Back in October, Fiona Apple – whose Fetch the Bolt Cutters, released in April, captured a particular early pandemic mood – was interviewed by Emily Nussbaum for The New Yorker Festival. “I think we women should be marrying our friends,” she told the journalist. “We have sexual freedom! We have dogs! We have fun! We can do whatever we want!” Experiences like these have been…

I cried at the Bells. I didn’t think I was going to, but as Susan Calman counted down to midnight – huge numbers flashing on screen as shots of Scottish landmarks whizzed by – I felt something rising up through my chest. Some tangled knot of anxiety and depression and grief and exhaustion. Something that felt, as it leaked from my eyes, a little bit…

After eight months at home, and with a long winter looming, I realise how much of my life was based around a) going to work; and b) going to gigs. Work was the thing that got me out of the house every day: the reason I kept active; the reason I was in town for a spot of shopping or to catch up with a…

This post contains PR samples, but all views are my own and unbiased. I always assumed it was better to be spontaneous and carefree. You know? Like those girls in the movies, big-hatted and long-eyelashed, ready to whisk our (floppy-haired, male) protagonist away on the sort of adventure that would open his eyes to a new way of being on a moment’s notice. So it…

This post contains PR samples but all views are my own and unbiased. I’m sure all of us have gotten into things we never expected to during lockdown. Me, for example, I practically have shares in my sister’s BFF’s Scentsy business (in my defence, this is now a three litter box household, what would you rather it smelled like). Oh, and I’ve also started taking…

This post contains PR samples, but all views are my own and unbiased. A couple of months back, as it started to become clear that home working was going to be my future for at least the medium-term, I thought it might be interesting/useful to share my office setup on the blog. And then I got a kitten. I suspected that a kitten would be…

This post contains PR samples, but all views are my own and unbiased. If you’re anything like me, the coronavirus pandemic has changed the way you think about food and the complex web of supply chains needed to get our favourite ingredients into our shops and restaurants and ultimately our bellies (highly recommend the Vittles newsletter for more on this as well as offering a…