A tiny mews house by the sea. HaHa! The unsung heroes of motherhood. The Scottish island that bought itself. Movies considered to be perfect. Beautiful travel photography. It’s so true. The British love to abbreviate EVERYTHING! Just watched: Ride Or Die What an absolute joy this series is. Hannah Waddingham. Octavia Spencer. Bill Nighy. I mean, come on! Judith and Debbie have been friends for decades and Debbie, wife to an MP, has always believed that Judith was a forensic accountant—until one fateful day when her husband abruptly announces that he wants a divorce on the way to a gala,…
Pudding&Mess Posts
The 99 flake ice cream cone is one of the great icons of a British summer— a delicious swirl of soft serve ice cream with a Cadbury’s flake jammed jauntily into one side and—sometimes, but not always—drizzled with raspberry sauce. It belongs to windy seaside towns where beach goers are bravely pretending that the weather is warmer than it actually is, or to suburban streets, where the tinkling melody of the Wall’s ice-cream van drifting on the air—the national anthem of summer childhoods—causes children everywhere to come hurtling out of doors. There seems to be no agreement as to the…
These three shows share a delightfully twirly energy with their wacky plots and zany humor. Bad Sisters is the most grounded of the trio, in the sense that the story leans the smidgiest bit closer to reality, and its humor is darker and drier. Derry Girls and How to Get to Heaven from Belfast fully embrace the absurd, and are gleefully over-the-top and bursting with outlandish situations. They will all make you as happy as a pig in muck. Bad Sisters One of the five tightly-knit Garvey sisters has a nasty piece of work for a husband and the other…
Margaret Whigham came into the world on December 1st, 1912, the only child to a father who doted on her and a mother who, by all accounts, found every opportunity to criticize and belittle her. Born in Scotland, she spent the first thirteen years of her life in New York, raised amid extraordinary wealth and privilege. By her twenties, she had become a fixture in elite society. She was stunningly beautiful, self-assured, sexually uninhibited and utterly obsessed with glamour. Admirers found her to be charming and captivating, critics found her to be exhausting and manipulative. Either way Margaret was impossible…
The Fortnight In September R.C. Sheriff Mr. and Mrs. Stevens honeymooned in Bognor Regis and every September since—this is set in the 1930’s—they have returned with their children. This particular year Mary is nineteen, Dick seventeen, and Ernie twelve. The novel begins on the eve of their holiday, a night made special by its rituals and preparations and the anticipation of all the enjoyment to come. Each year they stay at the Seaview guest house, which never fails to provide comfort despite its increasing shabbiness and the fact that running it has become rather too much for the widow who owns…
There are many fine things the British have given the world. Shakespeare. The steam engine. Paddington Bear. And the Lemon Drizzle. It is a cake of quiet confidence and broad appeal. Wonderfully unfussy it requires no elaborate layers, no architectural buttercream, no edible glitter. It arrives modestly and without fanfare: a cake for life’s ordinary moments. And yet beneath its sensible exterior, it is deeply comforting and quietly nostalgic. It is the culinary equivalent of a lovely cotton dress or a crisp white shirt. Eternally stylish, endlessly versatile. Which is why it shows up everywhere: village fêtes, church halls, garden…
Oh, the deliciously lurid world of an Emerald Fennell film. She has a penchant for exploring life’s underbelly—the sordid bits, the discomfiting bits, the awkward bits. All the bits that make you squirm. But they are also beautifully filmed, ridiculously stylish and she always, always chooses fabulous music which is used to maximum effect. Fennell adores exploring our seedier emotions to their extreme, and while being provocative doesn’t always hit the mark, occasionally wobbling into the daft, it’s impossible not to admire her exuberant vision. She also seems to have a dense array of fabulous actors at her disposal too,…
It is 9:33 and darkness has all but settled on the garden. A pale moth drifts through silvery foliage The smell of damp earth and crushed herbs mingle with the gentle sweetness of jasmine, and the fireflies, who just moments earlier were stitching golden threads through the twilight, have completed their evening performance. The stillness feels layered, as if the garden is not quiet but listening. It is the perfect time to sip on an Away with the Fairies cocktail —a charmingly wayward mix of gin, elderflower, cucumber, and a touch of lime, shaken with aquafaba for a cloud-soft froth.…
An absolutely dreamy school bus conversion. A (somewhat) scientific investigation behind a huge pet peeve of mine. A gorgeous 900-square-foot Cotswold cottage. Yippee! A new Sharon Horgan series. Can’t wait. Just one shocking story after another. Not surprising in the slightest. Watching: The second glorious season of fabulous bonkbuster Rivals just landed. So. Much. Fun. Just Read: The Guardian And The Thief In the near-future, Kolkata, India is buckling under climate collapse—famine, brutal heat, and vanishing resources—and survival is a daily gamble. Ma, her father, and her young daughter, Mishti, are on the brink of escape, just days away from…
Not every book is destined to be your cup of tea. Not every book is destined to be your friend. But sometimes it can be surprising to read a book that is zeitgeisty, crowd-pleasing, universally adored—only to discover that — you hate it. Here are six books (two by the same author) that I, personally, deem unworthy of the profuse praise they have received. The final one is recent and is the inspiration for this list. A Confederacy Of Dunces John Kennedy Toole A satirical tale of the misadventures of Ignatius J. Reilly, an obese, fractious, misanthropic fool of a…