Shoes, Books & Cynicism
Kate Stone Matheson
The Wax That Melts Our Wings

I’d say it’s what separates us, not from the beasts, but the bestial. Creating the future, renewing a learned past - these are reasons to strive. Writing for and with love, taking and framing an image, stretching new melodic skins onto old skeletons of song… it’s how we manage to fly. It’s how we stay you and me, not us and them.

The Wax That Melts Our Wings
Shoes, Books & Cynicism
Kate Stone Matheson
The Lady Jellypants Guide to Grace and Poise

Unlike Osk, who seemed to establish his own tactical task force wherever we lived, scooping up neighbourhood feline troublemakers as sidekicks (including the memorable ginger behemoth Watson, with whom he used to scope the street from the safety of the shed roof), Jelly has the intelligence gathering skills of a sponge cake.

The Lady Jellypants Guide to Grace and Poise
Shoes, Books & Cynicism
Kate Stone Matheson
Love Me Tender

Anyway, somewhere in between my 'and then you should've done this' and 'why didn't you say x and y, rather than z', and 'for the love of monkeys and the general public's eyesight, you didn't honestly wear that heinous shirt did you', something he was saying about the dating extravaganza we were picking to pieces finally penetrated my cloud of self-congratulatory cumulo-waffle. 

"Most people don't talk about how dates are progressing as a tender process, do they?" he asked. 

"What?"

"She said I was 'part way through the tender process' and that she was judging me on my submission. I'd like to think there was irony involved, and I think at the time I may have given an admittedly weak "haha, yesssss, quite". Looking back, I'd have to conclude, computer says no on the presence of Fabulon or other aids to achieving crisply pressed linen."

Love Me Tender

Javert

I Saw Something Nasty In The Woodshed

“Mary, you know I hate parties. My idea of hell is a very large party in a cold room where everybody has to play hockey properly.”

— Stella Gibbons, Cold Comfort Farm

One of my favourite books of all time is Stella Gibbons' wonderful Cold Comfort Farm, which follows the adventures of the very determined Flora and her wondrously wild and woolly Starkadder relations on said property.

One of the ways in which Grandmother Starkadder keeps a tight rein on the household (and tight hold of the pursestrings) is by being - well, slightly mad - and her frequent pronouncement that as a gel, she saw 'something NASTY in the woodshed'. Or the cowshed. Or the bikeshed. What this was, or whether there even was a shed, is unimportant. The thing is, she saw it, and by God it was nasty.

After what I saw in my fridge tonight, my heart goes out to old mad Granny Starkadder. Because if what she even imagined she saw was half as nasty as the possible Teenage Mutant Ninja Turkey that had evolved out of a free range chicken breast I was stoopid enough to leave behind while I went away for a few days, then she was right to go totally doolally.

I think it possibly gave Ripley's friend a run for her money. This thing was looking as though it would like to spawn out of my stomach.

So I am eternally grateful to the lovely Christine, who smartly suggested leaving the beast's memory where it belonged - in the outside garbage - and with a lighter heart, and a few battle scars (and a freshly sterile fridge), I trotted off to see Les Misérables.

Where I proceeded to bawl my eyes out at regular intervals.

I am a sucker for musicals. And Tom Hooper's interpretation of this one is an absolute ripsnorter. Redemption, revolution, tubercular prostitutes - how can you go wrong really? Even Russell Crowe brings his game voice - and manages to inject a bit of humanity into old Javert. And as for young Eddie Redmayne - le yum.

So gratitude in a roundabout way, as a scary encounter with my fridge with fangs ended up with me singing Jean Valjean's greatest hits all the way home.

Now I just need to be able to turn the light off tonight.

Last night I didn't even bother.