When you work in a day-job capacity with someone it can take time for the other strings on their bow to emerge. Indira is one of those people who was - and is! - very good at working in book marketing, but also is an accomplished photographer and cook, as well as a well-honed aesthete. She is pleasingly militant on the ideal length of books (sub-300 pages) and I enjoyed mining her years of experience working as a bookseller in Waterstones when we worked together as much as I did getting her insight on what to cook. Her food Instagram account, @applyinghighheat, is that rare combination of accessible - I use her noodle dressing recipe regularly - and so beautiful that even M, an Instagram refusenik, is suckered in when he sees it sitting on the worktop. One day I’ll make the pink cake, but until then, here’s Indira’s takeover.

Hello friends,

Does your mind spend at least 70% of any given day replaying low-key embarrassing moments from your day/week/life or are you normal? It’s always the most inconsequential, silly little things; the stuff that absolutely no one else will have even noticed and yet, the mild embarrassment lingers.

I don’t know when the fear of being cringe took over but I feel almost consumed by it sometimes. Trying to make new friends and tentatively suggesting we swap numbers, meeting aforementioned new friend(s) and not knowing whether to go in for a hug, an air kiss or just do an awkward wave from afar. Wondering whether to double text someone you haven’t spoken to in a while… almost every interaction feels fraught with opportunities for cringeworthy moments.

Recently, I came across this brief but lovely piece about being "horribly straightforward" by telling the people you love that you love them. It seems so blatant when you think about it like that. I suppose, underneath it all, there’s a desire for connection – stronger than ever after these pandemic years – coupled with a lurking fear of rejection. But lately, there’s also the realisation that I will never regret taking a moment to tell someone I’m thinking of them (even if it means double texting) or savouring small pleasures in the now instead of saving that fancy candle/perfume/wine for some undefined future moment. 

I don’t know if being cringe (or not) is just a state of mind or whether it’s all about unabashedly embracing our most cringeworthy selves but either way, I guess it’s not really that deep. It reminds me, too, of this Guardian article on living and dying through the eyes of a therapist. Her core rules for life are to care less, have fun and accept the inevitable. Well, we’re all going to be cringe at some point so we might as well start caring less and having more fun. After all, you can only do what you can do and that’s all you can do, and I find that oddly reassuring.

On that note, onto some good things…...