Alexandra Shulman’s Notebook
Sober truth about my lockdown wine habit
OK, HONESTY time. How much are you really drinking in these lockdown days? Early on in our confinement there were studies claiming that one person in three was drinking less often than usual, but I can’t say I’ve come across them.
Most of us who drink regularly are still doing so. Some are drinking more. Dry nights have never been part of my vocabulary and they’re not about to join it now.
Evenings are for a glass of wine, sometimes two, maybe more. It’s something I look forward to. That first glass in the evening is an instant and very welcome stressreliever, and never more so than now after a day of juggling working from home with the queue at the post office.
A long-awaited case of rosé arrived yesterday. In my book rosé spells heat, gardens, long lunches, friends. Summer in a bottle. Not quite the situation right now, but some cause for cheer at least as I confront the weeks ahead of glorious long, light evenings in relative isolation.
Standing in the same kitchen, at the same time, doing the same things as the night before, it might seem like we are drinking more. But with usual social activity out of bounds, the good news is that many of us are probably drinking less than we might think.
Generally, at least three or four nights a week, David (who is a non-drinker) and I would have supper at home.
I pour a glass when I’m cooking and then drink some more throughout the evening. Half a bottle? Perhaps a smidgin over. The other nights, though, when we might be out with friends for supper or at a party or some kind of launch or work-related social event, I would always drink more. I hate to admit it but if I counted – and I don’t – probably at least a bottle, all in all.
So with that kind of socialising out of bounds, I have proudly calculated that I am drinking fewer glasses in lockdown than previously, without having to resort to any Matt Hancock-style fudges to reach that figure.
But give me another month of this and it might be a different picture. And certainly another case of that rosé.
The kind of sex we need right now...
THE BBC adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Normal People is heartwrenchingly emotional. Which makes it ideal coronavirus viewing. The series has been a massive success, even though the first two weeks’ figures suggested it wasn’t doing that well, racking up about two million per episode, which was substantially below what would be expected for a 9pm BBC1 transmission. But that’s because the majority of us turned out to be watching on BBC iPlayer, where the whole series is available, and where it’s amassed a phenomenal 16.8million views.
The 30-minute episodes are perfect for now, when so many of us seem to be suffering from concentration deficiency. On the face of it, a tale of two socially ill-at-ease young Irish folk (Marianne, played by Daisy EdgarJones, and Paul Mescal’s Connell) who start a secret relationship at school and then rekindle it when they both reach university, wouldn’t be thought of as a crowd-puller.
The characters often don’t have much to say either to each other or anyone else, there are no sumptuous Night Manager-style locations, and few snappy one-liners. What dialogue there is can be tricky to hear clearly, thanks to Connell’s Sligo-accented mumblings that are a crucial part of his personality.
But this pitch-perfect evocation of the bumpy course of young love is an unmissable antidote to the realities of today. The young see themselves and their concerns reflected, and older generations can wallow in nostalgia for the days that once were.
Was I the only person who was transported back to those times when I had, yet again, managed to mess up a relationship through a combination of inarticulacy, reticence, bad timing and poor judgment? And those other moments when you were blissfully happy just sitting next to someone in a car? I doubt it.
Of course it helps that both lead actors are absolutely gorgeous and grow more so with the passing of each episode. And that there are huge amounts of sex.
But those who ascribe Normal People’s popularity to its being quasi-pornographic miss the point entirely.
It’s the antithesis of pornography, that short-lived, cold, soulless, entity that is the last thing we need right now. Instead it’s the heated intensity of the emotion in those sex scenes – the hesitancy, the yearning, the fumbling bodies and, yes, at times, regret – that has a real impact and what makes it such welcome viewing when we may to wish escape from our current realities and feelings.
My speeding course was truly pointless
MY MOST surreal experience of the week was taking a speed awareness course online to avoid points on my driving licence. At the moment, I can scarcely remember how to switch on the car engine, let alone contemplate breaking the speed limit.
Have we hung up our handbags for good?
PITY the poor handbag. After years of being the star accessory, will it survive lockdown?
The Anya Hindmarch tote that I dug out of retirement a year ago has now stood untouched at the foot of the bed for weeks. None of us have needed handbags to walk round the corner for provisions, or on our hour of exercise – and certainly not for working from home.
Handbags grew from precisely the opposite way of life – for when women began to travel further outside the home for work and pleasure. The broader our lives became, the bigger our bags.
But now we’ve got used to not picking one up to go out of the front door, we may have got out of the habit even when normal times resume.
The truth is we haven’t really needed all these bags for some time. A smartphone, card, maybe a dab of make-up in our pocket and that’s us sorted. A hands-free rather than hand-bagged life could be the new aspiration.
Short-changed by the Bank Holiday
A BANK Holiday Friday feels odd. It’s going to seem like we’ve been short-changed when it’s back to work tomorrow.