And The Winner Is...
Plus a new feature!
While you enjoyed an evening meal, I conducted the draw for my paid subscriber giveaway. Among hundreds of potential entries — promise — Andy emerged as our winner. You can find video evidence below. Congratulations to Andy. You’ll hear from me shortly!
Over the past week, I’ve thought about what I want this newsletter to be. I started it to document moving abroad, bringing southern Spain — its quirks, culture and traditions — to your inboxes. With the odd anecdote, book update or height joke thrown in, I want that to remain the primary purpose. And so, I’ll reserve my political ramblings outside of the regular Tuesday morning newsletter. I’ll still write them because I can’t help myself, but they’ll land in your inboxes ad hoc or not at all.
I also want to offer more to you, my wonderful subscribers. In the spirit of other Substacks I follow, I’ll come armed with recommendations for books, TV shows, articles, recipes, etc. As a start, here are a few things I’ve enjoyed in recent months:
I may be biased, but I love an in-depth POLITICO feature. This one on Prince Paul of Romania is fascinating, bizarre and a damned good read.
James Marriott’s review of Intermezzo by Sally Rooney (behind The Times paywall)
I have Sally Rooney’s fourth book, Intermezzo, on order at our local bookshop in Seville. I am a stan, though I admired rather than enjoyed her third book, Beautiful World, Where Are You. In The Times, James Marriott is less than flattering about Intermezzo and the characters Rooney chooses to study. I’m holding my judgment, but James is always worth reading.
Longlegs
Longlegs is just about still showing in UK cinemas, and, in the manner of Ari Aster’s Hereditary, it’s split audiences. I’m in the five-star camp (for Longlegs; I loathed Hereditary). Yes, Nicholas Cage goes full Nicholas Cage, but I’d put it up there as one of the best sort-of-but-not-quite horror movies I’ve seen for ages.
After raiding our near-empty fridge and finding just butternut squash, we cooked this recipe from Sophie Wyburd for lunch yesterday, swapping in the odd ingredient for ones we had. The principle was the same: the sweetness of squash paired with heat and savoury flavours. Warming, a bit spicy and as autumnal as it gets. She has a good Substack, too, and the recipe is from her book Tucking In.
With the Evening Standard moving to a weekly, Jim Waterson, until recently The Guardian’s media editor, has launched London Centric, an unapologetically London-focused news site doing proper reporting on a city that needs it. He has more than 5,000 subscribers already, not long after launching.
Hope you like the new format. See you next week x