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Radio Silence - sent to virtual Coventry
9th February | 0 comments | 0 people like this
So, I’m sitting here working and the fire is finally actually going and the TV (English TV via a huge dish on the roof) is on mute but I can see Lorraine Kelly talking about the clothes some models are wearing (beautiful models, hideous cheap clothes). The dog is sighing on his beanbag (very regal – a gold beanbag) and scratching his ear, which reminds me he needs his flea...
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Game Over
29th January | 4 comments | 0 people like this
This is the last column I am ever going to write about my father. I have written a whole book about the man, I have written endless feature articles about grief, bereavement, fathers and daughters, and hardly any of my (eight!) books are without an idealised yet absent father figure. In one of my Faith Zanetti books he gets resurrected as an Italian Mafia don, and in my latest novel,...
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I will eat soup only when I can no longer eat solids
19th January | 3 comments | 1 people like this
On the drive back from Fiesole the windscreen wiper broke. I was doing 130 in the driving rain (kilometres – it was legal) and we were all listening to Lily Allen (who sounds very cross and depressed, but perhaps she’s just young). The dog was cowering miserably under the double bass and we weren’t even out of Florence when the thing just stopped going. I decided to try and make...
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Good news for kulfi lovers the world over
4th January | 0 comments | 0 people like this
I have made an amazing new kulfi-related discovery. I was having friends over for New Year's Day lunch and making chicken biriyani. I do this a lot up my mountain. As you all know, Italian food is carbs, carbs, roast meat, overcooked vegetables done from frozen and more carbs. The puddings, cakes and croissants are all made days before they're sold and invariably have some kind of orange-essence in them...
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The Oligarch’s Wife - Chapter One
21st December 2009 | 0 comments | 3 people like this
Chapter One
It was on the news. A hard fact now, illustrated by short scenes, brightly lit and frenetically cut together to demonstrate, perhaps, the dynamism of the forthcoming police investigation, the dedication of the reporter bringing you the breaking news live as it happens, or even, perhaps, to reflect the violent horror of the man’s death.They showed the blue flashing lights of the empty police cars parked at frenzied angles... -
The Misanthrope
21st December 2009 | 0 comments | 0 people like this
Damian Lewis (Band of Brothers, The Forsythe Saga) is fantastic in The Misanthrope, now showing at The Comedy Theatre in London's West End. Martin Krimp's modern translation of Moliere's classic is frantic and funny, the rhyming often hilarious, often absorbed seamlessly into the conversation. Lewis is manic and intense, a frighteningly familiar jealous lover turning abusive as his obsessions lurches almost into madness. Keira Knightley perfect as the stunning young...
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When Something Ain’t Right It’s Wrong
23rd November 2009 | 1 comments | 2 people like this
A friend of mine is staying. She has just come out of the vilest relationship the world has ever known with a horribly abusive creep who has dominated her life for years in the most negative imaginable way. Yesterday she and I made steak and kidney pie and cheesecake and my daughter beat the egg whites into soft peaks. The fire crackled. It’s easy to think people should just leave...
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Getting to know you…
2nd November 2009 | 2 comments | 2 people like this
I was reading a fantastic piece the other day about dating in big cities. Apparently it’s harder and takes longer than in the countryside because, in order to find the best mate, we have to reject the first 37% of possible mates and then take the best of the rest. If we live in a tiny village the field of potential partners is smaller and the whole process is quicker...
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They’ve all gone mad on my Facebook site
20th October 2009 | 1 comments | 1 people like this
So, my Facebook site has gone wild. It’s properly autumn up here and I make a fire in the kitchen every morning in the misty dark, and sit there all day, my back burning, shuffling between the online British tabloids, Facebook and my very-serious-high-brow-talking-about-economics-a-lot work.
You see, in a vague effort to persuade people ever to read a word I write (pah!) I post my articles and stuff on Facebook. I... -
Please sir, can i have some more?
8th October 2009 | 8 comments | 2 people like this
For a week in 1980 I was a star. I was Oliver in my school production of Oliver and it is impossible to adequately describe how much of a big deal this is when you are ten. Of course, it was only parents and friends in the school auditorium. If anyone filmed it the tape is long lost. Nobody paid for their tickets and if they had paid perhaps they...
