Odds and sods of July

Flattering jeans, a tomato candle, excellent gradual tanner and bastards

I’m writing this in a launderette – remember those? They’re not very different from the last time you stepped inside one, circa 1987. The soap powder dispenses soap into a paper cup rather than a plastic one but it still costs 20p a go and the powder still always just misses the edge and half of it ends up on the floor. The machines are capacious, only have a Boil Wash setting and the woman running the service washes is still nipping out for a fag, wearing her cotton overalls with the buttons at the side. No Nick Kamen stripping down to his undies, though, worst luck.

Sadly not how it looks in my launderette. Credit: express.co.uk

It's too hot to be in a launderette but the washing machine is yet to be plumbed back in after a week and it turns out four people wear a lot of clothes in seven days, and they were hardly building the world from scratch. It does make me think about ye olden days (1980s) when I think we washed our clothes a lot less. Presumably we’re not particularly much filthier or sweatier now? Just fussier, I think. And it’s not even very good for clothes to wash them so much, or ecologically sound. I had a conversation recently with some friends about washing our bodies and this has also got much more fervent in my lifetime. One person said he never showered less than twice a day – and he’s not going down a coal mine in-between each rinse. I know talking about what my parents did is akin to describing the life cycles of pre-fossilisation, but my mother at boarding school had a bath once a week, filled only a few inches deep and six girls shared it before the water was changed.

(Sidenote: My Beautiful Launderette by Hanif Kureishi was one of my most formative coming-of-age novels when I was a teenager, and the film was wonderful, too. I wonder if both still stand up?)

I’m sure you are squeaky clean and smelling delicious, and I do admit that good smells are one of my favourite things. I found a great Tomato Leaf scented candle by Habitat this week, only £6 and in a very pretty ceramic pot, which you can easily repurpose after. Better than £37 for the Daylesford version (which is probably amazing) or even £180 for the Loewe version! INSANE but look at that pot…

Do not buy this. Credit; Selfridges

Also, in the supermarket, I suddenly remembered Dove Visible Glow, which is the best gradual tan. Absolutely no dodgy smell, comes on gradually as promised (though the medium/dark one is quite strong, apply more carefully and wash hands afterwards) and is perfect for prolonging a bit of a natural tan. Only £4.25 and one bottle will easily last you the whole summer and beyond.

It’s too hot to wear them but I found these jeans and they are ridiculously flattering. I have not tested them re survival post-wash but the denim feels pretty sturdy, and you really shouldn’t wash jeans too often anyway. Fit is snug/true to size – barrel leg and the regular leg is quite cropped, I got the long version. Online they look quite sold out but in stores I think is a different story…Just 24 of your precious smackers.

Headless model and awful shoes. Concentrate on the jeans. Credit: Tu

Top tip: now is the time to buy bargainous cashmere and woollen coats because no one can even bear to look at them and when you are this hot it’s hard to believe you will ever feel the cold again, but you will, my friend, you will.

Brora is not exactly bargainous but relatively speaking, their current sale is. Otherwise it’s TK Maxx and Vinted that I’m thinking about.

This is all rather jolly! Let’s get cross.

Moles are bastards.

When I lived in London – I’m born and bred – I loved animals. All of them, precious, wonderful things to be kept alive, no matter how small or annoying (unless, of course, destined to be on my plate, liberally seasoned). I had a Buddhist boyfriend for a few years, so I didn’t even kill mosquitos, which made a holiday in Sri Lanka a very testing time. But I moved to the countryside and I changed my mind. Example number one: Moles. Extraordinarily cunning little creatures that excavate your most pristine lawn.

We got rid of three moles, and thought they’d sent the message down the tunnels to warn the rest off. But, no. They lay in wait for nine days – until precisely one day after my husband returned from a work trip – then attacked with a vengeance.

Bastards.

Wasps are bastards.

We know the entire world’s ecosystem would collapse if bees became extinct. But what would happen if all the wasps died? Nothing, is what. Or maybe, yes, something: we’d be that bit happier. They fly on the attack, they sting you and carry on living, they perform nothing of any aesthetic or garden value (don’t give me crap about aphids).
Bastards.

Matcha Lattes are bastards.

I ordered my first one ever last week for the princely sum of five whole pounds. Revolting.

Matcha. What a bastard.

Truth is a bastard.

This whole Salt Path thing. I didn’t read the book (see Sophie Heawood’s Sophist for a great explanation on why redemptive memoir is always suspect) but the hoo-ha reminded me of something I did for my philosophy degree that I’ve never forgotten. (Bearing in mind I’ve forgotten just about everything else in my degree except that Wittgenstein liked Wagner, and there was a philosopher who slept in an oven for two days and emerged with his theory. Can’t even spell Neitszsche.)

We were set a conundrum called something like The Anna Karenina Problem, and it was along the lines of: Why do we cry at Anna Karenina’s death when we know it’s fiction?

We were asked to imagine meeting a bloke in a pub who says he had a good yarn and tells us the story of Anna Karenina. If he’s a good storyteller, we’d feel very moved by it, possibly even moved to tears. (I have to admit here, though it’s not strictly relevant, that although I cry at most things, I didn’t cry at AK, because I thought her husband seemed quite decent and her lover a nitwit. She was the fool for throwing herself under a train for that numpty. Same with Madame Bovary.)

However, if the man in the pub said, I’ve got a story to tell you about something that happened to my wife, and we believed he was telling us a true story, but then at the end he said: ‘Actually, ha ha, it’s not a true story, it’s one that I made up,’ we’d be furious and lamp him one. In short, if we know it’s a story in advance, it’s fine, we get emotionally engaged. We don’t need to be told it’s true to feel true emotions. And if we think we have been manipulated we’ll be furious. Anyway, this is basically what’s happened with Raynor Winn, isn’t it?

As someone who goes around with a constant running narrative in my head about everything I’m doing (this is a common affliction for those who write columns), I know that writing life truthfully is spectacularly hard to do, and I am a huge admirer of the memoirists who manage to describe real life emotional events in a way that resonates authentically (see: Clover Stroud). I also know that the best novels are written as truthfully as possible. Characters have to behave in a way that reflects the way they have been built and that readers can recognise. If you make a character do something they wouldn’t do because it suits your plot, you risk shattering the trust between writer and reader. Not to mention that novelists crib from real life all the time – it’s hard making stuff up! So much easier to base this or that character on a mash up of your primary school teacher and mum, or every Irish person you’ve ever met, or yourself ten years ago, or…you geddit.

Truth, it’s a bastard.

That’s it my loves, have a great week. Put your feet in a washing up bowl of cold water.

Love,

Jessica xx