Fiddling around on my laptop the other evening, I accidentally flicked a key and found myself listening to an episode of Desert Island Discs from the Radio 4 archives.
Utterly unexpectedly, out boomed the unmistakable voice of my late father Milton, from an episode recorded in 1994. It was an extraordinary moment.
Briefly, I wanted to stop it. I wasn’t braced to hear him and feared it would make me miserable. But the urge to listen was stronger. I then wanted to keep listening for hours to the anecdotes I’d heard so many times throughout my childhood.
His being hired by Lord Beaverbrook to be a film reviewer with no previous experience. His quite ridiculous pronouncement he had seen no new important plays during his 40-odd-year career as the theatre critic for London’s Evening Standard.
The episode so vividly painted the picture of an ambitious Canadian who came to London with the military in the war and fell in love with the city and journalism. He never lost his Canadian accent.
The whole interview was suffused with his amusing, proud and combative personality, and immediately I could see us all back round the family dinner table immersed in one of our many heated discussions.
It was lovely to hear him again, but it was also desperately sad to know that this was the only way I can hear him now. He sounded so familiar, as if it were only last night that I’d heard him deliver some passionate opinion or other.
In fact it has been 21 years since I last heard him speak. It was such a powerful reminder of how much I still miss him.
Utterly unexpectedly while fiddling on my laptop the other evening, out boomed the unmistakable voice of my late father Milton, from an episode recorded in 1994. It was an extraordinary moment.writes Alexandra Shulman (above)
Pregnancy is now the height of fashion
Pregnant Saoirse Ronan looked ravishing at the Louis Vuitton Cruise show in a silky LV satin and lace slip that offered absolutely zero help in the bra department. I envied her. I can’t imagine being able to go braless on a red carpet when I was pregnant.
But things are different now. Pregnancy is a high-wire act of happily showing off this miraculous condition while maintaining high fashion credibility.
Visible pregnancy has been acceptable for decades (in the 1950s women were squished into corsets, swathed in smocks and more or less hidden). But it’s only recently become a fashion talking point. It’s not just Rihanna in Marc Jacobs, or Sienna Miller in a white Schiaparelli puffball skirt and crop top at Vogue World, announcing their pregnancies to the world on the red carpet. You only have to scroll through Instagram to see a panoply of massive bare bellies.
Nobody could have been more delighted than me to be pregnant at the age of 36. But within weeks I’d turned into something more akin to an armchair than a woman. I’d have been no more able to wear a braless satin slip or crop top than to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. Every inch of me resembled a Michelin Man – including limbs and feet. It just would have looked terrible. Not so for Rihanna, Sienna and Saoirse.
The compensation for spending nine months dressed in a selection of drab, elasticated clothes and increasingly unattractive underwear was the thought of the baby at the end. It was after my son was born, when I was still nowhere near ready to wear a silky slip, that it really got depressing.
Pregnant Saoirse Ronan (pictured) looked ravishing at the Louis Vuitton Cruise show in a silky LV satin and lace slip that offered absolutely zero help in the bra department. I envied her. I can’t imagine being able to go braless on a red carpet when I was pregnant
Visible pregnancy has been acceptable for decades but it’s only recently become a fashion talking point. It’s not just Rihanna in Marc Jacobs, or Sienna Miller (pictured) in a white Schiaparelli puffball skirt and crop top at Vogue World, announcing their pregnancies to the world on the red carpet
How a glass of pink can leave you blue
It’s rosé season. Which, if you love the wine as I do, makes this a dangerous time. Rosé slips down in a different way to red and white.
I’ve developed a theory that this dreamy pink potion doesn’t register with the body as quickly as other wines, so it’s easy to feel no effect until you’ve drunk too much.
One glass, two glasses, even three and it’s possible to imagine you’re still stone-cold sober. Then an hour later your metabolism catches up – by which time, yes, it’s too late and a hangover looms.
It’s rosé season. Which, if you love the wine as I do, makes this a dangerous time. Rosé slips down in a different way to red and white (file image)
Now everything’s rosy in the garden
A passer-by outside my house last Friday morning would have seen a figure in the pouring rain wearing a dressing gown and flip flops standing in the middle of the road consulting their iPhone. That would have been me dealing with a tech problem. But what was heavenly was the rich scent of jasmine and roses from our front garden, released at last by the rain after the dry weeks of May.
Tousled Meghan puts on the style
Meghan has posted a picture of herself with Lilibet on social media. While others have focused on her decision to show, for the first time, a small glimpse of her four-year-old daughter’s face, I am most intrigued by Meghan’s hair.
Usually blown dry to a petrol slick, here she shows off a tousled look, presumably her natural style. As a reluctant hair brusher myself, it’s one of Meghan’s few character traits I can relate to. She looked rather splendid.
Meghan has posted a picture of herself with Lilibet on social media. While others have focused on her decision to show, for the first time, a small glimpse of her four-year-old daughter’s face, I am most intrigued by Meghan’s hair
Why must the show go on… and on?
We have tickets for the musical Stereophonic opening next week about the trials of a rock band based on Fleetwood Mac. But I’ve just discovered it’s coming in at three hours and ten minutes. That’s way past my preferred running time, which is a concise 90 minutes with no interval.
Dame Rosemary Squire, one of London’s leading theatre owners, apparently agrees. She’s spoken to say that audiences start to panic about having to get up the next day after performances that last more than two and a half hours.
I can only hope the music is half as good as the Fleetwood albums.
We have tickets for the musical Stereophonic opening next week about the trials of a rock band based on Fleetwood Mac (pictured). But I’ve just discovered it’s coming in at three hours and ten minutes. That’s way past my preferred running time, which is a concise 90 minutes with no interval
Keep the mozzies at bay – with Marmite
Last week I wrote of my incessant battle with mosquito bites. Thank you to everyone who offered antidotes. My prize for the most unexpected go to Marmite and Tiger Balm. I look forward to road-testing them.
