Could only fall asleep if she had her tiny bottle of radium next to her bed
hello,
The first of these newsletters under Labour. Things can only get better.
We’ve just got back from a bougie bit of inter-railing around Europe. We visited kioski in Berlin and have fallen in love with K67 kiosks. Running one is the new retirement plan. Join us! Get the book. And this documentary seems related.
Lloyd is writing a lovely little newsletter/blog about his regular swims at the Lido. This is a favourite episode:
“There is, as I understand it, something of a literary genre around the mental health benefits of outdoor swimming. There may even have been things written about the subject based on swims in the Lido. I’ve never read any of it so I’ll make no authoritative claims, but today I take a tough two days of head-funk (a funeral yesterday, a gruelling work day today) and dip them in the chlorinated depths.”
I don’t really understand this, I’ve not googled the background, and I’m not sure why it’s so touching, but it is. From the Ritual Effect.
“Marie Curie—tragically—could only fall asleep if she had her tiny bottle of radium next to her bed.”
There are a lot of lovely bits in Laura Freeman’s book about Jim Ede (of Kettle’s Yard fame):
“Jim found beauty in the smallest details: light through a leaf, a limpet washed clean by the tide, a silver spoon buffed to brightness. Such treasures are there for our taking. Learning to look, to truly see, was a whole way of life.”
“She had a horror of ostentation, impropriety, jokes, complaining and noise.”
“She had £500 per annum which allowed them to live, she said, with a ‘luxurious contempt’ for money. Their tastes, though, were more to distemper than velvet. Walls were whitewashed or painted pale blue. Their furniture was a mix of carpenter’s benches, peasant chairs and wooden tables. They chose wildflowers in jars over hothouse arrangements in vases.”
“The Nicholsons changed his whole way of looking. They taught him ‘that the traffic in Piccadilly had the rhythm of a ballet, that a game of tennis had the perfection of an Old Master, that a packing case had beauty, that elephant legs were comely, that everything was fun and that clean bare spaces were workmanlike and inspiring’.”
I bumped into this quote the other day. Seems like we’re experiencing a third way:
“Socialism in this era developed in two directions. In the words of George Bernard Shaw, one branch was out ‘to organise the docks’ while the other wanted to ‘sit among the dandelions’.”
PERSONAL MATTER
I did a talk the other week at the Stoke Newington Literary Festival. When I’d finished someone came up to me and said very nice things about me and my work. I was a bit taken aback and so just muttered thank you and smiled a lot. I should have said thank you properly and suggested a coffee or something. If that was you please drop me a line. It would be great to meet up and chat.
I'll give you back your day.
russell
(There are 999 of you. A 999 year lease is, apparently, essentially permanent.)