Annemarie Cancienne

Washing machine: This cycle will take 1hr27mins
Me: You sure? Last time you said that it took 3hrs38min
WM: 1hr27mins
Me: Promise?
WM: Promise.
Me: *watches it*
WM: *time changes from 1.27 to 1.26*
Me: *does 10mins of tasks and looks again*
WM: 3hrs28mins

Happy birthday to this lovely writer’s group. They have been exactly who I’ve been looking for in a community - open-hearted, curious, welcoming. Hope to be toasting their birthday for many more years.

Something broke btwn the last era of ridiculous wealth (oil and steel barons) and this. The Carnegies, Rockefellers, Gettys, etc were horrible people who *also* built universities, libraries, museums, etc.

I look forward to never listening to the podcast hosted by him and Dominic Cummings

I’m an Ambassador for this brilliant charity, Bookbanks, giving away books with food parcels at food banks. There are two part-time jobs going for Regional Leads in London and East Anglia.

Link below.

Please share far and wide :)

A copy of Joseph Brodsky’s Watermark, opened and splayed on a lap (don’t worry reader; it’s only gently splayed, the spine is fine).

I’m highly suggestible* so when Waterstones put this on their ‘have you considered?’ table I carried it to the till. Essays on Venice in the winter and its beguiling timelessness. The perfect way to fill the hole left On the Calculation of Volume leaves behind.

*(when it comes to buying books)

A window display from Walker Slater women’s shop near Covent Garden. It is nighttime and the large, old windows features two lit mannequins. These ladies are dressed in wool and tweed, standing tall and proud and not at all itchy. The mannequin on the left has on a brown trilby. Jaunty. She’s wearing a deep blue tweed suit with a brown striped shirt and green tie. My object of desire is her overcoat: dusty blue chevron tweed, tailored, falls below the knee. In all, it’s the sort of outfit that, were you to stride into a 1930s newsroom with it on, you’d walk away with a job.

Went to a store that sells clothes for a version of me I’d like to exist.
‘Buy it! Buy it!’ my teen said about this stunning overcoat.
Never buy expensive things on a whim, I said. I’d like to pretend this was sage life advice but it was at least 50% based on my skin reacting to the wool.

Ah, that was a reading at my wedding too. ❤️

If we do replace Starmer can we have someone who believes in something?

…and before you get the monkey’s paw out, no, Streeting thinking trans people should be hounded out of society does not count.

Agreed. The Resistance museum filled me with hopeful fire. The Dutch had a great roster of day-to-day petty acts to slow down and thwart the Nazis. Genuinely inspirational.

Welsh woman ‘who took on French invaders’ with pitchfork wins recognition Plaque being unveiled for Jemima Nicholas, who is said to have led a band of women to thwart French troops in 1797

Jemima Nicholas is one of my favourite Middle Aged Women Have Had Enough historical stories. And honestly, what 46yo among us isn’t itching to grab a pitchfork and say, ‘No, absolutely not’?

the $75 million Jeff Bezos set on fire for that Melania propaganda piece could have funded most independent newsrooms for literally decades

I once asked my emergency room doctor what his job was like. ‘So many things in orifices’ he said, shoulders drooping.

My high school principal was a vet who liberated our polyglot head of lang from a camp. Every year he’d hold an assembly and recite the lyrics to ‘Youve Got to Be Carefully Taught’ in his plodding New York cadence. Did I mock it then? Yes. Do I, as an adult, think about those two men? Yes, often.

The world's biggest chocolate bar factory has a sweet secret: Heat pumps

I love this. This possibly trumps the Dutch chocolate factory that recycles the heat from its refrigerators to melt the chocolate.

Incredible news from Texas. Not only has a deeply conservative district voted Dem, but they’ve rejected the Wambsgans powerhouse.

Just watched that this week after trying to describe it to my 14yo. It was still incredible to watch. More than music or simple showmanship; one man in command of people and space.

That’s interesting. Has it changed how you need to log things (so to speak) in order to remember them?

Sometimes, I wish the me who puts important things in very safe places to keep them safe, and the me who would like to find self same important things, were the same me.

Incredible, noble bearing. Like a monarch in ermine.

The Little Virtues by Natalia Ginzburg. Incredible writing - precise and beautiful, simple but rich. The generosity and hope she decided to live life with, despite her experience during the war, left me moved.

Former Newcastle train driver's obsession with Disney rollercoasters Phil Taylor has visited Walt Disney World in Florida 80 times and does not plan to stop.

This odd puff piece just played on 6Music news. I don’t recall them featuring my toddler, for example, when she had 80 ham sandwiches in one year. But I guess 80 trips to Disney counts as ‘heartwarming story’ and not ‘propaganda for America’.

‘We need to revive the High Street’ yet ‘the 15-minute city is fascism’. Swathes of the population can’t link cause (I buy cheap stuff on Amazon!) with effect (where have all the shops gone?).

I’ve not heard of her before but this is definitely my street. Thanks for sharing.

Chunky knits galore (compliment).

So many. All three were shocked (and still not putting the pieces together). The irritating ‘remember it’s just a game’ pronouncements ignore the point that it’s a game designed to play on trust and loyalty so of course there will be moments that feel like betrayal.

Bless him. Bless them all. I felt very maternal to that end bunch and wanted to give them cuddles (apart from Rachel who absolutely did not need any mothering thank you very much).

A still from the Princess Bride with Stephen as the Dread Pirate Robert’s.

I see Stephen’s arrived at the finale. #traitors

The end scene of Casablanca: Humphrey Bogart and Claude Rains walk arm-in-arm into the b&w fog.

The iconic Apocalypse Now poster with Martin Sheen popping his head out of the water. In this version, a bagel floats in front of his mouth. It’s sesame seed, which explains why he’s risking his life to get it.