6 good things #3
This week: Top advice from Barbara Windsor, Hands by Lauren Brown, frozen garlic, Life Changing by Jane Garvey, AC-12 interrogate Johnson and the married couple who have absolutely nailed it
Dear Friends,
Happy Friday!
And condolences to those who are mourning the loss of Meatloaf today (cousin Christopher, I’m looking at you - Sorry, man).
I hope you’ve managed to at least partly swerve the miserable “Blue Monday” vibes that spoiled the start of this week.
Also, apparently the planet Mercury has been chaotically “in retrograde” this week (going backwards basically) and that is never good.
But, happily, good things are always out there if you have your eyes open and your ear to the ground, so read on for some that I’ve collected.
First up, we have some absolutely top advice from the late Barbara Windsor and it’s yours to keep.
Interview: Rylan Clark speaks to Eva Wiseman for The Observer
You know when you’re introduced to someone and you sort of think you might have met them before, but neither of you is sure, so you do that awkward greeting where you acknowledge this and it’s basically just a bad start?
Or worse, when you finally meet someone in real life whom you feel like you already know thanks to social media, but you still have to say “nice to meet you” even though you’ve been through all their holiday photos and know all their secrets?
It’s awkward, but there might be a solution.
My first “good thing” this week is this interview in the Observer. Aside from being a lovely interview with Rylan Clark which you can read here, it contains a piece of advice from Barbara Windsor which I thought was astutely excellent and will be adopting myself from now on.
Rylan said: “(Barbara Windsor) introduced me to her husband and I was like, ‘Hello, Scott. Lovely to meet you!’ She said, ‘No, darling. You said hello to him a few weeks back at X Factor’. I was so sorry. Like, all over the place. And she said, ‘Let me give you the best piece of advice you’ll ever need. Never say, “Nice to meet you.” It’s always, “Lovely to see you.”’ And for the past 10 years, Barbara Windsor has got me out of so many awkward scrapes.
“Lovely to see you.” I’m having that.
Books: Hands by Lauren Brown
My friend Lauren has written a memoir:
Synopsis: “Lauren Brown is anxious. And when she feels worried, she picks at her skin. Secretly, quietly, but increasingly compulsively, her skin-picking begins to affect her day-to-day life until she realises she must unravel the reasons behind it.
“This sparkling memoir follows the thread of Lauren’s anxiety – tangled and frayed – back to its source. Written with rare wit and insight, it is an attempt to redirect the anxiety that’s pooled in her fingertips for as long as she can remember, released in odd bursts in caravan parks, on European holidays, at GP surgeries and on the wind-stung north-east coast. It is a moving and joyful exploration of obsession, forgiveness, stigma and healing, and a true love-song to the north.”
This makes the “good things” list for three reasons:
I know it will be brilliant (still have 600 pages of To Paradise to finish before I’m allowed to start it).
Having a friend that is brave enough to write a book like this is really inspiring and very cool.
Lauren and I used to work at the same place but at different times. During the deepest, darkest days of the pandemic, she and I got to know each other by laughing at each other’s jokes on Twitter. And then, when we were allowed out, we met up in real life. If that’s not a good thing, then I don’t know what is. Well done, mate! You can (and definitely should) buy her book here.
Food: Frozen garlic
My friend suggested “frozen garlic” on what was, before she said it, just an ordinary January day (Hey, Claire) and suddenly my life was changed forever.
When it’s 8pm and I’ve still not had dinner (which is often) I say to myself: “Can I be bothered to cook?” But the real question I’m asking is: “Can I be bothered to chop up garlic? Can I be bothered to chase little papery wisps of garlic skin onto the floor and then scrabble all the bits up with my fingers, which will then smell of garlic for at least two days, no matter what?” And then I say to myself (often) “No, I can’t be bothered.”
And that’s why Deliveroo can always find my front door even though I live on a main road and behind a high fence.
Also, I’ve tried that Lazy Garlic you can buy in a jar but it has a certain “taste” to it. Anyway, then Claire suggested frozen garlic. “You just get a little bit out and chuck it straight in the pan. It’s so easy,” she said.
And it is!
It is.
Podcasts: Life Changing with Jane Garvey
This week I’ve been absolutely binge-listening to the brilliant podcast, Life Changing with Jane Garvey.
I love real-life stories so this is like finding gold. It’s ordinary people telling their own completely extraordinary and jaw-dropping tales.
There’s the woman who watched a plane crash on take-off, with her little sisters on board.
There’s the man who stole 1.7 million Euros from work and gambled it all away, including gambling away the money for his wedding the night before the big day.
And then there’s the young girl who was paralysed when a man fell from several stories above and landed on her in a shopping centre.
Totally gripping.
Treasure from the internet: AC-12 interrogate Boris Johnson
Next, it’s this week’s winners of the internet.
As Sue Gray toils over her report somewhere in London, elsewhere, activists Led By Donkeys, and the cast of Line of Duty, made a parody.
Watch DI Steve Arnott (Martin Compston), Superintendent Ted Hastings (Adrian Dunbar) and DI Kate Fleming (Vicky McClure) put the hardest of hard questions to the PM.
Music: Lang Lang and Gina Alice Redlinger, play Brahms' Hungarian Dance No. 5, at Steinway Hall in London.
If you sometimes feel like you and your partner are on different pages, this will make it worse I’m afraid.
But at the same time, this clip from Classic FM’s YouTube channel is a good thing you need to see.
Lang Lang and Alice are are married to each other as well as being perfect piano partners.
Look at them.
Instead of sitting side by side watching murder-documentaries like we do, (to the actual extent that if we were suddenly called to investigate a serious crime, we now have enough knowledge to do a good enough job), here are Lang Lang and Alice making beautiful music together.
Perfect.
Although, if I were Alice, I’m not sure I could tolerate the way Lang Lang jerks about whilst she remains swan-like and serene. But still, wowzers.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s Good Things newsletter as much as I have enjoyed writing it!
If you did, please share it and let me know in the comments (links below)!
You can find me on Twitter @emilyincam and Instagram @emilyincam.
Have a great weekend and see you next Friday!
Emily xx
Love these good things, I’m taking Barbara’s advice too 🤩