molton Brown are just two of the many brands offering ‘luxury calendars.’ Now, you can countdown to the birth of Jesus with a can of Punk IPA or a teeny bottle of pink peppercorn body butter.
Recently, another tradition has been added. In the first week of December, our Spotify becomes wrapped.
This is when the Swedish music streaming service Spotify presents you with a vibrant, animated PowerPoint presentation about your music habits throughout the year. And this could feel invasive and unnecessary, but we’re too intrigued to care. Tell me, Spotify, who am I?
At the end of the presentation, they offer virtual cards with your five top songs and artists and how many minutes you’ve spent listening to music that year. Some friends happily share their cards on social media, while others keep theirs very quiet.
This is understandable. The music we listen to gives an insight into who we really are. When we want someone to like us, we tend to use the get-out card of, “I listen to a bit of everything.” But our Spotify Wrapped unveils this lie. You didn’t tell me that you were a fan of Take That, Stephen.
Since the dawn of puberty, I have used music to make friends or to try and make someone fall in love with me. (There was a slightly awkward Green Day phase).
I was a classic teenager, constantly blasting music into my ears. Before the iPod came out, I would carry a CD wallet and Walkman everywhere. My parents would comment that I was being antisocial, but I didn’t see it that way.
Bloc Party’s new album, A Weekend in the City, was one of the only things I could talk to boys about. In the classroom, I would often be attached to my friend Meg via a white wire. She had one bud in, I had the other, and she’d show me her latest favourite song. The lyrics were her MSN name for that week.
“Things you say they sound so fake. And make me drink until I ache.“
(10 points if you know the band and the song).
Every school had a LimeWire kid who would burn illegal CDs. That was me. I specifically remember making a CD with Don’t Phunk With My Heart by Black Eyed Peas for one of the older girls. She had cornered me in the hall after assembly and asked me to do it. I was just happy she knew my name.
Liking the right bands was also essential. In my day, everyone was into indie-rock – the craft beer of music genres. The Subways, The Kooks, The Libertines…and these were the bands I told people I listened to. I was less inclined to reveal that I also listened to Avril Lavigne and McFly. And I was aggressively against anyone putting my iPod on shuffle at parties, just in case my full music taste was exposed. But there were times I let it slip….
I was 15 when I had a Christmas house party. My crush was in my room, and things were going great…until he spotted the red album in my CD rack. He made a slight snort sound.
“Why do you have the Ting Ting’s?”
I had to think quickly.
“Oh. My auntie got it for my birthday. Super cringe.”
I’m relieved Spotify Wrapped was not around in my school days because my delicate ego would have been smashed to pieces. Even this year, as a grown-up, I find myself wincing at my Wrapped statistics.
It’s no surprise that Taylor Swift was my most listened-to artist this year. Fine. But I didn’t realise how much I listened to her.
I spent 10,000 minutes listening to Tay Tay this year. I was in the 0.5% of listeners. OH, GOD. I cringed harder than when my crush discovered my Ting Tings album. It got worse. Taylor Swift appeared on my screen in her sparkling leotard. Oh no. She had been dragged away from her busy schedule to film a video message to thank me, a 33-year-old woman, for being one of her top listeners. Even she looked a little uncomfortable doing it, like the prom queen thanking the creep for voting for her.
(Yes, I know she wasn’t actually talking to me…before anyone calls this out).
My top song was I Can Do It With a Broken Heart. It’s a catchy song. It was so catchy that I listened to it 161 times, apparently
🎶 All the pieces of me shattered as the crowd was chanting “More”
I was grinning like I’m winning, I was hitting my marks
‘Cause I can do it with a broken heart (one, two, three, four) 🎶
My second favourite song was THANK HEAVENS, not one of Taylor’s. It was Maggie Rogers. I hadn’t taken much notice of Maggie until I heard ‘So Sick of Dreaming’. …and then I listened to it again and again and again and again….
🎶Oh, ’cause I’m (ooh-whoa)
So sick of dreamin’
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah 🎶
I became so obsessed that I dragged Sausage to Maggie’s gig in Madison Square Garden in October. Sausage didn’t know who she was, and at one point, I looked over and saw her trying to Shazam the song that Maggie was singing live.
Just after Maggie sang ‘Alaska’, Sausage yelled in my ear. “When’s she going to sing that Alaska song?”
It gave me flashbacks to when I went with Hermione and Amy to see Taylor Swift’s Era’s concert.
“What era is this?”
“FOLKLORE!”
They only had large T-shirts left, so now I have a Maggie dress. I thought my friends had problems. Why don’t they know the eras of Taylor? Or the songs of Maggie? But then Spotify Wrapped came out. And it revealed that I had spent 88,647 minutes listening to music this year. That is two months of my life not talking to people.
So, maybe it’s me who has the problem.
🎄 QUACK’S TOP 5 XMAS SONGS 🎄
LAST CHRISTMAS – WHAM
I WISH IT COULD BE CHRISTMAS EVERYDAY – WIZZARD
FAIRYTALE OF NEW YORK – THE POGUES
WALKING IN THE AIR – ALED JONES
HOW DO YOU FLY? – JAMIE CULLUM
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THE OFFICE CHRISTMAS PARTY
🎧 AUDIO QUACK 🎧
Can’t be bothered to read it? Let me read it for you!
Skip Introduction 1:45
Last December, I was playing darts with Dad and Jack. I was great. Brilliant, in fact. But my dart skills are not what this Quack is about. No. This is about what was happening next to us – an office Christmas party. There were Veja trainers, beards, and a Christmas jumper theme. It’s a wild guess, but in a game of ‘guess the industry’, I reckon they were in digital marketing or something similar.
They were a little stiff at the start, crossed arms, swigging their Budweisers. One of them was on his phone, aimlessly walking around. “I’ll get it to you by the end of play tomorrow,” he yelled.
Two frollegues, had matching ‘Let it Snow’ jumpers on. They were using the time to fill each other in on gossip but kept getting interrupted by the game. “Your turn, Josie! Jose!” Josie would swiftly throw the darts and return to the gossip circle.
The guy with the wiriest beard was the best, casually collecting his three darts from the bullseye like it was nothing. The woman with the penguin jumper was the worst, chuckling to herself when the dart would bounce off the wall.
A platter of chips and chicken wings arrived and was demolished in minutes. After three rounds, Wire-Beard was crowned the best dart player in the office, and they said their goodbyes and went home. And that was the Christmas party. Done.
It was a far cry from the office party we saw in the 2003 Christmas film Love Actually.
The office manager, Mia, had organised a boozy do in an art gallery displaying photos of naked people. “Full of dark corners to do dark deeds,” she had told her boss as she opened her legs an inch or two. She then rocked up at the Christmas party dressed as a devil and asked the boss for a dance in front of his wife, Nanny Mcfee. How ballsy.
Perhaps scenarios like these are why we are now choosing social activities to celebrate Christmas with our colleagues rather than tipsy dos in art galleries.
Over the last few years, social game clubs have popped up all over the place: Flight Club (darts), Swingers (crazy golf), Clays (virtual clay pigeon shooting), and Whistle Punks (axe throwing). I suppose Mia wouldn’t have had the chance to have been so seductive if she had to book Flight Club.
“I’ve booked Flight Club…it’s full of sharp darts to do sharp…” Nope. Doesn’t work.
I was 24 when I went to my first office party. It was an out-of-space theme. Some came dressed as astronauts in skin-tight-silver onesies. I went dressed as the Milky Way, wrapping fairy lights around me.
The party took place in a club, down an alley in Soho, which sounds dodgy but wasn’t. I can’t remember the club’s layout exactly, but there were booths, a dance floor and a bar stretching from one side to the other. A free bar.
24, on an Assistant Producer wage and free alcohol… What could go wrong? Let’s just say that when a limbo stick appeared on the dance floor, I was thrilled to show off my Shakira skills. “I’m super flexible!” I boasted to my new colleagues before I ended up on my back, looking up at the disco lights.
The Head of Production must have seen this tragic fall because he came over and suggested I go home. So, I did. I ran out of the party before anyone could see me cry. I ran past Nelson’s Column and down Whitehall. If David Cameron were to peep out of his curtain, he would have seen a blob of tangled fairy lights running down the street. A wailing comet, you might say.
I planned to get home to Stockwell on foot but only got as far as Big Ben. It was 2:15 a.m. I called my then-boyfriend and sobbed on the phone, retelling him what had happened…kind of.
“There were these pink vodka shots. Everybody was limbo-ing. I’m going to get fired. It’s so unfair.” I rambled. Not long after, he turned up in the car, found me perched on the wall outside the House of Parliament, and took me home.
I didn’t get fired, but I was shy back then and deadly nervous about returning to the office. Of course, nobody was bothered about the assistant who failed at limbo. Two people on the account team were found making out in one of the booths – so that was the headline.
Perhaps this tightrope we must balance when mixing booze in a professional environment is also why activities such as pizza masterclasses and axe throwing are on the rise. As long as you don’t accidentally hit your colleague with an axe, there isn’t much you can do to embarrass yourself.
Besides, alcohol is not what it used to be. The health-conscious Gen-Z are not as lured into getting ‘trashed’ as we were in our early twenties. According to Beer Guild, In 2023, 19% of drink bookings were alcohol-free, which has climbed to 21% for 2024. Even me, the run-away-milky-way, doesn’t touch the stuff anymore. (I did, on another occasion, tear a muscle while trying to do the splits. The drunken Shakira era was quite a health hazard).
But it did make me think at 3 a.m.… If Richard Curtis were to write Love Actually today, how would Karl and Sarah confront their sexual tension if they didn’t have Norah Jones to slow dance to? Sure, there was the bad stuff with the boss and the PA, but sometimes there is nice love, and a bit of Dutch courage on a dance floor can be the trick to pushing two shy colleagues together.
But if Love Actually was set in 2024, would Karl and Sarah be paired up at a pizza-making masterclass at Pizza Pilgrims? Karl using his tanned, strong arms to roll out the dough? Or would Karl retrieve Sarah’s golf ball from the neon-lit Ferris wheel during a crazy golf tournament at Swingers?
OR would Sarah be rubbish at darts, struggling to get one stuck in the board. And Karl, seeing her struggle, would come up from behind. He smelled like the chicken wing he had just consumed, but Sarah didn’t care. It was Karl. She’d loved this man for two years, seven months, three days, four hours, 2 minutes….
Karl would lean in and say in Sarah’s ear, “Sarah….there’s a short, blonde woman over there who is brilliant at darts. Maybe… you don’t have to… but maybe you can get some tips from her? “
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A DOG NAMED CLEMENTINE
🎧AUDIO QUACK🎧
Skip introduction 1:50
January 2023, Mum sent a photo of two random dogs on a beach. ‘This little Retriever needs a home. She’s 11.’ She circled the Retriever to save any confusion. Another photo followed, it was the Retriever wearing a snowman headband, ‘Clemmie.’
Nobody believed Mum would go through with adopting Clemmie. We thought her dog days were over after being landed with the family westie, Duncan.
Duncan liked to bark at seagulls, which wasn’t much of a problem when we were in Oxfordshire, but Mum had moved to Cornwall, so it was a gigantic problem. Duncan wasn’t well-behaved. He couldn’t be let off a leash without charging off to find trouble. And he would plop his little white fluffy self in the most awkward places, like by the cooker when Mum was making dinner. His name was said in frustration multiple times a day. Duncan. When he died, Mum buried his ashes in a lavender pot, and then her lavender plant died. Duncan. That was Duncan.
Despite the white Westie trauma, Mum did end up adopting Clemmie. The next time I visited, an autumnal-coloured Retriever with a white face, was in the hallway, wagging her tail.
Clem settled into her new home with ease. She was an old, well-trained dog, eager to make you happy. I imagined her having this wise old lady voice. “Please, my dear, my ball.”
Mum found Ella, a young jewellery designer who would take Clem on extra walks. Ella and Clem would go down to the beach every day, come rain or shine. Clem’s favourite spot was the pool just before the sea, which she would trot into and had to be begged to come out again.
The other dogs respected her because she was old and gracious, in the same way we all respect Judi Dench. If a dog overstepped the mark (sniffed her butt), she would bark once, and they would leave her alone.
“Get off, you!”
Everywhere Clem went, she was adored. (Apart from a local man, who would walk by Mum and Clem with a pinched face. Mum still doesn’t know what she’s done to offend him). Apart from him, everybody adored Clem.
But nobody liked Clem as much as Mum. She had promised Rich she would be a strict dog owner, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t help herself. There were rules, like, “Clem is not allowed in the bedroom”, but often, Clem would appear in the doorway with a grin and a wagging tail.
“You know you’re not allowed in here, Clem,” Mum said with a smile.
“Sorry, yes, just saying, hi. Oh, and one last thing. If you, Ella, or anyone feels like a stroll along the beach, then I’m game. Just say the word, and I’m good to go….”
Whenever we went to the supermarket, I would find Mum in the toy section, contemplating whether Clem would prefer the squirrel or a weasel. At Christmas, she had her own pile of presents to unwrap. “Santa” brought her a yellow chick, which became her favourite toy. (Unfortunate for that chick). Mum also had begun making gravy for the dog’s dinner, pouring it in using the Sunday gravy jug.
“Mum, why are you pouring gravy into the dog’s dinner?”
“Just makes the biscuits softer for Clem.”
There was this bedtime routine called ‘Nom-Nom times.’
At first, I heard it happening, and then I was shown the live performance. ‘Nom-Nom times’ consisted of Mum giving Clem three treats, which she received one at a time. As she chewed on a treat, Mum would sing, “Nom…Nom…Nom…” until the dog had finished. Then, she would be given her next treat, and the singing would begin again, “Nom…nom…nom…”
As I stood there, watching this thing happen, Clementine glared at me as if to say, “Please give her a grandchild.”
In the summer, the dog groomer cancelled, leaving Clem looking a little ball-like. How hard can it be to trim a dog? We thought. Well, quite hard, it turns out. To Clementine’s credit, she trusted us. She sat in the sun as we snipped away at her coat. We thought we had done an okay job, until she got up and we saw how uneven she was. She didn’t seem happy about her new short-back-and-side-long-back-and-side… style.
“What have you done to me?” she gasped with big, round eyes.
Clementine’s age was catching up with her. Her back was sore. It took effort to stand up; often, she did so with a “huff.” By the end of the summer, she was significantly slower; sometimes, on our walks, it was like watching one of those donkeys in the Donkey Sanctuary charity commercial.
“Haha! That dog is so old,” A woman laughed.
“You’re not too young yourself,” Clementine muttered back. Or was it me? I can’t remember.
When Ella took her to her favourite spot, she no longer trotted into the water. Instead, she sat on the edge with Ella and watched the younger dogs charging back and forth like an old lady enjoying kids in a playground.
The last few weeks, Clem was coughing, her tail was down, and despite the hand-poured gravy, she was not interested in her dinner. Mum didn’t want it to be, but she knew it was time. Last Wednesday morning, she put Clem in the car and drove her to the vet. They gave Clementine a pile of treats, which she nibbled on before she fell asleep.
We’re not going to put Clementine in a lavender pot. (We learnt from the last dog not to do that). We will place her in the sea, where she once loved to play. Then, to the pub to toast our auburn-coloured friend.
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HOW TO FIND LOVE WITHOUT DATING APPS.
🎧 AUDIO QUACK 🎧
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Skip Introduction: 2:10
I wanted to see Gladiator 2 with my boyfriend, but this was a problem because I didn’t have a boyfriend. So, I got out my phone, went into the App Store and downloaded Hinge again…again. Their slogan is, ‘Designed to be deleted’. Sounds about right. I’ve deleted it three times now. The last time was whilst crying on a train because the man didn’t like me in real life.
The familiar white icon with the black H began to load onto my photo.
H for…. Ha! You’re alone.
H for…Horny and desperate.
H for… Husband teaser.
This wasn’t going to be like the last time. I was going to be clear(-ish) about what I wanted. I wanted to see a Gladiator 2. That’s it. No strings attached. So, I started to fill in the sign-up form…again.
Name. Location. Date of birth. You’re 33. Almost middle-aged. Is that correct? (Yes, Hinge. F*** off.) What kind of relationship are you looking for? Monogamy? Poly? Are you looking for a long-term relationship? Short term? (I want a 2 hour 28 minute relationship). Do you have children? Do you want children? Do you do drugs? Do you drink alcohol? Do you want to do drugs? Do you believe in God?
And it was at that point that I gave up. It was far too much effort. All I wanted was a man to sit with me for a couple of hours, who looks great in the dark, won’t try to talk to me while Paul Mescal is on screen, and, who, most importantly, won’t insist on sharing my popcorn. I hate sharing my popcorn. BUY YOUR OWN POPCORN!
So, I deleted it again. No dating apps. Well. There is still one more dating app. I am still waiting to be accepted onto RAYA. I downloaded it ten months ago and am still on the waitlist. Every time I go on it, I am met with this message:
“We continually review our waitlist and will send you a notification if there are any changes to your application status.”
They tell you to send referrals from current members. I have given them THREE already. That’s more than any job application.
The app is for the super-hot, rich and famous. So, a lot of models, bankers and the odd celebrity. This is probably why they won’t let me on.
I was sitting with a banker once who showed me his RAYA. “It’s so annoying because all the models are in another country,” he said, then showed me the most beautiful woman…but she lived in Paris. It’s a cruel world.
I wonder what the reviewing process at the RAYA HQ is like. I imagine them reviewing the week’s applications in their Monday morning meetings, in a long room with twenty people wearing suits, sitting around a varnished table. One by one, a photo of the applicant appears on the screen, and the table votes Yes or No.
“This is Mary, she lives in Oxford. She’s 5ft 3. She has…six hundred followers on Instagram…..”
And this is when the boardroom will BURST into laughter. “SIX…hundred? My Mum has more followers than that. Next!”
I sought advice from one of my friends on RAYA. She told me I should buy a blue tick on social media. The blue tick used to only be for celebrities. (It was to stop scammers pretending they were Harry Styles, who was suddenly stuck on an island and desperate for money). But now, anyone can buy a blue tick.
I have this conspiracy theory or Black Mirror episode… that Elon Musk knows the world will end soon, and he will only let the verified users on X onto his spaceship, and will take them to the Moon to live.
I don’t want to live on the Moon with Elon, so I’m not going to get the tick. Which means I’ll probably never be allowed into the house of RAYA.
So, without the apps, how do you find someone and make them love you? I read somewhere that the worst thing you can do on a date is sit opposite someone and talk, which pretty much eliminates any dinner or drink date. That’s where I am going wrong.
Apparently, people are more likely to be attracted to you when they see you doing something confidently. You know, when guys do that thing when they reverse a car using one flat hand. God help me.
When I think back, every memorable time someone has caught my eye, in that slow-motion kind of way, it’s when I’m watching them doing something they’re good at. That’s when I think…. “Yes! Him!”
I was talking to my brother’s friend who told me, without me asking, that I would meet someone if I joined a running club.
“DO NOT join a running club,” Sausage said. She had witnessed me in P.E at school; pink-faced, losing most races, letting in goals in hockey, and not being able to successfully pivot in netball. “That is not how you’re going to attract a man!” She had a point. Nobody wants the red-faced girl, puffing at the back.
And even if you meet a man at a running club who becomes your boyfriend. What you’ve now got on your hands is a runner. Someone who will expect you to understand his daily 5ks and yearly marathons. One day, you’ll inevitably blow up and throw his trainers out of the window when he tells you he’s signed up for YET another marathon.
“But you said when we met at running club that you loved running.” He would argue. And to be fair, you did say that.
So, no running club. But I wasn’t sure what other activity I could do; I read, write, and do Pilates. I suppose I take the occasional photo, but what good is photography when you have a camera hiding your face?
Scared that I’ll end up being one of those mature women who set up easels and paint a high street, I asked my 600 followers on Instagram what activity they find attractive.
First suggestion. Running. Christ.
Second suggestion. Horse riding. I had lessons with my brother Joe when I was seven. He did something to his horse, which resulted in the horse galloping off. All I saw was my older brother bouncing like a ball on this horse across a field with all the instructors running after him. It put me off for life.
Playing a musical instrument. Only if they like a fumbling introduction to Wake Me Up When September Ends on acoustic guitar. That’s all I’ve got.
Tennis. I can wear the outfit if they want. I can drink squash by the side of the court and giggle. But, I will not attract anyone with my racket skills.
Hiking. I can Hike. Yes. This is doable. I will be like Meredith Blake in The Parent Trap. Maybe not a big incline though. Maybe more of a flat country walk….to a pub.
Chariot racing. If this comes back, I will definitely attract people with my chariot racing. Not to brag, but I would.
What I know I can do confidently today, is watch films. Maybe when I’m watching Gladiator 2 in the cinema, alone, a man will look over the seats, probably see me stuffing popcorn into my mouth…. and be like… “Yes! Her!”
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I just want to share with you some outtakes from my AI image generator. I put in… ‘Hot men running group running past exhausted blonde woman.‘
DYING.
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HOW DID THEY SURVIVE WITHOUT PUMPKIN SPICE LATTES?
🎧Audio Quack 🎧
Can’t be bothered to read? I’ll read it for you. Skip introductions 2:00
I went to Hermione & Sam’s to carve pumpkins on Halloween. Old me would have scrolled through Pinterest for inspiration and tried to carve something ambitious – like a pumpkin with teeth. But after years of failed attempts, I have resigned to the fact I’m not one of life’s pumpkin carvers.
So, this time, I stuck to basics: circle for eyes, circle for mouth, rectangle for eyebrows.
As we were carving, Sam spoke about the kombucha he was making. It was no surprise that he was making kombucha. Sam keeps houseplants like pets and has a stack of vinyl records of bands nobody has heard of. Making kombucha seemed like a natural next step in his err…. millennialism.
Kombucha, fermented black tea, has been around for 2000 years, but it was us, the well-being Millennials, who made it mainstream. We can’t resist a drink with health benefits, and the kombucha claims to have probiotics that balance out our gut bacteria. Our gut has been unbalanced this whole time?!!
Last week, I visited Mum and spotted a bottle of kombucha in her fridge. It made me proud. I had introduced kombucha to her household after discovering it in Australia.
“They drink this magic gut juice in the land of the hopping rat,” I said, as I stepped off the wooden ship that I had sailed across the oceans of the world in. (Ok, it wasn’t quite like that.)
Along with kombucha, I have also introduced oat milk, quinoa, and Taylor Swift. Mum has welcomed these new elements into her home with open arms.
“You want me to leave the oats overnight? Ok, darling.”
Her partner, Rich, not so much. He’s a bearded artist who never strays from a black t-shirt and likes to ride a motorbike. He took great joy in telling me that the word ‘avocado’ translates into ‘testicle’.
Once, while eating my green testicle on toast, I tried to explain to Rich what a gratitude journal was.
“You have to write three things that happened in your day which you are grate…”
Before I could finish the sentence, Rich was rolling his head.
“Let me stop you there,” he said in his Mancunian accent. Like the oat milk in his fridge, he didn’t see the purpose of writing down your positive moments. I argued that it’s healthy to reflect on your day. *Clears throat.*
Monday 28th October
Three things I am grateful for….
1) A woman in Gail’s liked my red jumper and asked where I got it from. I lied and told her it was from Zara.
2) Stephen finally replied to my text.🥰 (He had another busy weekend, that’s all. What with all the football, he couldn’t squeeze in two minutes to reply. Evolution is so funny, isn’t it? 😂A man used to carve whole stories into stone, but now, even when the phone writes the words for you, the modern man struggles to find time to thank you for letting him stay over).
3) The sunset was amazing!!!!
Perhaps Mum and Rich are from a generation that is thicker-skinned, so they don’t need a gratitude diary. They have, after all, survived most of their lives without the safety blanket of a smartphone. What did they do when their date went to the bathroom? Did they just sit at the table, staring into nothing with their unbalanced guts? And at the parties, when nobody was speaking to them. They couldn’t pretend to be texting someone to show they are in demand somewhere. (When really, they’re just writing a shopping list in the notes app).
Not only this but without a smartphone, how did they take photos of their pumpkin spice lattes with autumnal backdrops? Gasp. They didn’t even have pumpkin spice lattes. A macchiato could have been a fashion brand. A flat white could have been a rock band. There were no patterns on their milk foam. There was no milk foam at all. How did they do it?
Back to Halloween 2024. My pumpkin had turned out as predicted: basic and crap. I named it Janet. Sam, Hermione and Pheobe’s pumpkins looked like adults had carved them. They had teeth, eyes, and expressions. We were keen to know the best one, so we took a photo and asked Instagram.
Sam’s pumpkin, named ‘Hot Sauce’, won. Hermione’s ‘Clara’ came a close second, and Phoebe’s ‘Sea Biscuit’ came third. Janet came last, with no votes. Thankfully, I could overcome this rejection because of my gratitude diary.
Thursday 31st October
Three things I am grateful for….
1) Hermione & Sam invited me to their house for homemade pita bread and hummus and to carve pumpkins. Janet didn’t win the contest. Not a single person voted for her, but it’s the taking part that counts. 😁😁😁
2) Hot dads in Halloween costumes were taking their kids trick-or-treating. 😍 I particularly liked the cowboy who walked past me. Who needs Stephen? Not me.
3) The sunset was amazing!!!
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ARE YOU STILL IN ❤️ WITH NEW YORK?
🎧 AUDIO QUACK (Skip introduction – 1:30) 🎧
(Also available on all podcast apps)
It was Friday night in the West Village. Baseball was on, and the bars were full of Yankee fans. Sausage and I were sat at a bar that was lit by rainbow fairy lights. We ordered drinks and agreed that the baseball kit was the worst of all the American sports kits.
A man settled on the stool next to Sausage. He was quick to tell us he worked in the Financial District. “I tell banks what to do,” he said, comfortably. He didn’t look like the men in the movies, he was wearing specs and a woolly jumper. He also had heavy eyelids. I wasn’t sure if this was a permanent feature, or because of the three cucumber martinis, he had claimed to have consumed earlier that evening.
The Man in Finance had come from money. He didn’t say this directly, but he told us he grew up in Boca Raton. I hadn’t heard of it. But, apparantly it’s the “Beverly Hills of Florida”.
“Do you have a boat?” Sausage asked him. He seemed to like this question.
“I did,” he said through a heavy sigh. “But I sold it.”
“A paddle boat?” I asked. He did not like this question.
“No. Not a paddle boat.”
We asked him what brought him to New York.
He said that he loved his lifestyle in Florida, but he came to New York to be a “big dog.” His phone started ringing. An unknown caller. He instructed us to look after his drink and ran out of the bar. Five minutes later, he returned to his stool, proud as a pudding.
“Was it a girl?” we asked.
“No, it wasn’t a girl.”
“Ohhh….druuugs….”
His face went serious. He scanned the room and lowered his voice. “Want some?”
We began thumping our chests like Matthew McConaughey.
“Mmm mm. Thump Thump. Mmm mm. Thump Thump.”
Man in Finance joined in.
“Mmm mm. Thump Thump. Mmm mm. Thump Thump.”
I began to add in the squarks.
“Gah!…. Gah!….. Gah!”
But this was too far, and it stopped the whole thing.
He went serious again. “So, want some?”
“Nah,” we said and continued the subject of New York.
(This is a family friendly blog after all.)
The Man in Finace loved New York. He lived in a one-bedroom flat near Central Park. He loved that he could go to a different bar every weekend, and the city provided everything he wanted.
“How could you not love New York?” he said with his arms opened wide.
“UM…I’m not a fan,” Sausage announced.
He almost fell off his stool.
“I’ve never met anyone, anyone, who doesn’t like New York.”
“It smells really bad.”
“There are some smells, but surely you can’t hate the city for that?”
Sausage described how every day she has to step through a group of men on her stoop, hunched down, rolling joints like they’re in an arts and crafts class. She also doesn’t like to ride The Subway at night. I agree, it’s a layer between Earth and Hell.
“And women are getting punched in the streets!” Sausage said, finishing off her list. She was referring to a trend where women are randomly getting punched in the streets. (Read about it here)
“Oh, yeah, I heard about that,” said the Man in Finance, then paused. “But still…it’s New York!” It was like he was defending Christmas. He turned his attention to me. “What do you think?”
I was a child when I first visited New York, and was mesmerised by how the buildings disappeared into the clouds like fairy-tale beanstalks. There were marshmallows in the cereal. Pizza slices the size of my schoolbooks, and a restaurant called Mars 3000, where the waiters were aliens.
As an adult, New York still has it’s magic, but it’s not because of the gigantic pizza slices. The city has this atmosphere that no other place can mimic. It’s like you’re in the middle of a human beehive. There is so much life stuffed on that tiny island. And where there is life, there are stories. It’s no wonder the city has inspired so many artistis.
Like, one of my favourite photos, A Llama in Times Square (1957), taken by Inge Morath.
You can spot locations of movie scenes wherever you go. The Plaza Hotel, where Katie sees Hubble with his new wife, in The Way We Were. The Big piano in FAO Schwarz , where Tom Hanks plays Chop Sticks in Big. And Grand Central Station, where Marty the zebra found his other zoo animal friends in the film, Madagascar.
There are icky things about New York, like the tourist trapping Elmo in Times Square. Someone please take Elmo to the dry cleaners. The city can smell of bagels, marijuana, sewage and sweat all at once. And I wouldn’t walk around at night, as it can feel less like Sex and the City, and more like the zombie film, I Am Legend.
But, I still love New York, and I told the Finance Man this… with a caveat.
“New York is a casual lover. You only visit him. You never settle down.”
(I wished I smoked when I was saying this.)
The Finance Man didn’t agree, of course. As far as he was concerned, New York was the greatest city in the world. He ordered another martini and offered his cocaine once more. We turned it down again, and told him to save it for a rainy day.
By now, the baseball was finished, and the Yankees had won. It was home time. We left the Man in Finance at the bar with his martini, waiting to encouter another stranger. Hopefully they’ll want his cocaine. Meanwhile, Sausage and I walked back through the West Village, arm in arm, laughing. The Empire State Building glowing blue above us. Oh, New York.
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