1) Sarah Millican on body shaming and why she’s working this year instead of going to the  BAFTA’s.

2) Nike’s World Cup ad, is fun.

3) Best example of how not to write a book review.  William Giraldi managed to tell us a lot more about his twisted ideas about woman and some of the books they read than he did about the book he was supposed to be reviewing. It’s an unpleasantly misogynist rant about people he feels aren’t intelligent enough to read proper books and by proper books he means books written by men, about things that are important to men and a certain type of man, Giraldi also hates the readers of Tom Clancy. I don’t understand the 50 Shades phenomenon but equally I’m not going to judge others on what they like. After about a year at secondary school, my English teacher, Mr O’Brien, realised that it was going to be pretty difficult to stop me reading in all my classes. As I walked into his class, he would check out what I was reading and if he thought there was too much of one type of book, he would remove whatever I was reading and replace it with something else. No judgement, just an observation that I might need a bit more fibre in my reading diet. He taught me for 5 years and during that time (often in his class) I read Clarissa when I was at school, I also read the Brontes and Austen and Arthur Conan Doyle and Kipling, I also read speeches, and Sweet Valley High books. My tastes were broad and I learned not to feel that any book was above or beneath me. I learnt to be a reader. It horrifies me to learn that Giraldi teaches, fortunately at college, hopefully he won’t destroy the pleasure of reading for his students. There are other better responses to that horrible review, here is Alyssa Rosenberg’s and of course the Smart Bitches and please read the comments on that one!

4) David Lebovitz on a Smithsonian exhibit, Food: Transforming the American Table 1950-2000

I spent a very lovely afternoon wondering around this in March, and had an interesting conversation with the security guard about my choice of reading material. (apparently I shouldn’t want to read about a war my country lost!). That day was an education in cultural difference!

5) Why is Napoleon not treated with more respect in France?

I put this one in especially for my mother, who is currently spitting her coffee across the room and muttering about ‘le petit corporal’…

6) More Old Crow and a playlist!