Good things #1
This week: the non-alcoholic spirit worthy of 6pm and I work out how many books I will read (realistically) before I'm dead
Hello!
Welcome to Emily in Cambridge and the very first instalment of the “good things” newsletter.
I’m going to begin by just quickly popping back to last week.
So Happy New Year and everything. Did you feel the pressure to have fun on New Year’s Eve? I hate it and I always tell myself it doesn’t matter that I’m staying in and marking the occasion by just having a slightly nicer dinner than normal.
But, as midnight approaches the teenager within starts to nag. She still remembers those heady days of “getting tickets” or someone having a “free house”. So this year despite soothing myself with Deliveroo, I still felt like everyone in the world was out having wine with amusing friends and I, the lead character, was sat on the sofa watching Olly Alexander sing Britney covers.
I actually didn’t know a single soul that went out. Everyone I knew was either cowering indoors away from Omicron, or just had Omicron.
But there’s something really miserable about watching fireworks on TV in silence at midnight on New Year’s Eve. Especially as this year’s London fireworks were so muted and contained so many drones.
Personally I know one of my highlights of 2021 was the err… *checks notes*…Jubilee Line of the London Underground.
Food and Drink: Non-alcoholic Martini Vibrante
I gave up drinking alcohol in November 2020. I know! Right there in 2020 when everyone else was taking up drinking much MUCH more alcohol, I was realising that my nearly 20 year red-wine and prosecco binge needed to end. At least for a while.
But for this new way of life to succeed I needed to replace my old friend, the wine, with something worthy of 6pm.
And luckily I found this!
If you’ve gone dry this January (or dryer) there are a lot of alright no and low alcohol options but non-alcoholic Martini Vibrante is really nice. Get a nice glass (to trick your brain into thinking this is going to be fun), a slice of orange, tonic and voila! It’s a sparkling, grown-up and delicious drink. It won’t give you a headache tomorrow but it will give you the evening feeling you deserve and assist in that special transition from looking at your work screen, to then moving to the sofa and looking at your phone.
Podcasts: How to Fail with Elizabeth Day
One of the reasons I started Emily in Cambridge is because it will force me to cast my net and try new things to tell you about.
Podcasts being an obvious source of nourishment for the mind, this week I checked out How to Fail, presented by journalist and author Elizabeth Day. In it she talks to celebrities about what they believe to be their three biggest failures and so, if you’re fed up hearing about how people rose to challenges and turned things around, you’ll enjoy hearing instead how people really screwed things up and how much it haunts them. But don’t worry, it’s meant to be life affirming, and it is.
This week’s episode is with the fabulous Clemency Burton-Hill; a broadcaster, author and violinist, she suffered a brain haemorrage in 2020 that decimated her. Listen to her talk about what she thinks her failures are (spoiler: she’s chosen having the brain haemorrage as one of them) and she also explains how she got her name and why she hates it.
It’s constantly surprising and a very touching listen.
How to Fail is available on Spotify.
Kids: Amazon Fire Tablet
Nothing frightens me more than the way teenagers stay in their bedrooms, headphones on, hacking digital opponents to death with swords. So I’m reluctant to enable my own children to get into video games, even though I was partial to a bit of Mario Kart myself back in the day.
However, Father Christmas isn’t scared and lo, down the chimney at Christmas he bought two (one each because he’s knows what he’s doing) Amazon Fire Tablets which he’d heard were one of the best tablet-thingys for little kids who want to do games (but whose parents want them to read and use educational Apps).
It’s basically an iPad but for a kid, so everything is safe and age-appropriate. It looks pretty indestructible (the one pictured has already gone in a puddle and is unscathed) and it comes with an included one year subscription to Amazon Kids+ (after that it’s £1.99 a month).
If you’re sick of having to hand over your phone so the kids can play games, and then getting it back with the screen all sticky, then this is the perfect buffer purchase. And you can set screen-time limits and bedtimes so you’re still totally in control it’s all fine.
At the time of writing it was still £50 in the sale.
Home: New art
I work all day in a very small room, with a very small, recycled, frosted-glass bathroom window as my only light source. On these dark January days, I may not see any light at all.
So, I bought this photograph of an archway.
I thought if I put it next to my desk it will override my brain and make me think I’m working from the first floor terrace of a sea-view villa, looking out as the bright sunshine sparkles off the Mediterranean. It’s coming on Friday and I’m very excited.
Currently 40% off in the sale at £14.37 for a 50 x 70 print with framing options too. Go go go! Check it out here.
Books: To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara
“READ MORE” is always on my resolutions list and I realised this week that if I lived to be 80 years old (an optimistic guess) then I now have exactly 41 years left. And on my current pathetic reading rate of about 6 books a year that means I have only 246 books left to read before I die.
And that freaked me out slightly, to be honest.
So with renewed urgency, I’m 40 this year and I will read at least 12 books by the end of December. Yes I will. Which means in life, I now have 480 books to go. Is that better? I’m not sure.
Googling what to start with I spotted that the hotly anticipated (by me) follow up to A Little Life is out this month.
The blurb: “a bold, brilliant novel spanning three centuries and three different versions of the American experiment, about lovers, family, loss and the elusive promise of utopia.”
Released on January 11th, you might even get a signed copy from Heffers on Trinity Street in Cambridge.
That’s it!
I hope you’ve enjoyed this first edition of good things!
If you did then please subscribe and you’ll get it straight to your inbox every week!
Have a good one and see you next time.
Emily xxx
Fabulous… and I’m totally knicking that drink idea!
Really enjoyed reading your first episode Emily . Look forward to next week .