Ron's Place, Nothing Special, cystitis

But sadly very little potatoes

Dear reader,

I’m sorry for missing a week of this fledgling newsletter. How quickly my hopes for regularity have been dashed! But maybe not-quite-weekly is a little bit more realistic for me, and for you too, I expect. I’ve had a busy time over the last month or so, which has made me feel quite stressed, and in difficult moments - whether they’re life’s small inconveniences or the massive upheavals - something like a brilliant novel or a spirit lifting album can be just the thing you need. So here are some of the things that have brought moments of joy (or at least distraction!) over the last couple of weeks. Hopefully you’ll find something in them too. No potatoes this week (though if you are chitting, you want to be planting them at the end of this month, or as soon as the chits get to the right sort of size… sorry just a tiny bit of potatoes) but if you’re looking to plant something, look no further than my favourite Youtuber’s latest video. Anway: on to the recs.

Something to listen to

I can’t recommend the immersive improvisational music of The Necks enough. I get away with playing their music sometimes on the show, but not too often as some of their pieces are an hour long. Their most recent EP is just beautiful: it’s called Travel, and is primed for late night listening. Transportive, meditative, relaxing - I would say it’s perfect bath music, if that’s what you’re after. If you’re looking for something a little more energetic but not by much, maybe this song by Swallow will be up your street, or for something even more energetic, this song off a new album by Dr Mystery, which is giving me Kedr Livanskiy meets Drexciya energy.

Or maybe you want a feel good nostalgia hit via Shola Ama (or headsy downtempo cover version if you’re pretentious) / an incredible new album from Chunky which is a contender for the most UK sounding album I’ve ever heard / really good new John Glacier.

Something to read

I just finished Nothing Special by Nicole Flattery, which I also really enjoyed. It’s a fictional account (set in a non fictional world of 1960s New York) of a young teenager with a difficult mother who, in an attempt to escape her mundane and often painful life, finds herself as a typist in Warhol’s Factory. There she’s tasked with transcribing the recordings he and Ondine made in 1965-8, which eventually became a, A Novel. I’ve successfully ignored Andy Warhol and his work for most of my life, so lots of the stuff in the book was new and intriguing to me (it sent me on many Wikipedia dives), and I thought it was wonderfully written. Next up I’m reading a short story collection by Neil Dunn called Up the Junction.

Also, you might like this FT piece about 10 Foot if you missed it, or reading the wonderful news that Ron’s Place was successfully saved! I can’t wait to see what happens with it, and I hope it gets opened to the public. I love houses with art built into them like this - makes me think of the Headington Shark too.

Something to watch

As promised in the last newsletter, I steamrollered my way through Fleishman is in Trouble, watching it basically in two sittings. It’s a sort-of-funny-but-serious miniseries about middle age, divorce and storytelling, adapted from a novel of the same name that came out a few years ago. I really enjoyed it! I thought Lizzy Kaplan was particularly great in it: she plays an ambitious journalist who has moved to the suburbs and had children (in her words, too easily given up all that was exciting to her in search of safety and wholeness) and is beginning to feel the walls closing in on her. There’s a brilliant scene where she’s doing the sort of painful dance exercise class most women have succumbed to at least once in their life while wearing a Ween t shirt, which felt a bit close to home. It’s certainly not groundbreaking television and if you are not a fan of Claire Danes or Jesse Eisenberg it’s definitely not for you, but it hit the spot for me last week.

For something higher brow, we turn to the listeners, who are always sending me Mubi links that I bookmark, then eschew in favour of watching old episodes of Only Connect (which are all on Youtube, by the way). Yesterday someone mentioned they had watched the film Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring, which had made them feel ‘speechless and pensive’ - I looked it up and it does sound beautiful: it’s a Korean film directed by Kim Ki-duk “about a Buddhist Monastery that floats on a lake in a pristine forest. The story is about the life of a Buddhist monk as he passes through the seasons of his life, from childhood to old age.” If that doesn’t pique your interest, perhaps this recommendation from a different listener will: they watched the film La Cérémonie, which is a ‘classic psychological thriller… characteristic of Chabrol’s fascination with macabre murders performed by practical women, this refreshing look at class conflict, starring Sandrine Bonnaire, [La Cérémonie] mounts a full-frontal attack on the French bourgeoisie.’ Sounds good!!

Or… here’s a deeply satisfying 18 minute video of a heroic man unclogging drains / a jaunty estate agent video for an available property (including a potential new business venture for the homeowners) / Alice in Chains at a waterpark / the all time greatest episode of Faking It.

Something to see

I went to see a brilliant exhibition over the weekend called People Make Television. It’s largely showing archival footage from a BBC programme called Open Door, and public access TV channels from different areas of England. Open Door was a programme the BBC ran in the 1970s and 80s, and each episode was a different campaign group or local interest group, and they got given a camera crew, a studio, and air time: ‘This raw, often formally inventive television comprises a vivid archive of social history, and direct testimony of the concerns and struggles of a tumultuous decade.’ It’s so good; you can go there and sit on the sofa and browse through hours of the programme, and most of the episodes have never been seen since airing. I was there for ages (obviously, it was very comfy and I love tv) and got to pick a couple of the episodes to watch (one on the Chinese community in Merseyside and one on a cleaners union). Then this young girl reached for the remote, explaining she wanted to watch an episode which featured her godmother. Happily for me, it was the one I was going to put on next, which was called You and I: Living with Cystitis. Turns out her godmother is this incredible woman who made a rousing case for better care and attention for women who had cystitis in the 1970s. The idea of an extended programme on what is a really common bladder infection seemed like it had the potential to be funny, but it was actually quite a harrowing watch: the episode featured various women whose lives had been ruined (!) by cystitis, because at the time women were continually dismissed by doctors who told them to avoid spicy food or that it was psychosomatic. One poor sufferer had had her urethra cauterised and two further operations in an effort to solve it. Anyway - the exhibition is brilliant, and you could spend days there. It’s on until the end of March, and if you’re in London I really recommend making an afternoon (or as long as you can!) to go.

Something to eat

I just made an enormous batch of fish pie, and gave some to my mum who was very pleased with it, so if you’re looking for something comforting maybe that’s an idea for you. I won’t suggest a recipe as I think everyone prefers different things in a fish pie (for me, I like carrots and leeks but NOT peas inside the pie), but it’s an idea. Don’t forget there’s frozen fish pie mix in the frozen isle to make your life easier and cheaper. More comfort food coming in via this enormous NYT mushroom-butternut squash strata recipe, and my favourite apple cake recipe, which if you have a food mixer, is incredibly simple. A note if you do make it, use more than half the mixture on the bottom else the apple falls through to the bottom, and dust the whole thing when it’s finished with icing sugar. I also prefer this cake with brown sugar, as it makes the cake a more wholesome seeming colour, and I feel better about eating it for breakfast. For something lighter and more lunch appropriate, I’ve been making this carrot ragout recipe (or a version of) almost weekly since I saw it on twitter (this link is the tweet which also has helpfully screenshotted the recipe). So cheap and so delicious. Here’s a really good drink to make if you’re looking to make a cocktail at home. I used to drink these all the time when I lived in Germany, out of iced glasses in this bar we liked, but they hit the spot at home too. On my list to make maybe this week are these pesto breakfast biscuits - sorry it’s on Instagram but they look delicious - and on my list to buy is some fancy decaf coffee as I have shunned caffeine on account of dental advice (apparently it might help me clench my jaw less, though I can’t help but feel it won’t do much at all). Listeners recommended me a few different options, regurgitated for you here, here and here - I will enjoy mine in these mugs I made a couple of weeks ago that I was very pleased with!!

Finally, yassified chip:

Holly @hollyshortall

how glam is this chip i just found down the back of the oven ???

That’s all folks! Till next time xxx