Struts and Frets

reddalek

This month I’ve watched a bunch of interesting things, so this post is more like an old-school Abbi review blog:

The most intense Come Dine With Me episode ever: Macbeth, Sandra Voyter, Dorian Gray and Héctor
The most intense Come Dine With Me episode ever: Macbeth, Sandra Voyter, Dorian Gray and Héctor

Macbeth

Specifically, the production starring Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma and staged in a great big warehouse in Canada Water. It’s very evocative. The set is scorched by a burning vehicle, assaulted by the sound of missiles and – at an appropriate moment – the walls are even soaked in blood.

What’s it about?

You probably know this one: Lord Macbeth, an 11th century Scottish general, learns from a trio of prophesying witches that he is destined to become King of Scotland. At the urging of his ruthless wife, he promptly kills the current King Duncan to speed things along, kicking off a bloody cycle of murder and madness.

Hot take: Lady Macbeth is not a nice person
Hot take: Lady Macbeth is not a nice person

Idiocy analysis

I’m very fond of Macbeth as a play (thanks, multiple English teachers!) but Macbeth the character is unforgivably stupid. He should be the only character with an ironclad motive not to murder the King, given that he is the only person in the world with supernatural assurances that he will inherit the crown anyway(!) and everytime I watch him yield to Lady Macbeth’s emasculating schtick I am internally screaming for him to grow a brain and/or backbone and just calmly point this out to her. But no. Macbeth is the guy who sees the path of a wildfire inexorably approaching his house and rushes in with a can of petrol to try and commit insurance fraud.

Who did you see it with?

Kira, who suggested we get tickets last year! Hat-tip to Annie who recommended an excellent Mexican spot in Surrey Quays to grab beforehand.

Have you changed your mind about this play since childhood?

The witches on trial (via DALL·E 2)
The witches on trial (via DALL·E 2)

No. In fact, in school I wrote a defence lawyer’s speech on behalf of the three witches arguing that they “have not murdered, or even requested or suggested murder” but “simply predicted a chain of events which can be interpreted in many different ways”.

I added that it was “of course, regrettable, that Macbeth turned to murder” but noted that – in their second encounter, when Macbeth comes back to the witches looking for more predictions – “the witches had every right to mislead a murderer, if the intention was to lead to his downfall, and if it was in the public good. They simply aided Macduff in his fight, in an unorthodox way”. Honestly, I’m not even sure I was asked to write this. I just remember feeling aggrieved on behalf of the weird sisters.


Timecrimes

A low-budget 2007 Spanish sci-fi thriller film (originally Los cronocrímenes).

Watch closely!
Watch closely!

What’s it about?

Through his binoculars, middle-aged Héctor spots a woman undressing in the forest opposite his home. Intrigued, he goes off to investigate and accidentally stumbles into a casual time-travel loop with deadly consequences.

Idiocy analysis

My steadily growing impatience with time travellers who don't read the manual
My steadily growing impatience with time travellers who don’t read the manual

Héctor, much like Macbeth, is not a smart man. If we tastefully set aside the question of why he chooses to sit on a deckchair in his back garden staring at some secluded woodland through binoculars (everyone needs a hobby, I guess) the main problem with Héctor is that he has clearly never watched a single time-travel film in his life. Not even Back to the Future.

As a result he is unforgivably slow to understand the basic concepts, even when another character draws him a Time Travel for Dummies diagram in marker pen, and goes out of his way to alienate everyone he meets. The only saving grace is that he does eventually get the hang of things, even by that point he has blood on his hands. More of a bumbling idiot than a mad plotter.

Who did you see it with?

Nobody, although since Katie recommended it (as a sequel to fellow low-budget time travel thriller Primer) she got my real-time reaction.


Anatomy of a Fall

Justine Triet’s Oscar-winning French film (Anatomie d’une chute), which you should definitely watch if you haven’t already because the more people to swap theories with the better.

What’s it about?

Anatomy of a Fall.
Anatomy of a Fall

Superficially, a courtroom drama about whether Sandra Voyter, a successful author, murdered her husband in their French chalet while their son, Daniel, was out walking the dog through the snow. But in fact (spoiler alert!) it’s impossible to know, and so the film is really about our own perceptions of two people in a marriage, culture and language (she is German, he is French, they speak English) and the stories we all construct to make sense of a consuming, fragmentary world.

But… honestly, I’m not ashamed to admit that it’s also just a lot of fun to watch as a whodunnit and then spend hours arguing about it with other people.

Idiocy analysis

Everyone here is too smart and thoughtful for any idiocy, although the French legal system does come across as bafflingly obtuse. To my mind, it’s extremely clear that – even if you’re sure she killed him! – the evidence is all circumstantial supposition and never even approaches ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ territory, so I’m not sure what they’re even doing in a courtroom. I’m sure this reflects an overly-romantic image of English prosecutors, though. In reality Sandra would probably still be stuck in a backlog and waiting for the case to reach trial.

Who did you see it with?

My mum, after a crab-laden dinner at Big Cheeks Thai, on the night she stayed over. We had to pause several times for discussion breaks.


The Picture of Dorian Gray

Dorian Gray
Dorian Gray

Sarah Snook’s amazing one-woman performance in which she plays all of the characters from Oscar Wilde’s 1891 novel.

What’s it about?

Dorian Gray is young and beautiful. He falls under the corrupting influence of Lord Henry Wotton, a cynic who advocates hedonism with a string of one-liners which would do extremely well on any social media platform today. Frustrated that he will grow old while his portrait will stay youthful, Dorian sells his soul in return for keeping his good looks forever and allowing the portrait to age in his place. It doesn’t go well.

Idiocy analysis

Well, Dorian himself is obviously not going to win any prizes for wisdom, but that’s the whole point: he’s a naïve innocent who quickly becomes selfish and cruel. But the real idiots are surely the story’s Victorian critics, who first tried to censor the homoeroticism (not very successfully) and later attacked Wilde, including in court, for the book’s indecency and immorality. Guys: please try to follow along to the end. The hedonist ends up dead.

Who did you see it with?

Kira, although this time it was my idea. And yes, of course I wouldn’t have gone had it not been for Succession, but Sarah Snook delivered with huge energy going into such a range of characters. The staging also really leaned into a knowing commentary on modern life, especially with Snook’s livestreamed selfie videos, which I thought served the story well.


At times, Matthew seemed to be collecting evidence in case I tried to murder him
At times, Matthew seemed to be collecting evidence in case I tried to murder him

Other highlights of March include: another wonderful evening with Karol at Tayyabs in Whitechapel, a truly delicious date night with Randi at a fancy tapas place (still thinking about that black squid rice), the unbearable tension of the nail-biting Lewisham mayoral by-election and a gentle evening of Carcassonne with our neighbour Adrienn.

I also administered lots and lots of ‘Life in the UK’ practice tests for Randi in the run-up to her exam – final spoiler: she passed! 🥳 – which occasionally veered into such pure pub quiz territory (e.g. where was Handel born?) that we couldn’t stop laughing at the absurdity. Finally, on Friday night I took Matthew on a spooky night tour of the Waterlink Way, followed by dinner and music at the Honor Oak pub. The next morning I headed up to West Hampstead to hang out with Josh and Cora and to return Cora’s cat, which I accidentally stole last time I saw them!

Time for the traditional rubbish first-few-months-of-the-year blog! You know the one: where most fun activities still take place indoors, sans Christmas decorations or scenic summer vistas, so instead I need to keep thinking of different synonyms for “I had a drink with…” to keep the blog going. Oh well. You can follow Tash and Cormac on Polarsteps instead, if you prefer.

Drink #1 (in this narrative, at least) was actually a mimosa with Kira over bunch several weeks back in Dulwich Village. Drinks #2, #3 , #4 etc. were a few days later on a wonderful night out with Matthew, who I hadn’t seen for years and years! In return for my willingness to hop over to Ladbroke Grove on a school night, he crafted an excellent local pub crawl for the two of us, during which we caught up on the last decade or so, apologised unnecessarily for weird things we both said when we were 17, rehashed our mind/body debate from the Brent-Eton summer school (I’m still right) and started a whole new battle on the merits of the Central line. It was a blast.

Me and Matthew!
Me and Matthew!

Later that week I also hung out with current/former colleagues Klaudia and “three schwas in my name” Vanessa, which – as you can tell – descended unexpectedly into some really quite delightfully nerdy linguistics chat. Usually you can immediately spot people’s eyes scanning for the exit when I say something like “Guess what I learnt from a YouTube video on rhotics!” but this was the perfect group for such matters.

Randi missed all of this, just like she missed my spontaneous outing to Morden and Morden Park (the perfect place to stride across a muddy field while listening to a hypnotic 13 minute-long BBC News countdown theme remix, since you ask), but she was back in London the week afterwards in time for Caroline and Josh’s dinner party. Caroline and Josh are basically the only couple we have left who are still committed to the classic ‘invite a bunch of people who don’t know each other’ dinner party concept, and it’s great to be able to freeride off their hard work by meeting a bunch of interesting new people all at once. (Including someone who worked for my aunt, which briefly made me nervous.) Oh, and the food was delicious too!

A weekend later we finally hosted Alix, Adam and Austin at our flat – they have been very slow and nervous about venturing south of the river – and devoured Randi’s incredible smoked salmon frittata before enjoying a walk up Blythe Hill. Many thanks to Austin for being a legitimate reason to see the cool playground up there! My mum has also stayed with us a couple of times recently (despite fierce competition from a plethora of London options) and we all had a lovely evening together in our local fancy Italian, Nonna Maria, where my mum was delighted that her Italian is still good enough to pick up rude words on the menu.

Pointing forward to the obligatory Scottish portion of this blog post
Pointing forward to the obligatory Scottish portion of this blog post
After a shaky night before, Katie recovers her powers of Dominion
After a shaky night before, Katie recovers her powers of Dominion

Last weekend I joined Randi in Scotland for an extended weekend trip to celebrate Kirsty’s birthday! As you’d expect we celebrated in the traditional way: canvassing sessions, fondue, a Randi-made chocolate birthday cake, haggis cigars and a three-part Channel 4 documentary on the 1984 miners’ strike. (Clarification: haggis cigars consist of haggis in spring rolls, and are not smoked.)

On Sunday I had my usual day off from door knocking for another classic Doctor Who session with Katie and James. After a long break, we decided to return to Tom Baker’s ‘Key to Time’ season with The Androids of Tara, a jaunty low-stakes adventure set in a medieval society which just happens to have electro-swords and androids thrown in. Despite a lacklustre ending this was pretty pacy and fun for most of the story. It probably peaks at the point when the evil Count Grendel’s poor, loyal servant Lamia – a lovestruck peasant who is also the local expert on androids – is mercilessly killed off by a stray shot and completely unlamented. #teamLamia

I’m really not sure when I last saw my American cousins David and Ginger – quite possibly as far back as 2016! – so it was very exciting to see them again on Monday night after we had trained back to London. Randi and I notched up another Ottolenghi restaurant with a meal at NOPI (such exceptionally tasty food) before taking them to A Mirror: an extremely funny play-within-a-play political thriller set in a heavy censored, totalitarianish state. I loved it, partly because it was just so enjoyable to watch, but also because it had a more sophisticated take on politics and art than your bog standard 1984-inspired dystopia. (Side-note: I recognised one of the actors – the electrifyingly charismatic Jude Akuwudike – from last year’s Immersive 1984, where he played a very similar role. My conclusion is that Akuwudike is not, in fact, an actor but rather a genuine totalitarian bureaucrat who has simply slipped through the gaps between worlds.)

I feel a little bad about all of this because all of the preceding paragraph was originally Alix and Adam’s plan for themselves. Unfortunately for them, work got in the way and so Randi and I were the happy beneficiaries of their beautifully-crafted evening. Sorry! On Thursday night we also took advantage of our Chicago friend Karol being in the UK for a wedding, so were lucky enough to get to host him in London for a night and fill ourselves to bursting at The Mayflower pub in Rotherhithe. Oh, and talking of weddings: congrats to Jess and Adam, whose beautiful ceremony was admired by all the Selfs on the livestream today! I hope Katie packed her speech with enough Scottish-themed jokes.

Finally: Portugal! Last weekend, Randi and I popped down to Lisbon to join Mike and Melissa for our first trip of 2024, and – given the comparative warmth and sunshine compared to London – treated it as a summer holiday even though all of the Portuguese locals were walking around in heavy duty coats as if it was cold. (Seriously, the receptionist at our hotel was genuinely concerned about my welfare in a short-sleeved shirt and asked her colleague to check up on my welfare/sanity the next day.) From our perspective it was lovely and sunny!

Just look at that blue sky
Just look at that blue sky

After arriving on Friday night – and admiring the efficient metro ride from the airport, naturally – we spent Saturday morning wandering through Lisbon’s gorgeous cobbled streets in the vague direction of the Alfama district. In the same vein as London’s double-decker buses, Lisbon is clearly very proud of their little yellow trams which manage to weave up and down the narrow hilly streets. Later, after coming close to passing ourselves off as Mike and Melissa to their Airbnb host, the four of us took a less magical (but still very good) modern tram to a fancy restaurant for dinner, at which I very much enjoyed my ‘private pie’ in addition to duck rice.

As an aside, we also became very fond of the ‘intern’ working at our hotel whose duties included staffing the little rooftop bar. He didn’t seem entirely comfortable with his duties – most notably asking Melissa if she wouldn’t mind opening our bottle of wine as he didn’t know how to – but he won us over with his apologetic charm and constant refrain about his difficult internship. Wisely, he was not trusted to run the hotel’s breakfast.

Welcome to Portugal!
Welcome to Portugal!
Together at the Rossio
Together at the Rossio
"Hello new blog cover!" - Katie
“Hello new blog cover!” – Katie
Lisbon essential #1: my very first pastel de nata!
Lisbon essential #1: my very first pastel de nata!
Lisbon essential #2: Mike and the adorable tram
Lisbon essential #2: Mike and the adorable tram
Melissa, Mike and Randi on a less adorable tram on Saturday night
Melissa, Mike and Randi on a less adorable tram on Saturday night
Up at the Moorish Castle in Sintra
Up at the Moorish Castle in Sintra

The next day we took the train to Sintra, a town about 45 minutes away which is a major tourist destination thanks to multiple palaces and natural parks. We were there for the hike to the Moorish Castle, originally built in the 8th and 9th centuries and later taken by the Christians during the Reconquista. It felt like the absolute perfect time to be there – great weather for exploring and beautiful views, but not so hot or crowded that it was ever uncomfortable. At one point someone behind me did complain about the lack of a railing, but I wasn’t brave enough to suggest that she take this oversight up with the Moors.

All together on our €5 train ride
All together on our €5 train ride
Mike & Melissa bought a spacious apartment in NYC
Mike & Melissa bought a spacious apartment in NYC
Randi bought a tower
Randi bought a tower
The quite magnificent castle
The quite magnificent castle
The quite magnificent views from the castle
The quite magnificent views from the castle
I thought this was very silly so had to do it
I thought this was very silly so had to do it

Rather than heading straight home at the end of the weekend I had already had the glorious revelation that a fair few of my colleagues at work are based in Porto, so it was of course totally legitimate for me to take the train up there on Sunday night and invite myself over to work from their office for a couple of days. Huge thanks to the team there for hosting me and generously acceding to my eccentric requests, including asking Vitor to record the Portuguese pronunciation of the letter R at the beginning of words to confirm Randi’s mind-blowing discovery of how different it is to the Spanish R. (R is a tricky letter anyway. Honestly it’s best to avoid pronouncing it at all where you can.)

One last picturesque Lisbon street shot
One last picturesque Lisbon street shot
Behind-the-scenes of silly public selfie machine
Behind-the-scenes of silly public selfie machine
The "we've committed to this style and we're really going for it" architecture of Lisbon's Oriente station
The “we’ve committed to this style and we’re really going for it” architecture of Lisbon’s Oriente station

My journey to Porto was incredibly smooth – both the long-distance train and the impressive Porto Metro once I arrived – and I was only momentarily thrown by the weirdness of the ticket inspection on the Portuguese railways whereby they aren’t interested in seeing your ticket at all, but rather your ID (in my case, my passport!) under which you booked. It’s a little odd that you can travel across the entire Schengen area from country to country without any border checks, and yet it’s harder to be incognito on a train from Lisbon to Porto!

I’m hesitant to say too much about Porto because I was just working from an office most of the time, and so I had to demur when eager Porto residents asked me to compare it to the capital. I was very excited when the team agreed to take me to have Francesinha for lunch: a “strange cheesy bread cheesy cheese thing” which Steve at work issued as a warning but I took as an absolute must-do. A dish native to Porto, the name means ‘little French woman’ for some reason and is clearly a hangover cure, served with chips and an optional egg. It was delicious.

A hangover cure without hangovers with Renato, Andre, Paulo and Vitor
A hangover cure without hangovers with Renato, Andre, Paulo and Vitor

On Monday night my teammates Vitor and Paulo kindly took me down to the historic centre so I could get a little flavour of the historical tourist bits, although being authentic residents they didn’t actually know the names of the famous buildings we walked past. I did love the amazing walls of the central train station, but was not as much of a fan of the scary Dom Luís I Bridge which I refused to venture very far along. (Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fine bridge, but I was maybe starting to identify with the woman back in Sintra who wanted more railings.) After surviving the bridge we did the obvious thing while in Porto and shared some glasses of port together, which I wasn’t sure about but very much enjoyed. Perhaps this will finally move along the bottle of port which has been sitting in our kitchen ever since Beth and Stewart lifted it from a hotel room in Cambridge.

"The world's fanciest McDonald's"
“The world’s fanciest McDonald’s”
My fleeting glimpse of Porto by night
My fleeting glimpse of Porto by night

My final reflection on Portugal – other than that I loved it, and would definitely go back – is that I quickly formed a deep affection for the café owner on the route between my hotel and the office. Randi had already admired the Portuguese culture of standing together socially at the bar, sharing a morning coffee, and after coming to terms with my need for tea he seemed genuinely concerned that I wanted it ‘tomar’ – to go – in a lonely Anglo way 😉

This isn't Portugal - this is Brockley Brewery!
This isn’t Portugal – this is Brockley Brewery!

But wait- we’re nearly a month into 2024, so let’s quickly catch-up on pre-Portugal events. Similar to last year, Randi spent New Year with Catherine and AJ in Chicago, while this time I hosted Oliver and Abi at mine for New Year’s Eve along with Sarah and Kat. Kat turns out to be a massive fireworks fan, so after watching the central London display on TV there was a sweet moment when everyone came up to our loft bedroom and took turns standing on the bed and sticking their heads out of our loft windows into the night air to try and catch a glimpse of other fireworks nearby. We also played more Cobra Paw and Bonanza, a bean-themed card game which was delightful.

After a respectful number of bottles had been drunk, and successfully convinced Oliver & Abi to stay overnight before going home in the morning, I spent most of New Year’s Day up in North London with Andy and Bonnie. After a hearty pub lunch, we enjoyed a muddy walk through Highgate Wood during which I was genuinely shocked by Bonnie’s ability to instantly recall intricate plot points from any Agatha Christie novel. Definitely a Mastermind specialist subject.

Other January adventures included a wonderful Saturday in West Hamstead with Josh, Anna and Cora (after which I accidentally stole Cora’s cat – sorry!) and the successful execution of a paid deep-clean for our flat. I mention the latter because, embarrassingly, it took so much longer than expected that the company ended up calling me with a tone of “we haven’t heard from our cleaner in hours… is she alive?”. But she did an amazing job, and our taps were so shiny that I sent Randi a photo of my face reflected in them before ordering a pizza, eating it straight from the pizza box while sitting on the floor of the living room (too terrified of touching any surfaces in case I ruined them) and then going straight to bed so that Randi could still enjoy the results of the deep clean when she arrived back the next day.

Randi and I also had an impromptu walking day one weekend through Wandsworth Common and on to Battersea Park, finishing at the reopened Battersea Power Station luxury shopping centre thing (I expect they don’t like it being called a ‘shopping centre’) which I hadn’t seen inside yet. It is very cool, although we just admired the architecture and didn’t actually buy anything. We also had a very fun pasta-based outing with Reema and Esther and have also officially started watching our next series – The Bear – so I look forward to telling you what I think about it in 2028 when we finish. (I joke: we’ll try to move faster, since Randi has a temporary Disney+ subscription just for this.)

Throwback to New Year's Eve Cobra Paw
Throwback to New Year’s Eve Cobra Paw

Annual Roundup

Our most glamorous trip to Scotland by far
Our most glamorous trip to Scotland by far

This was an interesting year! Randi’s life changed more dramatically than mine, with two new jobs and a hell of a lot of commuting between London and Scotland. But I was lucky enough to share in some of the best parts too, with plenty of train travel of my own (plus one overnight coach), some invigorating door-knocking sessions and the privilege of getting to spend time with Kirsty and Roger in their home.

Back in London, I was so delighted to be able to welcome Kira to the UK after years of working together remotely. It was a really, really good year for theatre, especially after Randi and I fell in love with the Bush, and together Katie and Randi successfully conquered the London Marathon. In other family news: Tash and Cormac moved into a flat of their own (and made it beautiful), Alix and Adam threw a wonderful wedding and – in the end of an era – my mum packed up and left London for the coast.

Travels

Honeymoon relaxation
Honeymoon relaxation
  • Edinburgh (January, July, August, November & December) – It seems silly to list out every time I travelled up to Scotland, but suffice to say I spent a lot less time there than Randi did this year!
  • Colombia (February) – Our honeymoon! A perfect blend of city, jungle, river and beach.
  • Oswestry (March) – A walk through crunchy snow, a chance to see Lucy again after many years and the perfect B&B breakfast.
Easter in Bristol
Easter in Bristol
  • Amsterdam (March & November) – Not one but two work trips to Amsterdam this year: March (the one with Conchita Wurst) and November (the one with Eddy’s DJ set… and lots of chips).
  • Bristol (April) – A wonderful Easter weekend with Randi and Kira filled with hills, beautiful houses and chocolate.
  • Norfolk & Suffolk (April) – A weekend trip to see two sets of cousins, starting in Diss (shout-out to my hairdresser there) and culminating in good old Bury St. Edmunds.
Hello from Stockholm!
Hello from Stockholm!
  • Yorkshire (April) – A clifftop stay in the famous ‘Puffin Palace’ with our parents.
  • Sweden (June) – An incredible holiday with Catherine, AJ and Isabel, split between Stockholm and the island of Gotland. Among my many happy memories are the daily cardamon buns and being repeatedly attacked by a giant fly swat.
  • Fort William (July) – The destination for my extravagant birthday present from Randi: a night on the magical Caledonian Sleeper.
From Jill's, although it really speaks to the year as a whole :)
From Jill’s, although it really speaks to the year as a whole 🙂
  • Chicago, Wisconsin & Minnesota (August) – Ah, to see summer in Chicago again! Plus Cat and Brian in Madison, Jill and Nate in Minneapolis and a return to the Minnesota State Fair – this trip was pretty great.
  • Glasgow (October) – I would definitely come back to Glasgow for longer than a day trip, but for now I’m delighted that I can tick off the charming Glasgow Subway from my public transport bucket list.
  • Exmouth (December) – A family Christmas by the sea!

Live!

  • ABBA Voyage (March) – The ABBA extravaganza which splits your brain in two: one half for the Dancing Queen vibes, the other half to ponder obsessively about how it all works.
  • Sleepova (March) – Our first show at the Bush Theatre! And, in some ways, it will probably always be my favourite, because this joyous celebration of teenage friendship was the spark which first inspired us to keep coming back for more.
  • August in England (May) – Lenny Henry’s powerful tour de force as August Henderson: one man’s life story from young Windrush arrival to love, loss and Home Office disaster.
  • Invisible (May) – Electric one-man show from Nikhil Parmar, slipping slowly from laugh-out-loud slapstick to something darker and more violent.
  • Patriots (June) – Peter Morgan’s play about Boris Berezovsky and the rise (and sometimes fall) of the Russian oligarchs after the collapse of the Soviet Union. One of the highlights of the year (in a year packed with highlights!) and filled with astonishing moments which all really happened.
  • A Playlist for the Revolution (June) – Love story set between England and Hong Kong, exploring themes of idealism and national identity with the aid of a really good soundtrack.
  • Enquiry Concerning Hereafter (August) – Fringe Show #1. David Hume, Adam Smith and Death have a nice chat, a.k.a. my ideal afternoon.
  • Shamilton (August) – Fringe Show #2. See last year’s entry. A glorious improvised musical on Nicola Sturgeon Kanye West & Taylor Swift!
  • What The Veck? Songs in the Key of Strife! (August) – Fringe Show #3, i.e. the lower-key one at the end of the night featuring a bloke and his guitar. Notable for being the show in which Randi almost punched a fellow audience member to defend James’s honour.
  • The Pillowman (August) – Brutally dark comedy about an arrogant writer’s macabre fantasy stories and an all-too-real police interrogation of her and her brother. Absolutely loved this, and laughed the whole way through.
  • Improv Shakespeare (September) – Finally back in Chicago at the right place and time! A fine tale of jousting suitors in Sarah’s Wedding.
  • Guys & Dolls (September) – A night of somewhat-immersive theatre with my mum: the classic musical, but performed amongst a roaming crowd of spectators on a very New York stage.
  • Unbelievable (September) – Mixed bag of magic and illusions performed by a troupe of actors trained by Derren Brown. But not including Derren Brown. Derren Brown does not appear in this show. Do not buy tickets expecting to see Derren Brown. You will not see Derren Brown. Please confirm your acceptance of these terms.
  • Red Pitch (September) – Three teenage boys from South London are about to go their own separate ways after a childhood spent on the pitch together. Beautiful acting combined with incredible stamina.
  • Immersive 1984 (October) – “Oh my god Randi please just be quiet and select the obviously-incorrect answer on the Ministry of Truth’s examination paper… or you’re going to get us both killed!”
  • Elephant (October) – Anoushka Lucas combines all possible human talents into one stunning one-woman play about the legacy of empire.
  • The Gunpowder Plot (October) – A virtual reality romp underneath the Tower of London which is surprisingly keen on trying to engender a complex moral discussion about terrorism between strangers. This did not really land with our group of mostly kids, but we had lots of fun wearing conspiratorial hoods, running away from danger and trying to blow stuff up.

On Screen

A non-exhaustive list…!

  • His Dark Materials – I binged on the third and final season of Philip Pullman’s classic trilogy in January while Randi was in the States. Really great to see the books done justice.
  • Everything Everywhere All At Once – Ah, just occasionally Randi and I manage to keep in touch with the zeitgeist. This worthy Oscar-winner was totally unexpected and proof that you don’t need a massive budget to make a great film.
  • Elena of Avalor – As recommended by Lena (aged 3). High-concept political science drama in which the boundaries of the dignified vs. efficient parts of Avalor’s constitution are continually redrawn and renegotiated around the personhood of the Crown Princess.
  • Eurovision – We finally managed to introduce Beth and Stewart to Eurovision after all these years. A decent selection of potential winners outdone by Sweden’s formulaic re-entry.
  • Asteroid City – A treat for the eyes, but more ‘heh’ than rofl.
  • Succession – We completed it! A superb series which built to a perfect finale, and I was thinking about these characters for weeks afterwards.
  • Oppenheimer – Saw this with Randi in Fort William’s really lovely local cinema and we both very much enjoyed it. Not a great film for the reputation of President Truman, though.
  • Scotland’s Home of the Year – “Hello, I’m the judge who’s also an architect, and to prove my hardcore architectural credentials I’m going to give 10/10 to any home which resembles the cold brutalism of a Soviet prison camp.”
  • Groundhog Day – Intensely enjoyable 90s classic which I’d missed until now. Also disturbingly sexist, so please enjoy it for its time but don’t elect it to high office or anything.
  • Sixteen – Lovely Channel 4 series about GCSE students during Covid which we binged with Catherine and AJ as part of our British documentary watching tradition. Felt very warm and familiar, minus the Covid.
  • Barbie – We delaying seeing this until we were back in the US with Catherine and AJ so that we could all go together, and it was worth the wait. I am 100% convinced that Mattel will learn all the wrong lessons from its success, though.
  • Doctor Who – After a long wait, the final months of 2023 reintroduced us to Russel T Davies’s Doctor Who with four fantastic specials and the promise of a lot more to come in the next few years. I’m beyond excited about all of this. Plus we got Doctor Who: Unleashed as a behind-the-scenes throwback to the Confidential days of old – which I’ve really enjoyed watching with Randi – and a whole Whoniverse of material to enjoy. And all of this didn’t stop me, Katie (and sometimes James!) from slowly making our way through more Classic Who in 2023 either. 2024, bring it on!
  • The Muppet’s Christmas Carol – Our inconsistently-applied Christmas tradition, originally stolen from Cat, which this year included Kira, Katie and James as first time watchers on Christmas Eve. Will always be a classic.
  • Primer – Intriguing low-budget sci-fi film from 2004, recommended by Katie, about two engineers who accidentally invent a device which permits short trips back in time. Notable for its realism and technical dialogue. I really enjoyed this, even though I got a little lost towards the end, and would like to thank whoever added the explanatory diagram to Wikipedia.
  • Nine to Five – A couple of nights ago, Randi and I were about to go to bed but then randomly stumbled across the opening credits to this 1980 comedy on BBC Four… and then stayed to the end. It’s kinda amazing? Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin (i.e. Debbie from The West Wing) and Dolly Parton conspire to take revenge on their “sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot” boss. It’s part surrealist comedy, part feminist labour relations satire, and Randi keeps humming the song.
  • Russell T Davies: The Doctor and Me – Alan Yentob documentary on one of the true heroes of modern British culture.

That Moment When…

...I wished ChatGPT had existed when I first created Furtive Liaison
…I wished ChatGPT had existed when I first created Furtive Liaison
  • …Randi and I have a very productive conversation on the beach about the upcoming year, all thanks to the peace, calm and (to be honest) rather limited diversions available on Isla Grande
  • …during the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph, the BBC cut briefly to some sombre-looking wild swimmers, and things escalate quickly
  • …my all-time high score of 260 on the Big Ben word game is utterly smashed by Randi
  • …this argument I’m having about guns is truly bananas
  • …we all forget that Covid still exists even as the four of us all get sick, one-by-one
  • …I’m in a lift with someone I recognise, although he’s not widely famous, and he’s looking down at his shoes, and I really want to blurt out “I know who you are!” but it’s totally not appropriate
  • …when clearing out my old childhood bedroom before mum moved, I find this example of public confession literature on the first page of my primary school RE exercise book
'Responsibility'
‘Responsibility’
...yet again, there's a vote for a new Speaker
…yet again, there’s a vote for a new Speaker

I hope everyone has a very happy new year!

Chatting with Sharon at Alix & Adam's post-wedding brunch in October
Chatting with Sharon at Alix & Adam’s post-wedding brunch in October

Once again, it’s time for my annual reading review, i.e. the moment when declining to rate any books on Goodreads is finally rectified. It hasn’t been a peak reading year, to be honest, with a lowly total book count of 28 (my lowest since 2014) and a failure to find that one standout story which really whisked me off my feet and took me somewhere dazzlingly, thrillingly new. Nevertheless there are a lot of good, solid entries below, with lots to recommend if you’re making your own plans for 2024.

Fiction

I’m usually pretty good at picking my first book of the year, but ended up with very mixed feelings about Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall. It’s definitely a novel I’m ‘supposed’ to like, but it took me over a month to slog through it and with such a large cast of characters it’s irritating to deal with the unnecessarily added complexity of having to puzzle out exactly who is speaking (which is often unclear). That said, it’s also the kind of book which improves on reflection and, after reading some helpful reviews, I came to appreciate this portrayal of Thomas Cromwell – a self-made, wry, pragmatic rationalist – as some kind of anachronistic emissary from modernity. Mantel is also very good at conveying the human drama of Tudor politics, particularly in the scenes with a humiliated, angry young Mary.

One of my honeymoon reads was Death’s End, the final entry in Liu Cixin’s Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy. It’s a brilliant series, of immense scope, and the third book continues to explore complex science fiction concepts over many future eras of humanity, including a memorable section featuring three densely metaphorical fairy tales which continue to haunt me. In fact, there’s an inescapable melancholy to a lot of this trilogy – difficult to avoid when you’re dealing with the end of the universe, I guess – so if you’re looking for an uplifting location to read the very last page, I can heartily recommend (from personal experience) that a heated pool overlooking the magnificent forests of Guatapé, Colombia will do the trick.

Another (quite different) honeymoon read was The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by Taylor Jenkins Reid. This is a highly enjoyable, fast-moving page turner with an intriguing set-up: former Hollywood star Evelyn Hugo, now a recluse, handpicks a young, inexperienced journalist to spill her life’s secrets to. But why her? Spoiler: there is a shock ending, which is all part of the fun even though it feels awfully contrived. There is no shock ending to Woman at Point Zero – a very different kind of book – first published in Arabic by Nawal El Saadawi in 1977. But it’s written with bracing clarity and can be read as a gripping page turner of its own, even though you know from the very beginning exactly what will happen to Firdaus. Based on a real person, she is female prisoner condemned to death for murdering her pimp who nevertheless retains her own fierce dignity as she tells her life story.

I was not overly impressed by The Committed, a sequel to Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer. A thriller is supposed to have some thrills, but everything is weighed down by a lot of laboured intellectualism and compared to the original book it left me cold. On the contrary, A Visit from the Goon Squad is the Jennifer Egan book which I should have read last year when I plumped for Manhattan Beach, and I’m grateful for Todd and Carolyn’s quizzical raised eyebrows in convincing me to go back and try this one out instead. I enjoyed this a lot more, even though the punk rock / music industry setting was not initially appealing, and I appreciated the unusual interlinked short-story structure to the book once I understood that’s what was happening and I wasn’t just struggling to keep track. Also, as soon as I finished I immediately thought that it would be really useful if somebody had made a diagram of how all of the characters and storylines intersect, so kudos to the many people on the internet (here’s a good one!) who have of course already done that.

Confession time: I don’t think I will ever be the right target audience for Lauren Groff’s Matrix. I did try! In fact, the omens were good when I started on the intriguing first chapter, curled up on a comfy chair in the top floor of Chicago’s Open Books bookshop. What’s this? Lauren Groff’s new book is set in a 12th century English abbey? But try as I might, this study of intense religious mysticism and slow-burning sexuality was never going to make my list of favourites, even though I can recognise it as objectively good writing. To embarrass myself further, I even paused reading it halfway through to binge on the newly-released Comoran Strike instalment, which is a bit like sneaking out of the back of a high-end Chicago restaurant to go eat at Chick-fil-A. But, man, it was good.

The Running Grave is easily categorised as ‘the one where Robin infiltrates a cult’, which (a) keeps the tension very high throughout, (b) is a good strategy to plausibly prolong the Strike/Robin relationship, (c) is occasionally tiring and you wish she would just get out sooner. Less so than the last book, but I still found the ending a bit of a problem: everything seems to collapse and resolve itself more quickly than you’d expect, and there’s no big showdown with the cult leaders. Of course, all of this is quickly forgotten with the big cliffhanger ending… which I do fear will be easily glossed over again at the start of the next book. We shall see.

I do understand and respect those who no longer wish to read JK Rowling. For me, the most extreme example this year where the personal failings of the author really intruded onto the work itself came when reading Isaac Asimov’s The End of Eternity. Asimov’s sexism shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who’s read his books (although the extent of his personal criminality is awful) but in this story his refusal/inability to write a realistic female character in Noÿs Lambent really undermines a promising sci-fi concept. Anyway, this book is the story of the ‘Eternals’, an elite, arrogant organisation who meddle in humanity’s timeline and, intriguing, also facilitate commercial trading between different eras. So, think of the ‘Observers’ from Fringe with a little dash of the WTO thrown in for good measure. Despite the character flaws, I appreciated the Cold War-era vibes (this is definitely a critique of central planning, amongst other things) and the philosophical charge of the book’s final line.

For a more sophisticated imaginings about politics under the guise of science-fiction, try Ursula Le Guin’s The Dispossessed from 1974. Anarres is a moon orbiting the planet Urras. Resources are scarce, but society is successfully organised under an anarcho-syndicalist model after being founded by a one-off set of idealistic colonists from Urras several centuries earlier. I do believe there is a strong case for authors to write utopias – not just the more common dystopias – and this classic of the genre is a very credible attempt to explore a somewhat-believable anarchist utopia. Guin does a superb job at balancing a genuinely attractive form of communism with the reality of how utterly crushing it would likely feel if you were not brought up in it, and I think the interwoven nature of politics and culture is the real point of this book. The relationship between Anarres and Urras also made sense to me, and the language and worldbuilding is top class: the ‘dispossessed’ of the book’s title are poor but also reject possessions, unlike the ‘propertarians’ of Urras. The plot itself, as so often in these types of books, is less compelling.

In contrast to Le Guin, Celeste Ng’s Our Missing Hearts is a much more ‘standard dystopia’ and I found it a little rote. Don’t get me wrong, it’s well-written and a perfectly compelling read, but the implementation of PACT (Preserving of American Cultures and Traditions Act) felt cartoonish and contrary to everything we know about how American society actually works. In this novel, the US is rapidly transformed (by ‘The Crisis’) into a deeply repressive, authoritarian state with virulent racism directed against Asians. My issue is obviously not that there isn’t a lot of racism against Asian Americans already (of course there is), nor that a society couldn’t transform at frightening speed (of course it could) and, of course, everybody knows the American state has form when it comes to enforcing racism through terror. I just didn’t buy this telling of it. American society is so noisy and fragmented that a clean, wholesale transition to this New Order is too unsubtle, too straightforward, and not hypocritical enough. That said, and maybe this sounds contradictory, I did really enjoy reading it. So please read it too, and then we’ll see if I’m the only one who feels this way.

The Man Who Died Twice – the second in Richard Osman’s Thursday Murder Club series – is a fun read, but I do think his instinct that all his characters are so arch and ironic all the time ends up undermining the individual characterisations. It also removes jeopardy when everyone manages to be suave and unruffled in the face of all threats. Well, I say that, but most characters remained pretty unruffled in Agatha Christie’s cracking The Body in the Library and it was still excellent. I also chuckled to myself at her insertion of a character praising Agatha Christie as one of the great crime authors of the day… so maybe I should just fully accept the Thursday Murder Club books on the the same cosy terms.

Sally Rooney’s Conversations with Friends was very enjoyable. To steal brazenly from another review, her characters “zig where you’d expect them to zag” and I found that to be very true: there’s something about her writing which sends these relatable human moments into unexpected directions. This year I also went back to Ishiguro (but I really am running out now) for An Artist of the Floating World, which is set in post-war Japan and centred on an elderly painter whose former reputation is now tarnished by his actions during the war. This is exactly what you’d expect from Ishiguro and nothing less: unreliable narration and memories mingled with guilt, denial and misdirection about the past.

By challenging all of my skills of emotional repression, I have successfully subsumed any desire to read the third in Patrick Rothfuss’s Kingkiller Chronicles trilogy into a Schrödinger’s box of anticipation: it won’t be there until I look. In that spirt, I enjoyed his yet-another-diversionary novella, The Narrow Road Between Desires, as an evocative ride through a day in the life of Bast. It helped that I hadn’t read the short story of which this is a slightly-longer revamp. Talking of novellas, this year my Rivers of London diet was limited to the new Winter’s Gifts sidequest featuring FBI Special Agent Kimberley Reynolds. This was fun (giant tentacles emerging from the ice!), but let’s be honest and agree that Kimberley is a weird mishmash of American stereotypes which don’t quite come together as a convincing person. Oh, and on New Year’s Eve I snacked on Philip Pullman’s The Collectors, a spooky short story from the worlds of His Dark Materials with little hints about the early life of Mrs Coulter.

Finally, I had a lot of fun with Ben Elton’s Time and Time Again, and am still impressed by the little twist in our assumptions about the timeline which is revealed near the end. To summarise the conceit: a secret society of Cambridge academics, with a nostalgic yearning for the lost greatness of European society destroyed by WW1, find a way to send ex-solider Hugh Stanton back in time to prevent the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and then, for good murder, kill the Kaiser. Spoiler: this is not a good plan. One slight issue I have with this book is that I think Ben Elton wants to skewer the ‘Great Man of History’ school of history in favour of wider social and economic forces, but then his actual plot ends up making the ‘wider social and economic forces’ brigade look like a bunch of idiots since minor historical changes (again, spoiler alert) end up having utterly massive implications. So the real lesson ends up being ‘obviously you can’t just fix the twentieth century by shooting the German Emperor in the head’, which I think we knew already. But who cares? It’s super fun and I want a turn with the time-travel history-messing toy now.

Oh, and one evening – inspired by Angela downstairs, I think! – Randi and I decided to read The Importance of Being Earnest out loud as a piece of old-fashioned entertainment. I enjoyed this, and we should do it again, but next time we should either pick a two-handed or rope some other people into joining us so we don’t have quite so many characters to cover…

Non-Fiction

Beyond Weird was my first non-fiction book of 2023, and in my mind is indelibly linked to the physical sensation of reading it from a hammock on the front porch of our homestay in Colombia, after the sun went down, on the first night of our trek. For a funk-inducing guide to quantum physics and the deep mysteries of nature, this felt very appropriate. Quantum physics is a common subject for popular science books – precisely because it’s so weird and counterintuitive – and although this book strives to move beyond the clichés (hence the title!) there’s still something shocking about, say, the double split experiment – no matter how many times you’ve read it before. Anyway, this was a great book and highly recommended whether you’re new to this world or not.

Joanne B. Freeman’s The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War is one of those books which I picked up as a recommendation from The Ezra Klein Show years ago and finally got around to reading this year. It’s also one of the most ‘history’ history books I’ve read in a while: sticking to a carefully defined domain (physical violence in the US Congress during the antebellum years) and inspired by a close reading of a primary source (the diaries of Benjamin Brown French, a clerk in the House of Representatives). French himself is an interesting figure precisely because he himself is historically insignificant and largely goes with the flow, starting off by seeing the abolitionists as a radical, disruptive influence and then slowly shifting as the political realities shift around him. These type of people are, of course, much more common than the few unusual characters who usually make it into popular political histories.

Anyway, my main takeaway from this book – and this may not shock anyone – is that it doesn’t actually seem that Congress itself was inherently violent, at least for the time, but rather that the representatives of the South in Congress were unusually and exceptionally violent! Given that they were representatives from a monstrous society based on plantation chattel slavery this doesn’t seem all that surprising, but I think it’s worth pointing out since it reminds me of the equally absurd equivalences drawn between Democrats and Republicans in Congress today. Whatever you think of them, they really aren’t just neatly symmetrical mirror images of each other.

Skipping forward to much later American politics, Robert Draper’s To Start a War: How the Bush Administration Took America into Iraq is, well, exactly what the subtitle says it is. This is very much a personal story of individual decision-making and organisational politics gone wrong rather than a big-picture geopolitical account. As a result, some of the most interesting parts (at least to me) are those things which might have broader lessons for organisational culture. For example, I was intrigued by Bush’s management style: he wanted brisk, efficient meetings where the people under him presented a consensus view which they had already hashed out between themselves. In the context of the Iraq War, this seems obviously dangerous, as it was far too easy for complications, caveats and opposing views to be squashed before ever coming close to the President. Then again, I can easily imagine the opposite style being critiqued elsewhere for its meddlesome micromanagement! (Sigh… this indecision is why I’m not destinated to write the next bestselling airport book for aspiring middle managers.)

I bought Africa Is Not a Country in a bit of a bookshop panic: that feeling when you’re overwhelmed by choice, overwhelmed by all of the books on your to-read list already and just want to take a punt on something unexpected. It paid off, because this collection of essays by Dipo Faloyin was an absorbing read, covering topics from the profoundly negative legacy of nineteenth-century European borders in to today’s intensely competitive West African rivalry over how to make the perfect jollof rice. His wider point, which is not new but always worth making, is to push back against very harmful and totalising narratives of the entire African continent. Of course, the only way to do that successfully is to familiarise more readers with specific people and places.

As a meta-point: Faloyin’s background is as a senior editor at VICE and you can really tell that he grew up writing for online audiences. I wish more non-fiction book authors would embrace the flexibility which results from this style. The chapters in this book vary dramatically in both tone and length, with no attempt to enforce an unnecessary consistency. If the chapter is done, it’s just done.

I laugh at myself when it comes to Homage to Catalonia, which is (of course) George Orwell’s first-hand account of his time spent as a volunteer fighter in the Spanish Civil War. Famously, this doesn’t include an awful lot of fighting, and Orwell successfully captures the sense of boredom, frustration and futility which pervades the conflict. In the original edition, Orwell includes two ‘background’ chapters about the wider political situation and the internecine feuds between the Communists backed by the USSR and Trotskyist groups such as POUM, which is the group that Orwell himself had joined. Later, Orwell requested that these chapters be moved to become two appendices at the very end of the book, and apologetically notes that future readers may find them outdated and uninteresting. Most modern Goodreads reviews seem to agree, but for me these were by far the most interesting part of the book! I’ll take obscure political manoeuvrings over a description of what it’s like to get shot in the neck (spoiler: unpleasant) any day.

I hadn’t seen any TV series or film about the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, so Adam Higginbotham’s Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster had the advantage of giving me all the facts and characters afresh. It’s a totally compelling thriller with so many sad and shocking stories, especially when a piece of personal heroism or self-sacrifice turns out to have been completely pointless. The moment which stuck with me most vividly came soon after the explosion when three engineers are investigating the state of the reactor, pass through an airlock, stare right into the core of the reactor and – within seconds – are suddenly exposed to utterly fatal doses of radiation. Worse, at least one of them is a veteran of nuclear submarines and immediately understands that he is now doomed to die, and soon. It’s chilling.

As a veteran listener of Tim Harford’s Cautionary Tales podcast, the immediate cause of the accident is also so familiar. A series of small mistakes, bad decisions and the understandable desire to just get a routine late-running test over and done with: all things which, on their own, wouldn’t have amounted to anything but just so happened to come together that night in the most awful way possible.

Finally, a massive thanks to Kira for gifting me I Love Russia: Reporting from a Lost Country. This is a collection of journalism by Elena Kostyuchenko, a Russian reporter for the Novaya Gazeta newspaper who is now barred from returning to her home country after covering the war in Ukraine. In the book, short autobiographical segments are used to preface much longer essays from her career, covering everything from squatters living in Moscow’s huge, abandoned and very creepy Hovrinskaya Hospital (since demolished) to a community of sex workers working overnight by the side of a highway and her own brutal experiences of attending Gay Pride marches in Russia. A very moving collection.