Ask Me Anything!
Part 1
Thank you so much to my paying subscribers for your replies to my Note. This is the first AMA I’ve done, and it was more fun than I thought it would be. This post ended up being so long, that I’ve split my answers into two parts. I will publish the second part next week. Have a great weekend!
I’m making a conscious effort to revisit literary classics that I feel I missed during my school education and 20’s so far. I’m slightly overwhelmed by the vast catalogue of “must read” Bronte, Austin, Woolf etc to name a few. Do you have any favourite literary classics you feel are a must read?
I am haunted - taunted - by all the Great Classics I haven’t read: Middlemarch, War and Peace, Anna Karenina, Crime and Punishment (Russian literature, basically.) I try not to think about how many books I will never read, or I slink into a pit of despair.
I am so glad that Bobby forced me to re-read Wuthering Heights because I loved it on second reading as much as I hated it on first. Other must-read classics for me are Pride and Prej, Rebecca, Little Women, Frankenstein. I love Oscar Wilde - bitchy and intelligent - so anything and everything by him.
Moving into the modern classics, A Room of One’s Own and Mrs Dalloway are essential reading (although a lot of Woolf’s other work like Orlando and To The Lighthouse I found so confusing) and To Kill A Mockingbird and then getting a little more modern (wait are we now postmodern? I never understand these terms) The God of Small Things, Beloved, The Colour Purple, and oh goodness so many more like The Bell Jar, In Cold Blood, 1984, Cold Comfort Farm, Lord of the Flies (if only because so many books, like Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, would not exist I don’t think if not for its grisly influence.)
I could go on FOREVER! What are some of your faves?
Top 3 iconic British pop cult lol moments ( I'm thinking 'you won jane' / 'davids dead' / 'not another one's / the guy who accidently got interviewed on BBC news when he came in for a job / if my grandma was a bicycle / gc falling through the stage at the Brits / etc etc etc
This is a delicious question, maybe the best ever. God bless British hun culture. You’ve actually already mentioned one of my all-time faves: Gemma Collins falling through the stage floor.
Some others that spring to mind:
Professor Kelly aka the BBC Dad meme. A friend of mine still has Marion as her Whatsapp picture
Who IS she? Who IS she? Rest in peace, Nikki <3
Steven Gerrard, a good 20 years ago, when asked what his favourite cheese was, replying without any indication of this being a joke “melted”
Random one maybe: But I recently listened again to your Pieces of Britney podcast from a couple of years ago. 👌 I wonder what you made of her memoir. Maybe you mentioned this in a past post already but I couldn't find it. I read the book myself and wondered about your own thoughts 😊
Thank you so much for listening! Do you know what, I very much shut the door on my Britney consumption after making that audio documentary. I thought the story needed to be told - about the nature of conservatorship in the States and about how we mistreat young women in the public eye - and I loved working with my brilliant producers, but I didn’t realise until it was about to come out how many other documentaries were being made about her. It felt like overkill and I did feel a bit weird about how I might have contributed to that frenzy.