glastonbury, stock, pork ribs, France and the elegance of the hedgehog

Mmmm. It is good to be at home. I have chicken stock simmering on the stove and thus a ghostly generational chorus of approving Jewish mothers hovering behind me, holding their breaths over every skim. Waiting to go in under the grill are some bbq pork ribs, which the Jewish mothers are kindly ignoring. Fish is beside me, coding away, listening to tech metal and occasionally muttering something derogatory about Coldplay. All of these things - my joy in being home, the cooking bonanza and Fish's Coldplay angst are a result of having spent last week in a tent, exposed to the elements and the new teenage obsession with laughing gas. Yes - we went to Glastonbury.

Fish has been once before, whereas I've always avoided it owing to my disinterest in most popular music (not in a deliberate snobby way, but more owing to an extremely limited memory and sense of timing), hatred of large crowds, relative poverty and fear of not being able to go to bed when I want to. However, I caved in this time as it seemed as though I should experience it once in my life at least, it's fallow next year and it seems unlikely that our group of friends is going to remain so cohesive for much longer. Anyway, turns out that I love it! Everyone was incredibly happy (and not entirely because of chemicals), the mud was an absolute pain but also bought out the best in English stoicism and mad dog determination to be outside and I definitely approve of being allowed to have your first drink before 11am. Also of Beardyman being awesome at 1.30 in the afternoon and of spending Sunday in the park having music played to you while drinking Pimms. Ooh, and of exploding spiders with acrobats on.

Pork is smelling nice now, and stock has been mostly skimmed. All is right with the world. Also, this wine is excellent. Remember, for future reference, Languedoc Rough 2008 is soft, velvety, warm, slightly spicy, not particularly dynamic but soothing and thoroughly delicious.

What else has happened? I've been temporarily promoted, which is nice, and I've just finished The Elegance of the Hedgehog - a translation from the French that feels like a much more charming Chocolat with philosophical pretensions and the occasional thoroughly beautifully phrased sentence. It further fuelled my longstanding desire to move to France and spend my days shelling garden peas, admiring wine and wearing elegant hats. Only the knowledge of how impossible it is for French life to live up to my imaginings stops me. Well, that, my innate laziness (a force that should never be underestimated as it realistically makes most of my decisions), Fish's dislike of all French things, particularly their brand of philosophy (he tends to suddenly become very Austrian at such moments), lack of money or viable alternative career...and the Euro. Don't really have any strong feelings about the Euro, tbh, but I felt I needed an ending.

I've just finished reading Lionel Shriver's 'So Much For That'. Getting older, and working in publishing has made me far less likely to fall in love with an author and track down their other books. I'm not sure exactly why, perhaps firstly because the older I am the more I'm aware that I've got plenty of time to do that so somehow end up doing something else, something easier, and maybe secondly simply because when you have to read an absolute minimum of four manuscripts a week, it doesn't leave you as much time or energy to develop other obsessions. However, Lionel Shriver has been an exception, ever since I picked up 'We Need To Talk About Kevin' and became fixated by her bald, beautiful prose and her almost unhealthy revelling in the darker, shameful side of people.

So Much For That is an exhausting book (if less spiritually annihilating than the lethal 'Double Fault'). Watching Shep (her unusually good hearted and morally straight forward hero) dealing with the slow death of his wife through cancer was hard enough, but much more difficult was her beginning every chapter charting the painful dribbling away of Shep's bank balance, his 'Afterlife' money until the fantastic, uplifting ending. In spite of their eventual escape to Pemba (pause to google it and see if it's as good as it sounded... ). Have ended it incredibly glad that I live in England. Let's be honest, our country is just better. Although having now accidentally watched ten minutes of 'The Only Way Is Essex' I am suddenly concerned that we don't have long left as a nation, and that maybe that's a good thing. Either way, I must remember that the NHS is a wonderful, wonderful thing.

In other news, I went last night to see The Emperor and Gallilean, which is an Ibsen play that's never been performed. In its original state, it is seven and a half hours long, which is the ostensible reason for this unusual neglect. However, having now seen it in its new incarnation of a mere four hours, I conclude that it's never been performed because it is (whisper it for fear of enraging the critics) not very good. It was a very strange, unwieldy thing. Great production, absolutely amazing set (if somewhat overdone at times and given to making leaden parallels with modern times), really good actors, however none of these things managed to distract the audience from realising that Ibsen had some managed to take seven and a half hours to say: 1) paganism and Christianity are both religions and so actually a bit similar if you think about it, and 2) Killing people is always wrong, even if you pretend it's because of God(s). Could maybe see that when it was written, these were more shocking ideas, but still struggle with him needing quite so long to hammer them in. Was a bit like being beaten over the head with a blunt, patronising, anti-religious relic. Not that that has happened to me, but I'm guessing.

Fish is back. As keeps happening recently, we are very sweet to each other from a distance and then end up annoyed with each other within moments of being in the same room. *sigh. Relationships are tricky.