The importance of memoir. Shonda Rhimes and saying YES


books, hope

I love Shonda Rhimes. She is a Titan, as anyone who has seen her amazing TED talk will attest. A mega-God, a master of words and someone who has found and lost her spark in her career.  Shonda is a showrunner responsible for creating TV including Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, How To Get Away With […]

18th June 2020

The Power


feminism

One of Barack Obama’s books of 2017 was Naomi Alderman’s The Power. Mine were Adam Kay’s This Is Going To Hurt tied with Mary Beard’s Women And Power. But all three had a profound effect on me. I’m interested in Obama’s view, not because I agree with him on everything but because I will always […]

3rd January 2018

Haircut!


family & parenting

Spider-boy has been shorn. A quick trim to curtail the curls tickling his eyes became a short back and sides. In a sitcom moment I both showered him in compliments and kisses whilst mouthing to thathusband: ‘What have you done to my baby?’. He looks sweet. And grown up (therein lies perhaps part of my […]

2nd November 2011

Shared (un) conciousness


family & parenting, words

This morning Spider-boy is indignant. Indignant, and confused, and beginning, I think, to get a bit upset. I’ve emerged downstairs after a catch-up lie in at 8.45 am. Both boys are in the playroom immersed in a reacreation of Cars 2 in which the smallest is crawling around, puking in the cracks in the floorboards, […]

24th July 2011

Independence daze – Part II


family & parenting

The daze of title, is of course mine. It has been a week for striking out. And now I have to tell you something bad. Something very, very scampy indeed. Did you read the brilliant My Naughty Little Sister books when you were little, secretly worshipping the nameless anti-heroine and her accomplice Bad Harry? Here’s […]

14th June 2011

Absolutely Fabulous


family & parenting, words

Parenting is a lot about storytelling. Already there are family stories kicking around our house. They are a messy, good-natured, gleeful mix of ours and other people’s; assorted anecdote scraps ready to be sewn into one brilliant mismatched quilt of funny things toddlers/grandmas/parents/teachers et al have said and done. The beauty of babies, the naivete […]

1st May 2011

Reading too much into things…


family & parenting

Have you read Not A Box? I became briefly evangelical about this book after Spider-boy was born. It became my present of choice for new babies that I know I will love and their parents. The cover is so stylish it feels branded by Muji, and the illustrations are a design-chic delight. Like many of […]

29th March 2011