Hello there,
I’ve had what might politely be described as a slightly meandering career.
I started in television, working behind the camera on shiny-floor shows before moving into documentaries. Then, somehow, I ended up in wine. One thing led to another, and before long I was less interested in what was in the glass than why we were drinking it in the first place.
Why do we drink when we’re celebrating, mourning, flirting, worshipping or trying to make a Tuesday slightly more interesting?
This eventually led me down the path of anthropology and a book I’ve been working on about indigenous drinks and rituals.
Then I started a fragrance brand, Ouverture London, because apparently one enormous rabbit hole wasn’t enough.
Scent, it turns out, scratches much the same itch. Plants (that the fragrances are extracted from), places, memory, rituals, and all the peculiar little things humans decide matter.
Somewhere in amongst all of that, I realised I’m basically interested in why we do the things we do.
Sometimes the answer involves colonialism, migration, identity and the complicated business of belonging. Sometimes it involves folklore, or something peculiar somebody did 400 years ago.
And sometimes I just want to talk about a dress.
Which is why this website exists.
It’s somewhere to put the things I’m thinking about that don’t need to become work: things I’ve found, places I’ve been, things I’ve bought, things I’ve learned, internet rabbit holes, half-formed thoughts and whatever else has distracted me that week.
There are also several novels simmering away somewhere, mostly involving people having a considerably worse time than I am.
Basically, consider this my drawer of interesting things.
Have a rummage.
♡
