Journal
The good stuff
The newest despatches sit at the top. The archive begins in the winter of 2018.
Tech · 2026-10-05
I tested the speakers
A soundbar and five speakers, all on Amazon, scored out of ten.
Beauty · 2026-10-05
I tested 10 night creams
Ten night creams from Amazon, all under twenty pounds, scored out of ten.
Home · 2026-10-01
Red wine on the rug, fixed
Red wine, a pale rug, and the brush that allows supper to continue.
Beauty · 2026-09-2The industry proposes twelve steps and a ring light. A working morning proposes a face one recognises, and a door, and the time. I have taken the morning'sncare routine | Just a Little Batty
The face routine I actually do
The industry proposes twelve steps and a ring light. A working morning proposes a face one recognises, and a door, and the time. I have taken the morning's
Home · 2026-09-29
The hangers that shut the door
The wardrobe was the problem. The kitchen had been falsely accused.
Home · 2026-09-28
Mould, damp, a better shower
No apparition was required. A bathroom will haunt itself: a dark corner, glass that streams, a shower with the scent of a municipal
Home · 2026-09-28
The morning routine I kept
The few objects a morning in this house is willing to keep.
Beauty · 2026-09-26
Pricey beauty I finished
Price is not a temperament. Finishing the bottle is. These are the dearer things that survived suspicion and reached the
Home · 2026-09-22
Games that don't ruin the night
A long board game is a commitment with dice and, frequently, a silence afterwards that no one wishes to interpret. I want play that concludes while we are still glad the door was
Home · 2026-09-20
Records for a grey afternoon
A playlist is the avoidance of a decision. A record is the decision. These are the four I will cross a room to begin, and stay seated to
Tech · 2026-09-19
The plugs that fixed it
None of this will photograph for a launch. All of it has ended a small argument before breakfast. I have come to rate that more highly than a new
Home · 2026-09-18
Having people over, edited
Hospitality advice often asks for a second self, the one with linen and a composed salad. I decline. Light, coffee, a game that ends: guests can smell a performance. They relax when it is not
Home · 2026-09-17
Gifts I would actually wrap
A present is a theory about a person. My early theories were shiny and wrong. These are the ones I have seen still in use when the thank-you has cooled, which is the only evidence I now
Tech · 2026-09-16
Fix the drawer, keep the kitchen
A defeated drawer will convince a person that they require a new kitchen. I have felt the conviction. I have also felt the Saturday on which the drawer was met instead, and the money
Beauty · 2026-09-15
The 4pm face fix
By late afternoon the face has been in rooms, and under heating, and it reports the fact. A full repaint is a young solution. What follows is smaller, and
Home · 2025-03-02
One rug, seven years
Seven years with the same rug. It has forgiven more wine than some of the relatives, and it has the manners not to mention the matter at Christmas. I know which relationship I
Tech · 2025-02-02
This week's buy: a head torch
Not a launch. A torch on the forehead, both hands free, in the part of the house where no one is attempting to be attractive. The fuse was found. Glamour had not been
Beauty · 2024-09-08
The Ordinary products I finished
Brown glass, an honest price, and a temptation to apply the entire range in one ambitious night. I have been ambitious. My face filed a complaint. These are the bottles that were finished, one at a
Beauty · 2024-06-16
The expensive stuff I kept
A large receipt is not a point of view. I learned this expensively, which appears to be the only way I learn. By that summer the dearer shelf had grown short. Short was how it became
Beauty · 2024-05-19
3 CeraVe products. One winner.
Three bottles, lived with rather than photographed. The tub is repurchased without a thought. The other two are welcome, and their absence is not a crisis. That is a household, not a ranking designed to
Beauty · 2024-01-21
Medik8, in the order I use it
I arrived prepared to be unimpressed, which is my greeting to a serious price. The demand was not that I become a morning person. It was that I remember an order. An order, I can
Home · 2024-01-01
Why the edit changes
A shop left still becomes wallpaper. A shop rebuilt nightly becomes a second job. I already have a temperament. A fortnight is the pace at which the door stays interesting and the sentences stay
Beauty · 2023-08-06
The medicube edit
One product behaved, and so a shelf accumulated, because good behaviour is my weakness. Here is what remains in the bathroom, and what is merely
Home · 2022-10-30
Kitchen light, no electrician
I wanted the worktop visible. I did not want the ceiling opened, because an opened ceiling becomes an inheritance. The light arrived from the polite side of the
Home · 2022-09-04
Toys that survive toddlers
A smaller editor arrived at floor level, with standards and no interest in one's aesthetic. These are the things that survived being chewed, drawn with, or loved past their
Home · 2022-03-14
The records I actually play
There are sleeves in this house bought because I wished to resemble the person on the cover. They have never met the platter. Slightly shaming, and excluded. What follows has been
Tech · 2021-11-14
I descaled. I didn't renovate.
A new kitchen had been designed down to the swan-necked tap. Then the drawer, and the tired coffee, were interviewed. The renovation was a way of not spending a Saturday. The Saturday was cheaper, and it is the one I...
Make it pay · 2021-02-08
What to send if you want in
If you make something and hope to see it here, the useful offering is a real page, a real price, and a photograph of the object
Home · 2019-03-17
The house, one year on
A year on, I walked the rooms as one walks past a new haircut in a shop window, hoping for improvement rather than rearrangement. March is a blunt critic. The bathroom and the wardrobe answered before I could compose a...
Home · 2018-12-09
Gifts people actually keep
The first Christmas of this shelf, I stopped wrapping objects that photograph well and then disappear into a drawer by March. The thanks had been warm. The houses, by spring, were not. What follows is the shorter list:...
Home · 2018-09-16
10 small things that change a room
Rooms change when two or three irritations agree to stop, not when a personality is purchased on a Sunday and then has to be lived beside. The longer list is here in case your irritations differ from
Home · 2018-06-03
A rented flat, styled for £150
The sum will not buy a sofa, a life, or the respect of a stranger. It will stop a rented room from looking as though someone left in a hurry. Spend it on what can leave with you. The paint is the landlord's love...
Home · 2018-02-18
How this edit began
February 2018, a poor light, and the rule that still governs the shelf.