The coming of age novel is one of our most popular and powerful literary genres. From The History of Tom Jones to Twilight, The Catcher in the Rye to Carrie, we never tire of watching tender little Homo Sapiens get plunged into the boiling cauldron of life, and no wonder. Stories are based on conflict, and innocence v experience is the oldest and darkest fist-fight of them all.

But bildungsroman aren’t restricted to the transition from adolescence to adulthood. The German word simply means ‘novel of formation’, and the male mid-life crisis novel, a study of that second, mirror-adolescence from adulthood to old age, is …]]>

The coming of age novel is one of our most popular and powerful literary genres. From The History of Tom Jones to Twilight, The Catcher in the Rye to Carrie, we never tire of watching tender little Homo Sapiens get plunged into the boiling cauldron of life, and no wonder. Stories are based on conflict, and innocence v experience is the oldest and darkest fist-fight of them all.

But bildungsroman aren’t restricted to the transition from adolescence to adulthood. The German word simply means ‘novel of formation’, and the male mid-life crisis novel, a study of that second, mirror-adolescence from adulthood to old age, is a rich contemporary theme. Ian McEwan’s 2005 James Tait Black Memorial Prize winner Saturday and his 2010 success Solar; Howard Jacobson’s 2010 Booker-winning The Finkler Question; and Julian Barnes’ 2011 winner The Sense of An Ending all focus on men who watch their careers and sex lives shrivel from over the burgeoning curve of their guts.

So it makes sense that novels addressing the menopause should be rife. After all, although men and women both have to reorient their identities as they age, the physical, emotional and symbolic power of the female ‘change’ is unique. However, although there are plenty of fine literary books about women at ‘that time of life’ – Anne Tyler, Margaret Drabble and Elizabeth Buchan are three mistresses of the art – they seem strangely wary of focusing on the process itself. And the few menopause-specific novels out there – US author Nancy’s Thayer’s chick-lit series The Hot Flash Club, Anne Kleinberg’s 2011 Menopause in Manhattan - can hardly be set against the male-centric prize-winners above.

Non-fiction writers aren’t so shy; Jane Shilling’s 2012 memoir The Stranger In The Mirror is an intimate exploration of her shifting self-image, while Marie de Hennezel’s bestselling The Warmth of the Heart Prevents Your Body from Rusting is a life-affirming rallying call. So why are novelists so reluctant to anatomise the menopause?

It was a question raised by John Sutherland at this year’s Oxford Literary Festival. In a session on sex and marriage in literature, Sutherland admitted that when he read Elaine Showalter’s introduction to the 1991 Penguin Classic edition of Mrs Dalloway, and discovered that Woolf intended the novel as an exploration of the menopause, it was a rewarding revelation.

When Woolf says of her heroine that “she had the oddest sense of being herself invisible; unseen; unknown; there being no more marrying, no more having of children now, but only this astonishing and rather solemn progress with the rest of them, up Bond Street” or that “often now this body she wore […[, this body, with all its capacities, seemed nothing – nothing at all”, it seems incredible that we could ever miss the allusions. And that’s without understanding contemporary attitudes to the menopause, which further enrich and complicate Woolf’s themes of generational conflict, madness and suicide.

Consider too Mrs Bennett, the laughing stock of that other perennial set text, Pride and Prejudice. Like Mrs Dalloway, Mrs Bennett is portrayed as frivolous, fragile and painfully self-conscious, but if we see her as a woman in the first flush of menopause, our derisive dismissal of her character becomes more subtle and sympathetic. Those famous nerves – her husband’s nemeses – become the symptoms of a woman struggling to with deep biological shifts. Her obsession with her daughters’ sexual ripeness – akin to Clarissa’s ambivalent relationship with her 18-year old Elizabeth – becomes a poignant parallel to her own fertility, once rampant to a character-defining degree and now presumably defunct. Her energy and ambition in the face of her feminine redundancy make her admirable, as well as exasperating.

It is understandable that such interpretations might not have previously entered the compass of a male academic born in 1938. But I studied both novels for my A-Levels in 1999 and I‘d never been exposed to those ideas before I heard Sutherland speak. A bizarre Victorian squeamishness seems to have followed the canon into the modern curriculum. My teachers of literature were as uninterested in the menopause as modern authors who, theoretically unbound by the social taboos, still seem unwilling to put it centre stage.

Last year’s study by the Associated Press found that women read almost twice the number of books as men, and account for a clear majority of the fiction market. A full-on menopause Wetlands might have a limited audience, but a deep literary exploration of this iconic and inevitable life event could be a huge commercial hit. Is the lack of it evidence of a lingering social stigma? Does the lack of interest come from authors, publishers or readers? Or have I missed a wealth of unabashed menopause bildungsroman? Set me straight!

This article originally appeared in Bookdiva.

I was recently interviewed by Adrian Swinscoe as part of his series featuring people who take a slightly different approach towards traditional business and marketing. It’s a pretty hefty twenty minutes of talk, but if you’re interested in:

- it might be worth a listen. And hats off to Adrian for cutting out the considerable amount of profanity in the original.

Check out Adrian’s …]]>

I was recently interviewed by Adrian Swinscoe as part of his series featuring people who take a slightly different approach towards traditional business and marketing. It’s a pretty hefty twenty minutes of talk, but if you’re interested in:

• the relationship between word of mouth and social media
• the importance of listening
• the value of independent recommendation
• why brands need to be helpful as well as friendly
• where to start with advocacy

- it might be worth a listen. And hats off to Adrian for cutting out the considerable amount of profanity in the original.

Check out Adrian’s website for a more extensive summary and other interviews, and be sure to visit First Story, the incredible charity that I name-check at the end and which helps struggling kids to embrace creative writing.

Oh, and let me know what you think of the conversation in the comments below.

Do you love to talk about publishing innovation but realise that you behaviour as a reader has barely changed? Are you truly creating, or just ‘being creative’, online? Do you find that the opportunities for writers in social media essentially boil down to shinier and more addictive ways to procrastinate? Ah, Pinterest. Sweet Pinterest and your gleaming cornucopia of aspirational kitchen loft spaces.

I’ve always been deeply excited about how digital is changing how we write, read, publish and talk about stories, but I am even more excited now the conversation has moved beyond those boring either/or scaremongering polarities. …]]>

Do you love to talk about publishing innovation but realise that you behaviour as a reader has barely changed? Are you truly creating, or just ‘being creative’, online? Do you find that the opportunities for writers in social media essentially boil down to shinier and more addictive ways to procrastinate? Ah, Pinterest. Sweet Pinterest and your gleaming cornucopia of aspirational kitchen loft spaces.

I’ve always been deeply excited about how digital is changing how we write, read, publish and talk about stories, but I am even more excited now the conversation has moved beyond those boring either/or scaremongering polarities. Now that we’ve established that The Author, Journalism, God and All Hope are Totes Dead, we can get on with talking about the good stuff. Like how and if we are personally, daily, experiencing change. Like which technologies, tools and approaches have genuinely made us more productive, imaginative and skilled.

In short, now that we’ve accepted that the Queen Mother is going to ride back to earth on a super-asteroid, cackling maniacally as she rips pages from precious old folios and destroys us all in a massive fireball, we can settle down and share the fascinating, fallible, ever-changing paths we are all learning to navigate in our hybrid on-off, augmented-real, socio-introverted world.

Here are three great ways in which that sharing is going to happen this year.

The first is the recent beta launch of The Writing Platform, “a website and program of live events dedicated to arming writers with digital knowledge” founded by two brilliant women, Joanna Ellis (ex-Faber and Simon & Shuster) and Kate Pullinger (writer and Professor of Creative Writing and Digital Media at Bath Spa University) with support from Bath Spa Uni, the National Lottery and Arts Council England.

Not only does it feature a fantastic range of articles, from Margaret Atwood explaining why you need on online presence, to yours truly busting 10 common social media myths for writers, The Writing Platform is offering a bursary which will partner writers and technologists in an attempt to break down barriers and generate some inter-disciplinary magic. This sort of free, energetic and wide-thinking community is just what writers need more of, so visit the site, keep an eye out for events, apply to the bursary and start, well, generating some inter-disciplinary magic.

Second is Write The Future, a one-day micro-conference of creative short talks on the transformative power of science, technology, communication and speculative fiction, coming up in May. Driven by The Arthur C Clarke Award (the prestigious British award presented annually for the best science fiction novel of the year) in association with the Royal Society, it promises to be a stimulating mashup of writers, publishers, scientists, advertisers, trend forecasters and mutli-ilk curious creatives.

I’ll be presenting a keynote called Don’t Feed The Lizard Brain: Surviving the Social Media Comedown, focusing on three questions which will both examine where we are right now with social media and prompt us to tweak our direction for the future: Are we innovating? Are we connecting? Are we creating? In the evening there will be a dinner and presentation of The Arthur C Clarke Award, which, with recent winners including Jane Rogers, Lauren Beukes and China Miéville, is unfailingly controversial. #WTF13 is currently fundraising on Kickstarter so grab the chance now to scoop some tickets, with some great benefits such as free consultancy and a copy of the award anthology for those who want to dig a little deeper.

Finally, June will see the return of Writing In A Digital Age, the annual two-day conference from The Literary Consultancy, the UK’s top specialists in assessing and editing manuscripts. Last year’s event was incredibly honest, nuanced and inspiring; I was particularly engaged by the themes of gender in the publishing industry, how to become a happy writer in an uncertain landscape, and the challenges of social media as a self-marketing tool. #TLC13 looks to be even better, with a keynote by Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveller’s Wife; a review of the industry over past year with some of the UK’s top agents, publishers and journalists; and sessions asking questions such as ‘What are ‘literary values’ and how are they being challenged by technology?’ and ‘Self-publishing off the peg: does one size fit all?’

I’ll be one of the speakers taking part in Canon Tales, a short series of rapid-fire presentations from people working in the intersection between literature and digital, alongside the likes of Sam Missingham from The Bookseller/FutureBook and Bill Thompson from the BBC. Early bird tickets, on sale until the end of this month, hover around £2-300, but this event has such an inclusive and questioning outlook, it’s worth the investment for anyone interested or invested in the publishing industry.

Of course, all this speculation and rhetoric only comes to life when it touches on people’s daily stories and experiences. I’d love to hear about the impact that social media and digital technologies are (or, of course, are not) having on your own behaviour as a reader and a writer. Is all the hype and hyperbole nothing but the ramblings of an Ouroboron industry, nibbling anxiously on its own tail? What are your real hopes, fears and dreams for where innovation around books will take us?

This article originally appeared on Bookhugger.

As I type this, Soho is sunny. Not just a-few-weak winter-rays sunny, but a glorious, blazing, Vitamin D fest that has us sweating into our suddenly unseasonal puffas. Yesterday evening, it was 4 degrees; today, miraculously, it is 16. And while the miserable London winter has given me a perfect opportunity to spend months feasting on some of the planet’s best theatre, cinema, art and lard, the only question in my mind right now is: where can I find a patch of green that isn’t crammed with media executives slowly lobstering in their lunch hour?

I grew up …]]>

As I type this, Soho is sunny. Not just a-few-weak winter-rays sunny, but a glorious, blazing, Vitamin D fest that has us sweating into our suddenly unseasonal puffas. Yesterday evening, it was 4 degrees; today, miraculously, it is 16. And while the miserable London winter has given me a perfect opportunity to spend months feasting on some of the planet’s best theatre, cinema, art and lard, the only question in my mind right now is: where can I find a patch of green that isn’t crammed with media executives slowly lobstering in their lunch hour?

I grew up in the Oxfordshire countryside, and although I am now a happy Hackney resident, I still get painful cravings for nature a tad more splendid than the semi-feral Staffies and wilting perennials in my neighbouring Shoreditch Park. Evidently, I’m not the only one. Alain de Botton’s cultural powerhouse The School of Life is currently putting together a series of classes offering jaded Londoners advice on how to ‘treat their nature deficit,’ and course tutor Hugo Whately, a teacher, writer and educational researcher, believes that many city dwellers may be suffering from a wholesale ecological imbalance.

“Just spending more time outside is not the best way to address the idea of a nature deficit,” he explains. “Of course getting out and about is good on all sorts of levels, but to engage with the structures and systems of nature  – with ecology – is altogether another matter. That involves reflecting on how your work, your family, your friends, the things and people that you love and don’t love, are all bound up together… Isolation and atomization are the pale brothers of individualism, and I think it’s worth working to counter them.” For Whately, the act of appreciating London’s historic streets can be a tonic in itself. “There is a sense of interconnections there between the present and the past; a sense that life is layered.  That, for me, is where the concept of ecology comes in.”

In that case, wandering lonely as clouds amongst London’s eight celebrated Royal Parks or 1110 square kilometres of further parkland and gardens may be a case of sticking a plaster on a deeper wound. But Whately agrees that the city’s surprisingly profuse pockets of nature are “a good place to start looking for inspiration” that might help transform your personal ecology long term. With that in mind, here are our five favourite ways to reconnect with your roots in the capital as spring starts to creep in.

1. Cycle along Regents Canal

Whately is a big fan of London’s eight and a half mile stretch of nineteeth-century canal. “Cycling by the canal on a cold sunny morning, you move through plumes of wood smoke as you pass by each canal boat, and the smell evokes another world entirely.  You might see great old carp gliding silently through the water; and a pair of swans gliding low over the water, necks swaying as their feet skim the surface.  I think just trying consciously to notice the activities of animals in the city as the seasons change can help you keep a sense of perspective on your own life.”Jump on a Boris Bike at Paddington and follow it all the way to Limehouse, looking out for kingfishers, herons, rare orchids and yes, Banksy’s rats.

2. Skinny dip on Hampstead Heath

The Ladies’ and Men’s Ponds on Hampstead Heath are the only life-guarded open-water swimming facilities in the UK that remain open to the public every day of the year. Originally dug as reservoirs in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and fed by the natural springs in Kenwood, they are peaceful havens in the city, with thickly wooded banks providing shelter for a variety of water birds and dragonflies. March temperatures remain bracing to say the least but the camaraderie between swimmers is fantastic. Take the plunge first thing in the morning and your adrenaline rush will last all day.

3. Worship insects at the Natural History Museum

We’re all suckers for a big fluffy mammal, but the rich, complex micro-world of insects – they make up 80% of the species on earth, with ten quintillion (I didn’t make that up) alive at any one time – can give us a whole new perspective on our own busy hive-lives. Throughout March, Entomologist Erica McAlister, Curator of Flies at the Natural History Museum, is broadcasting a Radio 4 series called ‘Who’s The Pest?’, exploring how insects’ ‘superpowers’ have implications for human medicine, defence, food, art and architecture, helping us to live more healthily, safely and sustainably. Accompany the series with a tour of the museum’s state-of-the-art Cocoon experience, which uses virtual guides and interactive exhibits to provide a behind the scenes look at the latest scientific research into insect and plant life.

4. Stroke a kitten at Lady Dinah’s Cat Emporium

London’s first cat café is due to open in Shoreditch in May, after an overwhelming response to a pitch by Lady Dinah’s Cat Emporium on fundraising platform Indiegogo. Based on the Japanese vogue for combining coffee with creature comforts, Australian Lauren Pears hopes that by sourcing her cats from North London animal charity The Mayhew Rescue, she might translate some temporary laps into long-term homes. Keep an eye on Pears’ blog for updates and prepare to get some feline face-time very soon.

5. Join a working party with London’s Wildlife Trust

London’s Wildlife Trust manages over forty nature reserve sites across the capital. Keen to engage the local communities that use the sites, the Trust organises working parties where you can get some soil under your manicure, and put that faux-Lumberjack Hackney beard to good use. Upcoming events include a spring clean of Chiswick Nature Reserve on Sunday March 24^th, where volunteers are needed to coppice trees, cut back vegetation from meadows and paths, clear ponds, litter pick “and occasional DIY and arty stuff.” No experience is required for this drop in session, which will be a great opportunity to get down and dirty with amphibians, woodpeckers, sparrowhawks and fungi.

This feature originally appeared in London Calling.

Ah, tools. Such a seductive word, with that tactile, workmanlike ring. And such seductive implications. Accumulating tools feels like the very opposite of time wasting. Tools promise to transform us into humble, brine-browed word-carpenters, conscientiously whittling our masterpieces in brain-workshops full of sunshine and space, while topless, and grunting. In short, tools rule.

Of course, as a writer, any tools other than your mind, your fingers or voice, and a basic recording device, are entirely superfluous. Browsing the app store, watching little download circles rotate and fiddling with complicated settings are all byways, not highways, to becoming a …]]>

Ah, tools. Such a seductive word, with that tactile, workmanlike ring. And such seductive implications. Accumulating tools feels like the very opposite of time wasting. Tools promise to transform us into humble, brine-browed word-carpenters, conscientiously whittling our masterpieces in brain-workshops full of sunshine and space, while topless, and grunting. In short, tools rule.

Of course, as a writer, any tools other than your mind, your fingers or voice, and a basic recording device, are entirely superfluous. Browsing the app store, watching little download circles rotate and fiddling with complicated settings are all byways, not highways, to becoming a laser-focused sentence-whore. In fact, reading articles about good online productivity tools for writers is one of the best ways to feel productive without achieving a damn thing. Close this tab! Go! Write!

Still here? Okay, I have to admit that from deep within the towering dung-heap of procrastination-friendly digital shiny things, I have managed to uncover a few gems that consistently make me write more, and very possibly better. Enjoy, argue, pass them on, and don’t be shy about suggesting a few of your own.

Scrivener

From the first day I tried Scrivener, “the first and only word processing program designed specifically for the messy, non-linear way writers really work”, I knew I could never go back to the plodding constraints of Word or even the sensual pleasures of paper and pen. Like many who grew up with screens, I write in a highly architectural way, and Scrivener brilliantly anticipates exactly what my chaotic brain needs.

An independent piece of software developed by an aspiring writer who couldn’t find a way to order his research and his notes, Scrivener has won numerous awards for its ingenious system of folders, corkboards, notes and composing windows, which allow you to keep all your references, drafts, notes and inspirations in one place and instantly navigate between them; tag, categorise and search for super-specific elements; track character arcs or themes; and eventually, download the whole manuscript in the auto-format of your choice, from Kindle eBook to screenplay. Normally a manual hater, I strongly recommend completing the on-screen walkthrough, which will help you understand all sorts of clever shortcuts, details and customisations to get the most from the software. In practice, I spend most of my time in the simple ‘blackout’ composing screen, which focuses your text in the middle of clean, distraction-free black page. But I would be lost without the ‘snapshot’ function, which allows you to capture and store the current version of your document at any time, and the synopsis panes, which force me to summarise each chapter succinctly as I go. A no-brainer. Download it now.

Evernote

Inspiration usually strikes in places where it is difficult to whip out a notebook – on the tube, on the toilet, in a work meeting, at the gym. I always loved the idea of carrying a beautiful personalised Moleskine and fountain pen wherever I went, but in practice I would forget, or spill coffee on it, or run out of ink, and when I returned to my scribblings they were not only illegible but impossible to organize into a coherent structure.

Evernote is the best digital note-taker I’ve come across. This free, simple app allows you to capture notes on your phone via text, audio, video and photo, then synchs them across all your devices, such as your laptop and tablet. You can search by tag, keyword or even text within an image, and easily transfer notes to another application such as Scrivener. Using your online Evernote account, you can also access them from anywhere in the world, safe in the knowledge that they are always floating in the cloud, and that you need never again lose that perfect opening sentence that you scribbled on a paper napkin with eyeliner. Oh, that sentence. You still mourn for that sentence, don’t you?

Shareist 

Fresh out of beta, Shareist is the quickest and easiest tool I’ve found for capturing and organising the research and inspiration I find on the web. An evolution of the old bookmarking platforms, Shareist provides you with a button for your browser which will capture any webpage, blog, video or image; allow you to title, tag and comment on it; and then turn it into an entry in a private ‘notebook’, which you can edit, format and even export as a book or a blog post.

The key feature here for me is the privacy. Online bookmarking has traditionally been seen as a social facilitator, whereby you display, share and discuss cool stuff you’ve found. Shareist, on the other hand, is geared towards helping you create and curate your own personal treasure trove. It allows you to move more quickly through the glittering mines of the web without getting distracted by individual nuggets; just chuck ‘em in your Shareist bucket, and return to them when you have more leisure for Gollum-like fingering. The free version only allows you to create one notebook, which can be a pain if you’re working with multiple projects or themes, but it’s definitely worth a try. 

Lulu 

You’ve finally finished your first draft. First, you need a drink or twenty; then, you need some perspective. After months spent nose to laptop, it’s hard to read your story with fresh eyes, so take a week off, sign up to Lulu.com and turn your draft into a proper book. I have heard more good word of mouth about Lulu than any other self-printing platform. It is clear, easy and quick to use, offers competitive pricing and allows you to order just one copy. A 300 page black and white paperback will set you back around eight quid, and will be shipped within 3-5 days from whichever global print operation is nearest your address, so with a good wind you could have your embryonic darling on your doormat within a week.

This is not an encouragement to consider your first slew of brain diarrhoea as a finished product – nor an excuse to spend hours mocking up cover art complete with ‘Booker Shortlist 2013’ sticker (don’t pretend you haven’t); but it will help to de-familiarise your work. Your Lulu book should be approached as a single working copy to scribble all over, not a mass order to share. Read it through once without making notes to experience the overall flow and only then pick up your red pen. You won’t want to print off a full new copy after every draft, but after the marathon of the first, it really helps.

Quit

We don’t need scientific research to know that the Internet is turning us into goldfish. When I finally, properly committed to writing my novel eighteen months ago, I found myself having to entirely rewire my behaviour. At first I could only manage a few sentences before I cast around for a link to click. I was sure that I could physically feel my brain fluttering like a moth trapped in a jar. With practice, it has calmed considerably, but a ‘quick email check’ still has the ability to turn me into the writer’s equivalent of Jennifer Connelly in Labyrinth, dashing breathlessly from Pinterest oubliette to Facebook bog while the great social media Bowie-god in the sky waves a hardback in front of me with a mockingly raised eyebrow.

I’m not a big believer in online ‘nanny tools’ such as Cold Turkey or Chrome Nanny, which forcibly shut down timewasting applications or restrict your web access.  I am, however, a big fan of the rewarding sensation of self-control. So acquaint yourself with that unfortunately Americanised little menu-option called Quit. Yes, turn shit off. Close your email application. Shut down your browser. Deactivate Skype and MSN. Don’t just put your phone face down on the desk, tuck it in your bag and do up the zip. Promise yourself a ‘check-in session’ every ninety minutes. I still sometimes find this really difficult; I recommend meditation as an effective accompaniment to keep your focus muscles lean and mean.

This feature originally appeared on The Writing Platform.

Last spring, our editor became a runner. Not a sashay-in-St-James’s-Park sort of runner, but a proper, no-fags-and-booze, marathon-by-April semi-athlete. Naturally, PHOENIX HQ shone with pride (and a fair amount of shock).

Using her story as a springboard for a feature for this issue – an issue that just so happens to coincide with a certain historic international sporting event taking place in our hometown – seemed a no-brainer. An editor’s education? From Lacroix to Lucozade?

But there was ambivalence when the idea was initially touted to the team. High fashion, the consensus went, is just a little …]]>

Last spring, our editor became a runner. Not a sashay-in-St-James’s-Park sort of runner, but a proper, no-fags-and-booze, marathon-by-April semi-athlete. Naturally, PHOENIX HQ shone with pride (and a fair amount of shock).

Using her story as a springboard for a feature for this issue – an issue that just so happens to coincide with a certain historic international sporting event taking place in our hometown – seemed a no-brainer. An editor’s education? From Lacroix to Lucozade?

But there was ambivalence when the idea was initially touted to the team. High fashion, the consensus went, is just a little lofty for pedestrian tales of protein shakes and nipple rub; fashion students are too busy with all-day appliqué and all-night raves to bother with keep-fit clichés. And that ambivalence, of course, is where the real story lies. Because, from crinolines to body con, the fashion industry has had a rocky relationship with health and fitness for centuries.

So we decided to investigate what is really happening behind the fashion scenes in the wake of London’s Olympic year. Are we still a bunch of chain-smoking anorexics? Or are we now clean, lean Marc Jacobs-style machines? If a healthy lifestyle is all about moderation, can the extremist diva that is fashion ever truly subscribe?

Zero to hero

One thing is certain: our editor is not the only one changing her spots.

“In my experience, over the past 15 years there’s been a change of attitude in the fashion crowd,” says Matt Roberts, the London-based personal trainer whose clients include Tom Ford, Naomi Campbell and John Galliano.

“If you look at anyone in big business – finance and politics as well as fashion – there’s no doubt that you now have to be seen as healthy, fit and energised. People are more productive in their workouts, more focused on their diet and generally much more aware of themselves in a very competitive marketplace.”

James Duigan, whose clients include Elle Macpherson, Jennifer Lawrence and Rosie Huntingdon-Whiteley, agrees.

“Fifteen years ago,” he explains, “personal training wasn’t a proper job. It was Mr Motivator; a joke. But now so many people in fashion have a trainer. We train a lot of the editors and assistants at Vogue, maybe two at the same time, and they namedrop who they train with.”

This may come as a big surprise to those used to associating fashion with salads, cigarettes and cocaine. “The overwhelming trend in fashion has been about being thin,” admits Roberts. “There’s still an idea that not eating, or quick-fix weight loss is the answer. In that sense fashion has been slower than other industries.”

But the trainers themselves are becoming experts in producing a ‘fashion’ look. “We are careful,” Duigan agrees. “When you’re training someone who has half a million dollars riding on their appearance you can’t get it wrong. I know how they need to look, and you can do it in a healthy way.”

Freeze frame

But before we all clink our glasses of coconut water and jog off to the shops, it’s clear that the situation is a little more complex than this. In reality, improvements in the fashion industry’s approach only serve to throw its lingering contradictions into even starker relief.

For example, fashion has a deep-rooted aesthetic of immobility that still holds fast to our imaginations today. “A detailed examination of what passes in popular apprehension for elegant apparel,” wrote the American sociologist Thorstein Veblen in 1912, “will show that it is contrived at every point to convey the impression that the wearer does not habitually put forth any useful effort. […] The substantial reason for our tenacious attachment to the skirt is just this: it is expensive and it hampers the wearer at every turn.”

One hundred years later, our most coveted clothes still imply louche inactivity, whether through luxurious fabrics (silk, lace, embellishment) or directional street styles (flatforms, maxi shoulders, palazzo pants). Daphne Guinness stumbling her way around London in a pair of McQueen Armadillos is not so different from a shuffling bound-footed Chinese concubine; Botox, whether injected to eliminate wrinkles or sweat, is a chilling exemplar of the continuing hold of this static feminine ideal.

Health and fitness are still not a comfortable part of fashion’s public visual discourse, and a dash of ‘post-workout glow’ Nars Orgasm or a piece of ‘luxe sportswear’ – try actually hitting a backhand in an Alexander Wang mesh leather T-shirt – cannot change that essential truth.

Tortured artists

Moreover, if you examine how fashion’s top power players actually approach fitness, it’s a confusing and not entirely appealing melange.

Who is a better role model? Alber Elbaz, whose beautifully dressed bulk hints at a refreshing everyman disregard for industry dictates, but whose constant self-deprecating confessions about carbs suggest quite the opposite? The plastic not-so-fantastic look of Donatella Versace and Karl Lagerfeld? What about poor messed-up Galliano, whose extreme workouts failed to save him from extreme substance abuse and mental decline?

Or the new fashion/health poster boy Marc Jacobs, whose three-hour-daily gym binges and goji-noni-acai superdiets have all the obsessive evangelism of a drug addict-turned-endorphin junkie?

“I think very creative people have short attention spans and low boredom thresholds,” Roberts explains. “Opting for extreme measures for a short period of time appeals to their psyches. I’ve dealt with a lot of fashion designers who have gone for that approach, working out for several hours a day and attacking it hard, but then falling off the wagon because it’s not sustainable. It’s like a different sort of addiction, big highs and lows.”

Ayurveda guru ‘Yogi Cameron’, aka Cameron Alborzian, used to be one of the top male models in the world, gracing Vogue covers and Madonna music videos. He agrees that the fashion industry tends towards extremes. “It’s a very either/or culture. Models tend to vary between being smokers and drinkers to being extremely
health-conscious.”

Inevitably, the image of the tortured and hedonistic artist remains much more beguiling than the Pilates fan who gets his five a day. But Duigan believes
that stereotype is wearing thin.

“Speaking frankly, being unhealthy and feeling miserable and being on a drug and alcohol rollercoaster gets boring really quickly. Dude, you know what? Clean up. Go for a jog. You might even be a bit more interesting.”

Personal brands

Fashion folk’s struggle to find balance can be attributable to factors other than creative temperament. One is simple logistics. “When I was a model back in the 90s, I went out, stayed up late, and travelled constantly,” Cameron admits. “The body at 20 takes the hits much better than at 40. Maintaining health while on the road is a hard thing to do no matter what business you are in.”

Another is that old villain, class. Admitting that your streamlined figure comes from Fitness First and Whole Foods rather than excellent breeding and nanny’s macaroons or, at the other extreme, humble poverty and a diet of work and fags, is still deeply uncool. A ‘healthy lifestyle’ is just so middle class, and middle class is perennially the least fashionable thing to be.

But in a highly competitive marketplace, this very British attitude – part embarrassment, part arrogance – won’t wash for long. American fashionistas have always been loud and proud about the work it takes to look good, from LA’s juice-swilling gym bunnies to New York’s groomed Bikram queens. And Matt Roberts believes that the future will come from further afield.

“There are some amazing fashion designers coming out of the Far East and they are hugely ambitious and hard working both in terms of their products and themselves. We have to realise that people want to buy into a brand and that the designer is part of that brand. There’s a whole Eastern culture about meticulous presentation. In this country we’re in severe danger of falling behind.”

Role models

This social media-fuelled emergence of designers, editors, models, make-up artists, hell, even interns, as brands in themselves explains why any of this matters in the first place. People who work in fashion are becoming as influential as the clothes; and the moment that teenage girls – the fastest growing group for obesity in Europe – get interested in fashion tends to coincide with the moment that gym knickers lose their appeal.

“Around that age boys are idolising footballers but there’s no one girls see as a strong fitness role model,” Roberts sighs. “That is where I think fashion could play a part. I was really pleased to see that Stella [McCartney] is doing the designs for this year’s Olympic clothing. It doesn’t mean people who buy the products will do the exercise, but it does create a link. Fashion has a role to play in making girls stay interested in health.”

And as for our editor? She smashed her personal best for the marathon; she looks better than ever in her Choos; she’s back on the cocktails; and she got the last issue out (just) on time. Perhaps fashion is capable of cleaning up its act – without compromising its spirit – after all.

This feature originally appeared in PHOENIX magazine. Illustrations are by the awesome Artaksiniya.

What the hell happened with social media? We were told that the fierce publishing-industry lion wouldst lay down with the fragile disenfranchised-author lamb and share the cool bounty of the literary watering hole. They promised that we’d be able to get all warm and snuggly with readers across the world while just happening to shift millions of copies of our noir circus thriller on the side. We were assured that from now on, becoming a global writing success would be easier, quicker, cheaper, and much more amenable to the uninterrupted wearing of Marmite-stained pyjamas.

So …]]>

What the hell happened with social media? We were told that the fierce publishing-industry lion wouldst lay down with the fragile disenfranchised-author lamb and share the cool bounty of the literary watering hole. They promised that we’d be able to get all warm and snuggly with readers across the world while just happening to shift millions of copies of our noir circus thriller on the side. We were assured that from now on, becoming a global writing success would be easier, quicker, cheaper, and much more amenable to the uninterrupted wearing of Marmite-stained pyjamas.

So how did our glorious peer-to-peer revolution turn into a riot of BDSM fan fiction trilogies, ‘15% OFF MY NEW SCIFI EBOOK @GREATDISMAL LOVES IT BUY NOW’ tweets, and £250 workshops from seven year olds offering to gift us the secrets of social self-promotion success?

The truth is, it’s our fault. Most writers persist in labouring under a series of illusions about what social media is and isn’t, can and can’t do; illusions that generate huge frustration and anxiety. Weeding out these pervasive myths can be painful at first, but the sooner you identify exactly if, and how, these channels fit with your skills and aims, the sooner you can get back to that draft. So let’s go.

1.     Social media is a great marketing tool

Social media is a rubbish marketing tool. This set of technologies was designed to help us build relationships and share passions, not become the delighted recipients of targeted messages from strangers trying to steal our attention and our money. Attempting to establish yourself online once you have completed your manuscript, for the sole purpose of flogging said manuscript, will feel like bashing your head against a brick wall. Wrong hammer, crooked nail.

Example: Frankie Sachs outs the book spammers in fabulous style.

2. It’s the perfect place to talk about you and your book

Ah yes! Just like how people love it when you corner them at a party and bend their ear about your brilliant opus, right? Wrong. If you focus on connecting with likeminded people on their own terms, garnering inspiration, reading others’ work and having interesting debates, your online community probably will develop curiosity about your own work and evolve into readers somewhere along the line. But you need to give in order to receive.

Example: @chuckpalahniuk and @neilhimself are generous, witty, eclectic and useful tweeters.

3. It’s quick

Getting someone who likes expressing themselves in 140 characters to commit to 80,000 words – let alone Vols II and III of your Downton/alien trilogy – requires a reader relationship more akin to a marriage than a one night stand. Building large-scale engagement in social media that really will drive sales takes serious man-hours, and requires a hefty emotional investment, too.

Example: Self-epublishing specialists Joanna Penn and Louise Voss both recommend spending 20% of your time writing and 80% of your time networking through social media to get results. That’s as quick as treacle.

4. It’s cheap

See above. Your time is money. It may well be better spent making your book really good. This is historically the reason why authors have preferred to pay agents and publishers to have ego-stroking lunches with influential people in Soho House, so you can have Marmite on toast and write, instead.

Example: Rob Eager writes eloquently on the hidden costs of social networking.

5. You can keep your personal and professional selves separate

Because we all love getting close and personal with Author: The Brand? You can’t treat social as a PR project.  You have to find what you love about this way of communicating, and bring an authentic sense of your own self to the playground. If you really hate that idea, if you think it’s all so much timewasting, you simply shouldn’t be there. We can tell.

Example: @lindasgrant is a self-confessed one-time sceptic who learned to love the Twitter beast – and Twitter loves her back.

6. You just need to be yourself

This doesn’t mean, however, that you can’t don a sexy and efficient business hat. Be strategic. Understand what you want to achieve. What proportion of your time will you spend talking about yourself, versus asking others questions or sharing their content? Figure out who your target audience is, where they are talking, and be as helpful, interesting and relevant as you can. Sure, look at shoes on Pinterest, but don’t pretend it’s work.

Example: Michael Hyatt used social media to get his book on the New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal best-seller lists, but it took some serious tactical planning.

7. You need to be on every new platform

Whether it’s Path or Soci or MySpace (again), there will always be a box-fresh platform promising to be the next best thing, so you need to keep your head and choose the tools that most suit your personality and target audience. A witty satirist who loves peddling opinions about breaking news? Twitter’s your tool. A lengthy pontificator penning an epic historical drama? You may do better with a blog. Your protagonist is a photographer? May I suggest Instagram?

Example: Dennis Cass used video to brilliant effect with his ‘Book Launch 2.0’.

8. Facebook is the holy grail

It is very difficult to gain any kind of meaningful professional traction on Facebook. Liking a page or post involves minimal effort, but also minimal passion. Facebook a good place to spread the word amongst your family and friends, but they’re probably in your corner already; and self-promotional messages grate in the midst of the intimate chat and photos. Sure, use Facebook, but don’t depend on it.

Example: Some sobering examples of the meaninglessness of Facebook Likes.

9. You can always pay someone else to do it for you

It might seem easier, but this is a big fat waste of time. The whole joy of social media is that it cuts out the middle man between you and your readers. Why on earth would you put the middle man back in? Again, if you really hate this stuff, don’t do it. There are more than one way to skin a cat. If this blade doesn’t fit your hand snugly, go back to the drawer.

Example: If the thought of this doesn’t make you die a little inside, you’re already a corpse.

10. It’s the best place to generate word of mouth

No, it’s the best place to easily see word of mouth. US researchers Keller Fay consistently report that 90% of WOM still occurs face to face. So if you’re only thinking about how to be conversational online, you’re ignoring the iceberg beneath the tip. Team up with local bookshops, cafes and reading groups. Seed some copies on trains and planes with personalised notes. Focus less on the venues for where the conversation will happen; focus more on creating the sparks that will ignite it.

Example: Keller Fay’s The Face To Face Book is mandatory further reading.

This feature originally appeared on The Writing Platform.

Last week, a colleague of mine asked if I would participate in a Pinterview (a Pinterest interview. Don’t judge.) called ‘My Life In Books.’ The idea was that I would submit images of the covers of twelve books that had been important to me at different stages of my life, in chronological order, with a short description of why each one had made such an impact at that time.

Try it. How long does it take you to reduce your literary soul down to a handful of JPEGs? I initially found the exercise excruciating, but soon …]]>

Last week, a colleague of mine asked if I would participate in a Pinterview (a Pinterest interview. Don’t judge.) called ‘My Life In Books.’ The idea was that I would submit images of the covers of twelve books that had been important to me at different stages of my life, in chronological order, with a short description of why each one had made such an impact at that time.

Try it. How long does it take you to reduce your literary soul down to a handful of JPEGs? I initially found the exercise excruciating, but soon realized that I was making two big mistakes. First, I was trying to squeeze in my all-time favourite books, when what was really needed were ones that affected me strongly at a certain time of my life, but which may be much less relevant or beloved now. Secondly, I was, inevitably, worrying about what other people might think. Was the proportion of cerebral classics to trash just high enough to suggest the perfect cocktail of rigorous intellect and fun-loving unpretentiousness? If I left out Dickens or Woolf or Franzen or Mitchell, would the Thor Of Writing render me incapable of typing a decent sentence ever again? Did I have enough women? Did I have enough racial diversity? Did, in short, my bibliophilic biography suggest that I was a big fat middle-class British cliché?

Well, yes, it did. But it also stirred up some wonderful memories and has proven to be a brilliant talking point with fellow clichés of all backgrounds and tastes. I’ve outlined my twelve below, but I’d love to hear about yours. Post them in the comments or add a post to the Nudge Facebook page. It’s the perfect opportunity to get to know the Nudge community better. Just try to be honest, and please, don’t judge.

1988: The Beano 

So it isn’t exactly a book, but my early love of the Beano sparked a devotion to comics and graphic novels that holds firm today. From Brian K. Vaughan and Tony Harris’s Ex Machina series about a New York mayor with superpowers to Shaun Tan’s lyrical story for all generations The Red Tree, I still experience unparalleled energy and emotion from comics. Also, I had the best pair of Dennis the Menace bell-bottomed jeans.

1991: The Owl Service by Alan Garner 

As an introverted country tomboy I was an obsessive bookworm and an expert in hedgerows, ditches and streams.  Garner’s weird mythic magic burrowed deep into my brain and stayed there, and I find his influence shining through as I write my first novel now.

1995: Riders by Jilly Cooper 

I used to read my sister’s Jilly Coopers on the school bus, hidden inside virtuous dustjackets so that my mother wouldn’t confiscate them.  Rupert Campbell-Black lived in an 80s glamour-world I could only dream of, and dream, wetly, I did. Cooper remains the original and best romance queen.

1997: The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock by TS Eliot

Oh, those opening lines… Chaucer and Eliot are my favourite London poets. Their ghosts are with me beside the murky Thames, in the self-conscious chatter of the Soho members’ clubs and in the grimy Hackney back streets alike. Eliot reminds me of my tall, wonderful clock-repairing grandfather: musical, bleak, funny, obsessed with time. I read an extract from Four Quartets at his memorial service.

2000: His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman 

Pullman’s breathtakingly subtle and ambitious trilogy contains one of those stories that always seems to have been waiting to be told, and outlines a beautiful humanist philosophy that never fails to make me appreciate the world anew. Incidentally, my daemon is a falcon with green eyes called Lysander.

2001: Beowulf by Seamus Heaney 

My university specialisms were Middle English, Arthurian Myth and Shakespeare: ideal preparation for modern life. The audiobook of Heaney reading his translation guarantees goosebumps every time. Hasped and hooped and hirpling, indeed.

2003: The Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett 

My mum read these sixteenth-century historical epics in her early 20s and passed her foxed paperbacks on to me. Dunnett’s research is mind-blowing research, her dialogue knife-sharp, and Francis Lymond is the best blond in fiction.

2005: Pattern Recognition by William Gibson 

In my twenties, I suddenly realized that I had miraculously become part of a generation where my geekdom was a positive thing. It’s difficult to choose between Neil Gaiman, Neal Stephenson and Gibson in terms of my influences at the time, but Gibson simply blows my mind with his urgency, his energy and his exuberant ideas. Although I do now fear I may be turning into Bigend.

2009: The Vintner’s Luck by Elizabeth Knox 

In 2009 I was invited onto BBC Radio 4, as a guest on A Good Read alongside Michael Mansfield QC. I chose this dark, sensual tale of a fallen angel in nineteenth century Burgundy which seemed to leave both Mansfield and the deeply lovely Sue McGregor utterly baffled, but I was so delighted to be in the mothership, and talking books to boot, I didn’t care.

2011: Incognito by David Eagleman

I’m intrigued by neuroscience and started exploring several authors concerned with positive and cognitive psychology at this time. Eagleman not only thinks big but writes beautifully. His collection of short stories Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives is a cult gem, too.

2012: Waterlog by Roger Deakin 

Living in Hackney, I miss proper nature with a visceral ache. Deakin’s part-travelogue, part-memoir, part-nature essay is an incredible love song to the disappearing wonders of wild Britain. I must read more non-fiction.

2013: Mog by Judith Kerr 

I’ve now come full circle with my two year old niece Esme, revisiting the books I loved as a child. Mog perfectly expresses feline disgust for the human race in general, and babies in particular. Judith Kerr’s books have more than stood the test of time.

This feature originally appeared on Bookdiva.

This Christmas, I bought my mother-in-law a Smythson ‘Book Notes’ journal: 128 leaves of gilt-edged, pale blue featherweight paper bound in monogrammed navy lambskin, with each double-spread designed to record the Date, Title, Author and Comments of your latest read. Yes, I am a kiss-ass. She makes great eggnog. But I’m also deeply admiring of her diligence in keeping detailed notes and research on everything she reads in preparation for her local book club.

What was the best book that you read this year? It’s a classic festive dinner-table question but one I find almost …]]>

This Christmas, I bought my mother-in-law a Smythson ‘Book Notes’ journal: 128 leaves of gilt-edged, pale blue featherweight paper bound in monogrammed navy lambskin, with each double-spread designed to record the Date, Title, Author and Comments of your latest read. Yes, I am a kiss-ass. She makes great eggnog. But I’m also deeply admiring of her diligence in keeping detailed notes and research on everything she reads in preparation for her local book club.

What was the best book that you read this year? It’s a classic festive dinner-table question but one I find almost impossible to answer. While my mother-in-law is able to rattle off long lists of best and worst, with ample context and lucid argument, I stare blankly into space trying to remember a single thing I’ve read other than whatever’s currently in my bag. And while I’d like to blame my lack of elegant stationary, I know that the real culprit is my propensity to gobble novels like Lindor truffles. I usually read compulsively, voraciously, in a glassy trance from which I emerge only faintly aware of what I’ve just experienced, like a compulsive binger who stares around at the empty Pringle pots in surprise.

The answer is quite obviously to read more slowly, more carefully and yes, perhaps even with a scribbled observation or two. But three years of a Literature degree bequeathed me, along with an impressive but hard-to-monetise fluency in Middle English, a decade-long phobia of literary criticism and its concomitant slow, analytical appraisal of text (horrible word). Anyone who has ploughed their way through a curriculum-issue paperback, circling metaphors, highlighting themes and writing things like ‘subjugation of the other!!’ in the margin, will have experienced the depressing reduction of a living, breathing story to, in the words of TS Eliot, “a patient etherised upon a table.” Close reading has all the romance of bowel surgery, and trails a whiff of righteous killjoy akin to pulling the casket from a conjurer’s hands in order to cook his rabbit.

But a recent New Year present-to-self – Francine Prose’s Reading Like A Writer – has persuaded me to recommit to its joys. Prose is both a working novelist and a university professor, and her witty, down to earth approach reframes close reading as a humble, intimate and joyful art. As she says, “writers say that there are other writers they would read if for no other reason than to marvel at the skill with which they can put together the sort of sentences that move us to read closely, to disassemble and reassemble them, much the way a mechanic might learn about an engine by taking it apart,” and through chapters such as Words; Sentences; Paragraphs; Character and Gesture she encourages us to examine a book’s nuts and bolts while never losing sight of the pleasure of the whole.

Prose’s admirable and rare belief that it is “easier to learn by example then by abstraction” results in parsed extracts from writers as diverse as Jane Austen and Gary Shteyngart, but she also steers clear of excessive nit-pickery, rather pointing our eye in the right direction and letting us intuit how the alchemy works. Of the last two paragraphs of Raymond Carver’s short story, Fat (which you can hear Anne Enright read here):

It is August.

My life is going to change. I feel it.

- she reflects that Carver’s bold structural decision manages to “combine statement and qualification, certainty and doubt” but “in a way that we can no more ‘explain’ than we can summarize the ‘point’ of poetry or analyse how it operates on us.” It is this combination – the clarity of Prose’s observations teamed with her refusal to reduce the results of literature to something mechanistic – which makes her book so good.

In an early chapter, Prose exhorts us to fill a bookshelf by our desk with works by authors who demonstrate mastery in the specific writing skills most pertinent to, or indeed most lacking in, ourselves. It’s an excellent idea, and asking others for recommendations is a great way to build a 2013 reading list – and, sometimes, to be surprised by the acuity of your friends. My fledgling collection includes several novels by Rose Tremain, for the rhythm of her sentences and her exquisite evocation of sense of place; Elizabeth Knox for subtle, glowing imagery; Dorothy Dunnett for dialogue and exposition; Jonathan Franzen and Joshua Ferris for characterisation and point of view; Virginia Woolf for words and, again, sentences; and Dickens for gesture and stage management. I’d love to hear which authors or individuals works you would chose.

I’ve also committed to reading one poem slowly every night before I go to sleep. Poetry is a great training ground for close reading, excavating nuance and surprise from the most simple words and grammatical choices. The anthology Risking Everything: 110 Poems of Love and Revelation, edited by Roger Housman, yields both old favourites and surprising gems, all with a focus on reinvigorating the overlooked everyday, and has become something of a personal primer.

As a writer, my work is hugely improving by shifting from an instinctive education-by-osmosis model of reading to a more purposeful and present one. But I’m also noticing that those passages I read with such deep attention cling to my mind like raindrops; their images, meanings and music glistening at unexpected moments, and resonating throughout my day. I’d recommend it. Close reading may give you a serious advantage round the turkey next year.

This article originally appeared on Bookhugger.

From national museums to indie cinemas, London’s cultural institutions provide some of the best watering holes for socialising, slobbing …]]>

The Gallery Mess @ Saatchi Gallery

People watching is one of the greatest pleasures a big city affords. It’s especially good when practiced from a warm corner with a flat white and a home-made cupcake. It’s even better in a location that guarantees an eclectic crowd of trendsters, students, tourists, quirky arty types, and regular joes. And it’s best of all when, once you’re down to dregs and crumbs, you can rise from your armchair and catch an outstanding play or exhibition to round off your day.

From national museums to indie cinemas, London’s cultural institutions provide some of the best watering holes for socialising, slobbing and inspiration-seeking in the world. And with every Brit worth their salt boycotting Starbucks for its creative approach to tax, now is the time to support a classier breed of café. Here are ten of our favourite cosy hangouts in the capital, perfect for winter afternoons.

1. Wellcome Collection

Located just inside the foyer, the Wellcome Collection’s café may be furnished in an uninviting Duplo/IKEA hybrid style, but it is unfailingly buzzy and buoyant. Exhibitions are free, so after exploring the extraordinary current show on the iconography of death, you’ll have plenty of spare change to indulge in caterer Peyton and Byrne’s old school English treats – the gourmet black forest fairy cakes are a must. It’s also adjacent to the one of the best-curated cultural bookshops in London, so pick up the likes of David Eagleman’s Incognito to feed your brain as well as your belly.

2. Hackney Picturehouse

Cinema cafés tend to be lurid monstrosities, where the height of sophistication involves ordering a stale instant coffee to go with your supersized Ben and Jerry’s sundae. But Hackney Picturehouse’s scrubbed-wooden shared tables and retro booths make it as popular for relaxing as for watching its selection of popular and art-house films. With the Everyman’s brand of louche luxury bringing home-made apple-crumble muffins and chai lattes to the scrappy heart of east London, you’d be a fool not to head to their £6 Mondays. Just remember to bring your very best facial hair.

3. National Gallery Café

Yes, it’s full of elderly art-lovers and twenty-somethings taking their mums out for lunch, but the National Gallery’s high-ceilinged, big-windowed, wood-paneled room is a calm, elegant Henry James oasis in the heart of London’s tourist trail. The hard wooden chairs and benches encourage good posture rather than lazy lingering, but a bracing cup of oolong and a sharp apricot pastry are just the ticket for putting the spring back in your step. Oh, and one of the world’s best free collections of West European painting lies a few paces down the corridor. There is that.

4.  Almeida Theatre

Under artistic director Michael Attenborough, Islington’s Almeida theatre has become a reliable hit-factory; The Dark Earth and the Light Sky, Nick Dear’s new play about the life of poet Edward Thomas, is already garnering glowing reviews. At night, the theatre’s very small café/bar resembles a game of sardines, but in the daytime it is a light-filled, peaceful haven in which to pick at delicious fresh food and stare wistfully out of the Upper Street-side window. The kind of place where prosecco feels mandatory past 3pm.

5. Blueprint Café

With its magnificent views and clean, neutral decor, the Blueprint Café, on the first floor of the Southbank’s Design Museum, is deeply tranquil. Food is on the expensive side, but there’s no reason not to string out an espresso and a panna cotta while peering down at riverside passers-by through the signature blue binoculars. Use the free Wifi to tweet a message with the #digitalcrystal hashtag, then head into Swarovski’s Digital Crystal exhibition to watch it appear on the 1000 LEDs hidden in the crystals of Ron Arad’s Lolita chandelier.

6.  Benugo Lounge @ BFI

Rumour has it that the BFI’s shabby-chic Benugo lounge is the top online-dating meet-up joint in town, but don’t be put off by sweaty-palmed trysts. The dimly lit open-plan room, with its mismatched velvet armchairs and squishy leather sofas, works for noisy groups of mates and solo laptop bunnies alike, and once you’re finished with the loose-leaf tea you can move seamlessly onto cocktails and sweet potato fries. The crowd tends towards self-conscious be-scarfed media types, but December’s Doris Day season will help you greet the most pretentious posers with a beaming grin.

7. The Cut

If you’re feeling seasonally sluggish, you can practically snort the energy from the air at The Cut, the Young Vic Theatre’s restaurant and bar. Host a go-getting breakfast meeting over poached eggs and Virgin Marys, but bring your cashmere as the warehouse-style space can get cold. Very pretty people abound, attracted by the equally young, experimental and international theatre companies that showcase their work on the stage. Lunch on the divine banana split, then catch a matinee of Going Dark, their multi-sensory winter show, and you’ll explode back onto the streets with the scales dropped from your jaded eyes.

8. Gallery Mess @ The Saatchi Gallery

Seated in splendour amidst vaulted ceilings, exposed brickwork and edgy exhibits, every visitor to the Gallery Mess Café looks like a work of art themselves. In a sea of overpriced and underpowered Chelsea joints, this achingly stylish space provides welcome respite from the madness of the King’s Road, and Saatchi’s famous ability to nail the artistic zeitgeist makes a stroll through the gallery’s free exhibitions a must. Knock back a bespoke fresh fruit smoothie, explore the current display of new Russian work, and you’ll leave feeling truly refreshed.

9. Royal Court Theatre Café Bar

The Royal Court’s basement café/bar may be too dark to comfortably read, but you’d have to be blind to miss the theatre celebrities lurking in its moody corners. Find directors, playwrights, actors and even the odd sir or dame sitting at the wooden tables, squinting at their reviews in the Telegraph, sipping excellent fairtrade coffee and forking up slices of quiche. Some of the world’s best new theatre writing gets premiered at the Royal Court, so pick up a playtext or two from the shop before you settle. Mobile signal can be patchy, providing an excuse to sit back, relax and – God forbid – talk.

10. The V&A

Famously positioned in Saatchi & Saatchi’s late-80s ad campaign as “an ace caff, with quite a nice museum attached”, the V&A has a long history of giving good café. Although the tables and chairs are standard plastic-utilitarian museum fare, the original nineteenth-century refreshment rooms they sit in – which were built to house the first museum restaurant in the world and intended to showcase the best of modern design, craftsmanship and manufacturing – are simply spectacular. It’s the ideal setting to bring your Moleskine and make some sketches over a slice of Victoria sponge.

 This article originally appeared on London Calling.