fourth edition

See the colour of my skin? I was standing on top of a windy hill in Scotland in January wearing just a long-sleeved tee, jeans and my finally-finished grey jumper. Don’t tell me that I don’t suffer for my blog.
I finished the jumper on Tuesday. Wednesday I wore it outside and found out my neck [...]

I’m baking a chocolate and beetroot cake; David’s reading an advance copy of Mr Toppit. Later I will rip out the neckline of my now finished-but-unfinished grey jumper (the wool is tickling the upper part of my neck/chin).
I feel so middle-class.

Perhaps the real question is not why you read, but how you read. This observation was brought to you from me having finished Julian Barnes’ Flaubert’s Parrot just an hour ago. I was certain I had read the book before – but I’m not sure. I recognised the opening chapter. It is entirely possible I [...]

Bow down to the master: How to Read 462 Books in One Year. I feel like such an underachiever.
The Book Cover Archive. Exactly what it says on the tin.
Reason #1 why I’m happy being a crafter: “An evening gown that has champagne taste on a beer budget. Cheap champagne, but champagne nonetheless.”
Reason #2 why I’m [...]

This is one of my favourite songs of this past decade and this live performance tugs at my heartstrings. Enjoy.

Oh, my Glasgow. She is pretty even if we do not see the sun all that often and it rains a great deal. She is pretty.
We went into town today, to the Lighthouse (not as in Virginia Woolf, but as in The Lighthouse, the Scottish centre for architecture, design and urbanity).
Other Half wanted to [...]

Hand on heart: I am so tired of knitting my grey jumper.
My problem is two-fold. Firstly, I need a colour injection in this dreich weather. Secondly, I made half a cardigan using the same wool before realising I wasn’t happy with the outcome and that I’d rather do something else. It now feels like I’ve [...]

Having recently looked through one of those “book you must read” lists, I have chartered my own reading throughout the years.
I am particularly well-versed in contemporary British fiction, can find my way around the contemporary American literary landscape but generally opt out (bar one or two novelists whom I admire) and I know my early [...]

Unsurprisingly the poetry reading was one of my favourite parts of the Obama inauguration ceremony (another being Aretha Franklin’s awesome hat). You can read the entire poem by Elizabeth Alexander on the New York Times website right here.
Some live by “Love thy neighbor as thy self.”
Others by first do no harm, or take no more [...]

Image by Shepard Fairey.
It seems to me that today contains multitudes (to misquote the great American poet, Walt Whitman).
Today marks History in different ways.
To some, it is about George W. Bush leaving office after what I would politely describe as a shambolic, histrionic and incompetent presidency.
To some, it is about the first [...]