Notes From London

A collection of topical thought clutter from the last week or so of a writer's notebook.

Back on the South Bank • March 2024

I am finding that I have almost run out of stories from my past to tell you. It’s taken a few months to recount them all but I’ve started to realise that I’ve finally almost finished telling all of my anecdotes. It’s lucky that the last two or three months I’ve started living in new stories of my own again which will one day accumulate into my new batch of anecdotes to tell. But I never tell stories as they happen - only once enough time has passed. So what stories do I tell you in the interim? My readers do not know much about my present, and I would so love to tell my current story, but I would like to hold onto my new reality’s ethereality for a little while longer before I put it in writing for all these serious writers and readers to see.

Maybe there’s a way of telling you about my present without telling you the story. I have recently developed a strict morning routine which I drew up in a colour coded Photoshop document, which outlines all the tasks I should get done before I start my official working day. One of these tasks includes thirty minutes of writing a diary entry in my notebook, as good practice. Often these morning diary entries and notes don’t tell the exact story of my life - only rambling notes discarding the current thoughts cluttering up my head. So consider this a collection of current topical thought clutter, straight from my black chunky Moleskine and gold biro.

On Breakfast at Tiffany’s

Whether you prefer the book or the film of Breakfast at Tiffany’s depends on what you want. I wouldn’t say one is better than the other - both endings are incredible, only one is clearly the more realistic and grounded ending and the other is a result of Hollywood. The latter is usually seen as the less intellectual option, but I think this is a simplistic way of looking at things. In this case, I believe both are works of art and worthy of equal respect. I love both, although maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe it makes me anti-intellectual to love the ending of the film just as much as I love the ending of the book. I was disillusioned when I read the book to discover that Fred is actually a gay gigolo, quite a stretch from the ‘50s heartthrob (if also a kept man, but that seems to be glossed over) the film depicts. I was also heartbroken to find that in the book she never gets her cat back, although relieved to find that Fred kept the cat. I ended up talking so much about the cat that my mother ended up saying to me the other day, “you do know that Breakfast at Tiffany’s is not actually about the cat, don’t you?”

However, let’s have a look at how fluffy this little orphaned cat is:

So, Breakfast at Tiffany’s isn’t about the cat? I beg to differ.

On Taylor Swift’s new album

Taylor Swift brought out her new album, an event I would not have known about without it becoming such an inescapable fact all over social media. Apparently Instagram has decided that I am target audience for incessant posts about Taylor Swift’s new album, the title of which self-proclaims Swift as a poet. I don’t think I need to say much more on this, other than Percy Shelley, Emily Bronte, Robert Browning, Rosemary Tonks, Leonard Cohen, William Shakespeare, William Blake and Sylvia Plath are all rolling in their graves. I don’t have anything against Taylor Swift, and in fact I quite like some of her old songs (as we all do), but once a fanbase has turned into a cult on the defensive lengths that her little international militia has, it becomes difficult not to avidly dislike the whole affair. She claims that The Tortured Poets Department is made up of ‘poems’ written in her notebook over the years. All I have to say on this is that yes, she is a successful pop artist, but let’s be sensible. I highly doubt either Bloodaxe or Faber are begging to publish her.

Let’s have a look at an example of real poetry:

Rosemary Tonks, Iliad of Broken Sentences

Poetry is a form of literature, written by writers who read and write literature and understand art and words and the literary world and spend years mastering their work to become a respected part of the literary world. Poetry is not some random monetised rhyming song about a biscuit-cutter, run-of-the-mill, American break up. I like to be as accommodating as possible when it comes to art and literature, but even I have my limits, and they appear to be where Taylor Swift starts calling herself a poet and her fanbase start calling her a poetic genius.

On Shakira slating Barbie

My Spectator subscription is as rewarding as ever, with articles on every topic under the sun offering new and intelligent viewpoints from intellectuals and writers who carefully consider every word and then always put out something grounded and well-rounded. I was not entirely sure how I felt about it when Shakira made the headlines last week or the week before with everyone calling her an anti-feminist. I only knew I didn’t entirely agree with the backlash, and then didn’t take too much longer to think about it. All I have to say is that I could not agree more with this Spectator article by Amber Duke.

A sign-off note

I appear to have gained several new subscribers in the last week or so, so I hope that my running out of stories is not discouraging and that this collection of thought clutter from a writer’s notebook sufficiently fits the bill for the moment. I have been chuffed to discover that more people than I realise are reading my articles, and I am starting to gain new subscribers, all of whom are of a respected nature, as well as retaining the attention of my already loyal subscribers who are also highly respected. It has become very clear that I am no longer writing into a void, so excuse me while I gather myself and work out how to tell you my next batch of stories.

I am writing from London currently, and I am still in love. I will always continue to recount all the stories I can think of, but until more time has passed, this is all I will say on the matter of my current story.

---

About Mabel Media

Mabel Wynne on Creative Bloq

Connect with me on LinkedIn

Follow me on Instagram

Take a look at my website

Consider upgrading to a paid subscription to help me fund this publication! If not, consider sharing with your friends below: