'home', run clubs & italian cinema.
here we go 2025 (I know I'm late here)
2025 so far:
Lots of miso soup and ramen and loads of veg.
A new wine bar I like.
Seeing both Wicked and No Other Land in the cinema in the same week (how’s that for opposite ends of the spectrum).
Like most people in the UK, have been completely obsessed with The Traitors on BBC (honestly, I think it got us all through January).
This is a photo from Elie beach from when I was back in Scotland ofter the winter break. I have noted down my ‘learnings’ from 2024 and might write about that another time, but for now -
Here are some recommendations:
Substacks
I suppose these are two pieces about being from more than one place, about what home means, about migration, migrating back, family history, childhood and identity. These are things I’ve been thinking a lot about lately.
This post brought me to tears. Gorgeously written.
Could relate to loads of this, and the complicatedness about wanting to move back, not being sure if you can fit back in there, the found community in your ‘new’ place, and living more of your adult life ‘abroad’ than back ‘home’. I’m also an avid listener to her podcast Sidetracked with Nick Grimshaw. Still not over the fact I couldn’t make it to her Before Midnight gig in Glasgow last year :(
On a slightly less heavy note, I also really liked
‘s post about how to be organised in 2025.
[I do realise I just recommended two Annas and an Annie…]
YouTube
Work Besties, Running Clubs, & the Loneliness Epidemic - Jordan Theresa (I have linked to the precise part of the video I found most interesting)
This is super. She analyses a few things that I’ve been noticing lately about millenials/Gen Z and loneliness, and how this connects to work. Please do let me know your take on this, I’m really curious! And she also talks about how run clubs have become the new dating apps - again, something else that I have noticed, and found a little irritating when I just want to go for a chill jog around the park.
Initially I thought: how did this person manage to get Zadie Smith to do such a long interview, and lying down? And then I realised: it’s Bella Freud, relative of Sigmund (and Lucian). She’s a fashion designer, and interviews her guests in a sort of faux therapy setting. It’s really well produced, more of a visual thing than just a podcast, and I especially like the shots looking down on the interviewee (although I spent far too long wondering where they put the camera / how they seemingly got it on the ceiling?). Anyway, I like the way they talk about clothes, style, femininity, in a way which isn’t flippant, rather philosophical. I didn’t realise Zadie had lived in Italy, and having lived in Italy for about 4 years myself, I found what she had to say very accurate. (Disclaimer: Italian friends, readers, I really hope this doesn’t come off as offensive, it’s just, I think, different ways of performing gender and understanding gender roles in the different countries.)
Zadie: “particularly living in Italy and seeing the women at all levels of society - even though it’s an unbelievably misogynist country, sorry Italy, but it is - the weird flip side of it, is that it doesn’t make this puritanical thing about women and beauty. So powerful woman can be very very dressed and still considered powerful, it’s like a weird flip side of patriarchy. […] I found quite interesting, that there was no contempt for the idea of a woman dressing up.”
Bella: “Yeah I lived in Italy for a couple of years and I agree that that aspect is really good. There is some kind of further misogyny that happens here [UK] about when a woman does make an effort to look nice, it’s so up for grabs really, it’s up for being derided […]”
Zadie: “There’s something a bit darker about it […] in England the idea of female beauty or attraction, is antithetical to the idea of intellect, […] why would you bother being smart if you can be pretty? That was the argument.”
Books
Half Arse Human - by
I binged the audiobook of this on my way home for Christmas, before even laying my hands on my pre-ordered physical copy. I liked it so much that I gifted the audiobook to my sister for Christmas. I especially liked the career chapter. There was a nice piece in the Guardian about it too.
I’m back on a Goodreads challenge for 2025. Any book recommendations, reading motivation and nice book vibes are very welcome indeed! I haven’t always been very good at updating it, but there you go. I would actually still like to move over to Storygraph, but haven’t quite managed yet.
Film
I saw Naples to New York (Napoli - New York) (2024) the other week which was very sentimental but had an important message about how we treat people who have just arrived in a country. And it was great hearing so much Neapolitan language.
Other Italian productions (in Italian) that I saw not too long ago were Parthenope (2024) by Sorrentino, set in Naples; and C'è Ancora Domani (There’s Still Tomorrow) (2023), set in Rome, which I thought was absolutely fantastic.
This is part of an increasing number of films which seem to be being produced in Italy, about Italy, in the last years. Or at least it seems like there is.
[Okay yes - I just went to check whether I was imagining it, and I was not - there is a more in-depth article about it in Variety here. More international productions too, such as Conclave and Ripley.]
Things I’m looking forward to:
Mean Girls (The Musical, 2024)
I know this came out last year, but I still haven’t seen it. I guess I was a little skeptical, maybe still am a bit. After listening to Caroline’s
podcast about it with Okechukwu Nzelu, I realised I do want to see it.Again, I know this came out last year. I first heard about it listening to the Run-through with Vogue podcast where they interviewed Jonathan Anderson who was the costume designer. It sounded like such care went into the design, and vintage sourcing of items, and I also discovered that much of the filming was in Italy, and not far from where I am based, at Cinecittà studios. Jonathan in general seems like a really interesting person.
Bridget Jone’s Diary - Mad About the Boy (2025)
For obvious reasons. Theres an article in Vogue about it, but it takes the format of Hugh Grant interviewing Renée Zellweger, and it’s very cute/funny.
Apart from films, in Italy the Sanremo music festival will start on the 11th of February (sort of Italian Eurovision mixed with the vibe of the Oscars, which also acts as their Eurovision entry selection process). It’s SO camp, but I am curious to see what it’s like this year as there is a different director and there have been changes at RAI (essentially Italian BBC) for *political reasons*.
I haven’t been big into music for a long time (long story), but I came across Messy - Sped Up by Lola Young being used on a reel, and I thought oh this has a cool retro vibe. And then I realised I’ve been living under a rock: it was (well, the not sped up version was) number 1 in the UK last Friday (apparently). Anyway, I’m hoping 2025 is a year that I listen to more people I didn’t know, new stuff, new genres.
In other news:
I’m experimenting with the Substack chat function. If you’ve made it this far, do let me know if you have had a go at chats on Substack / how you’ve found it, and how your 2025 has been so far! Ramen recipe recommendations particularly welcome.
Twitter (X)· Instagram · Threads · Pinterest · BlueSky · Goodreads