For the love of all that is holy, I swear I don’t know how this happened. I just started saving links and making a little list and experimenting with a shopping website and before I knew it, things had got out of hand.
Very out of hand indeed.
I had almost built an entire online shop.
I don’t think I’d even read a gift guide before this year, let alone written one. And nobody needs one on December the 15th!
Well, unless you’re like me and haven’t really bought any presents yet. Or perhaps don’t even need or intend to, but quite like noseying into other people’s tastes, and lives, as it turns out I do.
Anyway, most of these aren’t necessarily for giving to others, they’re just things that I myself either already have, or would like to have. (I mean, if someone was to go shopping. And someone wanted to send them to me care of my agent at RCW. Joke. Sort of joke.)
The full list is on the aforementioned shop, but here are some poysonal favourites:
I once went to Norman Cook’s amazing beach house in Hove to interview him. He and it were both absolutely ace, though comically horrifying when he told me about one particularly late night he’d had there with his friends when a dead body had washed up on his bit of beach. He’d rung the police, who turned up to investigate, only he and his mates were all high, and he was famous Fatboy Slim, and it seemed the body might be a suicide floated down from Beachy Head to arrive at the afters - anyway - jeez.
More cheerily, his house has a whole cabinet filled entirely with smiley face memorabilia, which I can’t get enough of. And now George at Asda have a range of smiley bathroom stuff including these towels and soap dispenser and toothbrush pot. Equally appealing to my hoary old rave generation as to our kids who don’t need to know exactly what their parents got up to or why these make us grin.
I used to do some work for a TV production company that sent all their contributors a bottle of wine from Fortnum & Mason every Christmas. It would arrive at my house in a special F&M delivery with a handwritten F&M card and it felt luxurious. When I looked the actual wine up - I am a terrible person - I would see that it had cost £10, maybe £20 tops. It was not fancy wine! It just felt fancy to get it in an F&M package! This is a wonderful idea for a present.
Gift delivery is a few quid on top but includes a note like the following which arrives as a handwritten white and gold card. Do this for birthdays too:
I have this bust of Michelangelo’s David in my garden and I adore him - though bear in mind I was taken aback when I opened the delivery and realised he was petite. The size of my hand! But he looks cool as f*ck on the picnic table with some candles and flowers around him on a long summer’s evening, and being made from cast iron at the British Ironwork Centre he’s glorious in winter too. I wink at him from the kitchen window while doing the washing-up.
I nicked this off someone else’s gift guide and can’t remember who - sorry - but it made this sad old woman laugh. Obviously it relates to the book by Chris Kraus which I read and enjoyed. It’s a seminal feminist LA text you know - about a woman who is worryingly obsessed with a man called Dick. But you could also just wear it because you love dick. And you are just seminal.
Or if you’re more into sweet and innocent boy-coded caps, there’s Luke Edward Hall’s Boy Wonder cap from his National Portrait Gallery collab about Cecil Beaton:
(And if you want more books about women obsessed with men, try this too. )
Tights that look like boots in my head at least, £35
The other day I went to a party for The Fence magazine and wore these Heist ‘overknee’ tights with a totally black outfit of a secondhand miniskirt, an expensive jacket and the cheapest slingback heels from Zara. I was v pleased with the result. Mainly because it looked like I was wearing sexy thigh high boots, not £35 tights and £35 shoes. Well in my head it did.
Though if I were buying sexy boots I would want these. I do want these. On pain of death I want these sexy damn boots. Le Monde Béryl is amazing! Kim Sion is amazing! They got together and gave birth to these. Fuck ME.
Oh don’t cry my loves, look, Top Shop have some cheaper black boots for £60 here.
And M&S have got some pleasing buttermilk loafers with a twisty bow for £50.
Now just to piss on all that bonfire, here’s a hideous electric blanket:
Silentnight electric underblanket £34
It’s ugly, it’s cheap - but it works. A bit like you etc etc. The thing is, you’ll attach it to your mattress and then it’ll never be seen in public again. All you’ll know is climbing into a bed that is warm from the bottom up and oh my heavens the sensation of it! Glorious! It’s actually wild how delicious that feels for 34 quid. Buy this for someone who doesn’t know how to look after themself. Also it’s only £25 for a single one, which might persuade your unruly child to get tucked in?
ELF meets Polly Pockets toy £18
I interviewed Kylie Minogue the other day and we talked about her Christmas plans and how she always watches Christmas films with her nieces and nephews. “Oh, we have Elfed together. We have Elved,” she said, which really tickled me. My daughter and I have also Elved for as many years as I can remember, so I’ve bought her this stocking filler, even though she’s 14. It’s a Polly Pockets collab with Elf - open it up and the characters are in there!
Quick get one before they sell out.
Now let’s talk tech. If you, like me, have Apple tastes on a Chromebook budget, you seriously need to get into buying refurbed Macs and iPhones from Backmarket. Yes they’re second-hand but the site is legit and the products work, so don’t be scared. This model below is identical to the Macbook Air I bought from them for my daughter to do her homework on. For £300 - not two grand!
I love La Veste! All the clothes they make are SO FUN! And this knitted suit is more me than me is. They’re having a pop-up shop in London this week actually - usually you have to import it from Europe. But I can’t go and I don’t own any because such artistry don’t come cheap. Still fun to browse though.
In easier news, I’ve had my eye on this brown mohair jumper from And Other Stories for a while and now it’s reduced from £97 to £57, hurrah!
My dear friend Loulou (one of my daughter’s godparents) lives in a wild little artist town called Bisbee in Arizona and handpaints these candles to order:
Now I simply must tell you about the Ikea Ektorp sofa in light beige. (Ignore the boring photo, instead imagine it being muted in the background while more colourful items surround it.)
A few years ago, my then boyfriend and my daughter and a multitude of cats and dogs and my good self were all living in a short term rented house. The landlady had exquisite taste and so I was deeply paranoid about letting any pets or food or human feet onto her sofa. This sofa was so chic and immaculate and comfortable that I was convinced we’d lose our entire deposit if we laid a finger on it. It must have cost thousands!
So imagine my horror, delight etc to discover, when I moved it on our last day, that it had an effing IKEA label underneath. It was this exact sofa. Honestly it’s so nice and it’s £470 - you don’t need fancier.
3-seater Ektorp sofa in kilanda light beige, £470, Ikea
My dear friend Babak Ganjei, an artist, has recently started selling his passive-aggressive pet prints. They make me laugh so much. Here’s one. It is a picture of every dog I have ever met:
This email is getting too long, so go to MY RIDICULOUS SHOP to see the rest of it! I might make a bit of money from affiliate links if you purchase via links on the shop page or this page, although I’ve never done this before so God knows how this will go. I mean it currently says on my page that I am “trusted by 0 shoppers,” so that’s looking great. What larks! What fun! What fresh hell is this!
I'm sorry how did I not comment on "it's ugly, it's cheap but it works, like you" - this is the kind of thing my husband and I say to each other all day long and is the thing Americans find MOST baffling about British ppl
Oh bloody hell I can't believe I forgot to thank the most excellent Gillian Orr. How do I tag someone in the comments? It isn't working! Gillian writes the Slouching Towards Bethnal Green newsletter on here and was my guiding light for building the shopping links page.