Voice notes, frozen spring rolls and home comforts with Melissa Twigg
Welcome to issue #18 of Nesting
My voice notes are getting longer. Anyone else noticing this? Free from the confines of normal conversational etiquette, I have found that I can happily talk into a void for minutes at a time without pause, often chuckling at my own jokes along the way. On occasion, I will be so taken with myself and my hilarious repartee, that after I’ve hit send, I listen back to myself just for laughs. And before you mock me, a quick poll suggests that most of you do it too. Narcissists, the lot of us.
It’s not just the talking; I love listening too. In fact, I’ll save up my incoming voice notes and enjoy kicking back with them in a quiet moment. It’s as though we’re having a drink together, except I don’t have to look interested and I don’t need to reply. In many ways, it’s my perfect kind of social event.
The most shameless use of voice noting is voice noting ‘live’ - that is, when you are both quite clearly online at the same time and choose to send them back and forth instead of simply picking up the phone (horrors). I have no problem with voice note tennis at all.
Voice notes can de divisive though. I raised the subject at a dinner recently and things got weirdly heated. Turns out, some people detest them. One friend hates the fact that people tend to add in a load of inconsequential minutiae on whatever is happening around them as they talk. In her words, “I don’t care if you’ve just tripped over the pavement or there’s something you like in a shop window - get to the point!”
Anyway - I am a convert and the idea of manually typing out what I want to say with my fingers now seems absurd and archaic. So I’ll be chatting endlessly into my phone for the foreseeable – like it or not.
HOME COMFORTS WITH… MELISSA TWIGG
I met Melissa Twigg when we were both horribly spoilt travel journalists. Melissa has since gone on to become features writer and fashion editor at The Telegraph and is now horribly spoilt in new ways. I grabbed her to tell us all about the Fitzrovia bolthole she calls home.
Where do you live and how would you describe your home?
We’ve bought a semi-derelict house in the depths of south London but until the trauma of renovating it is over, we're living in a tiny top floor flat in Fitzrovia. It's compact, cluttered and absurdly central (I still can’t get over Googling my route to a meeting and finding the destination is a six minute stroll away).
Who is at home with you?
My husband Christopher. And given the size of this flat, he is very much at home with me.
Current Netflix/Amazon obsession?
The White Lotus season 2 is almost as sharp and hilarious as season 1 - and reminds me of my all too brief stint as a luxury travel journalist. Now I have a desk job in London, it’s hard not to hanker for the days when I got to visit hotels like this and pretend that I too was extraordinarily rich (despite the inevitable return on RyanAir to a rented flat in Zone 3).
Best home comfort meal?
We both love pasta - not exactly groundbreaking - but watching Stanley Tucci Searching for Italy on the BBC has made us revisit some of the classics. Ottolenghi et al are very impressive, but nothing beats a well-made spaghetti bolognese or carbonara (which, I recently learned, should never include cream).
Book currently on your bedside table?
I’ve always been a devotee of Kate Atkinson and Maggie O’Farrell, so reading their latest releases (Shrines of Gaiety and The Marriage Portrait) back-to-back has been a complete pleasure. I’ve just started The Bass Rock by Evie Wyld, which has all the elements I look for - interesting, funny and slightly sad women wandering around beautiful places.
Background noise in your house?
I may be the one who works at a broadsheet but my husband is the one addicted to news podcasts. The News Agents, Today in Focus and the Rest is Politics are a constant background hum - to the extent that I often have to put in my earplugs so I can get back to reading my novels about complex women in peace.
Bath or shower?
I am oddly well-equipped to answer this question. Until August, we lived in my grandmother’s flat - unfortunately, she was a woman who believed showers were ungodly. Now, in Fitzrovia, there’s no space for a table let alone a bath. Neither situation is ideal - but while constant baths in a heatwave felt trying, I never craved a shower then as much as I yearn for a lovely deep bath now it’s dark and cold.
Favourite house scent?
I’d have to say the smell of spaghetti bolognaise or some kind of stew mixed with Jo Malone bath oil, as this means I’m having a bath and my husband is cooking dinner. Obviously a situation that is currently impossible due to the aforementioned lack of bath - but one day…
My garden is....
A walk around Regents Park on a Saturday morning.
How well do you know your next door neighbours?
I’ve seen Bill Nighy walk down the street twice in the last month - does that count?
Your favourite home from home?
My parents live in Cape Town and whenever life in London feels too exhausting I like to picture their pale blue house with its sunny, rose-filled garden, and Table Mountain in the background. I manage to go back once a year, but I wish it were more.
PODCAST STUFF
Diary of a CEO with Tim Spector
I listened to this while eating a bag of chocolate coins for breakfast, accompanied by some M&S jelly beans I’d found in a coat pocket. By the end of it, I was a changed woman: I had chucked the jelly beans, done a ‘gut health’ shop at Sainsbury’s and dug out the green tea from the back of my cupboard. After a full month where my five a day meant chocolate, crisps, cheese, wine and cake, this podcast was exactly what I needed to hear at precisely the right time. Your gut will likely thank you too.
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Relatively
I love this cosy podcast about our relationship with our siblings. There are loads of good ones, but I found the episode with Caitlin Moran and her sister Caz a really happy listen when I had the post Christmas blues – closely followed by the one with Stephen and David Flynn, twins (fit and Irish) who run a plant-based brand called The Happy Pear. I’d never heard of them before but now I am a devout Insta-follower.
BOOK STUFF
Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing
Do not read this if you love Chandler Bing and like to imagine that he and Matthew Perry are the same person. They are not the same person.
TV STUFF
The Traitors
This was a disaster for my sleep bank. I found myself recklessly ignoring my ‘go to bed’ reminder (don’t judge) and staying up to watch one episode after another. If you haven’t seen it, you’re in for a treat. If you have seen it - do you reckon you'd be a good traitor? I am still horrified by Wilf and vow never to trust another human again. Happy 2023!
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Philomena Cunk on Earth
I genuinely had to stop watching this because I was laughing so much I felt like a mad woman. The reason I find it so funny is because Philomena (played by the comedy genius that is Diane Morgan) openly zones out while talking to experts and has such a flawed grasp of history that I feel we have a lot in common. At times you forget she’s acting and that this is all a spoof documentary - even when she’s questioning historians about the ‘cube and missile crisis’ or describing the Berlin Wall as ‘a divorce made of bricks.’
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The Elon Musk Show
I thought this was important viewing seeing as this man might change the world in some significant way in our lifetimes (living on Mars, anyone?). I enjoyed it - though I’m not sure why as we’re basically just following around a pathologically busy man from pillar to post as he occasionally says soul-crushing things like, “I’m not sure I want to be me” and hints that he might be an alien.
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Louis Theroux interviews Bear Grylls
A documentary featuring two men I would happily marry - what could be better? I loved seeing Bear’s private island in Wales, meeting his long-suffering wife and hearing about his aversion to any food that makes him fart. When he revealed that he called his alarm clock his ‘opportunity clock’ though, I decided that push come to shove I’d better marry Theroux.
FOOD STUFF
M&S frozen Anytime Eating range
Just try the prawn gyoza and the vegetable spring rolls, trust me (perhaps before you listen to the gut health podcast - see above).
I’ll end on the frozen food note, so you’ve got time to pop to M&S. But I wish you a wonderful 2023 full of good guts, zero traitors and possibly the odd spring roll.
Dx
Who on earth is Dominique Afacan?
A very good question. Dominique (that’s me) is a writer, solo mum and sausage dog slave based in London. The idea for the Nesting newsletter came about because after ten years as a travel journalist, I wanted to share my new-found excitement about hanging out at home. I am also the author of Bolder – Life lessons from people older and wiser than you – a great birthday present, if I don’t say so myself – and available to buy here.
P.S The illustration for Nesting was created by my exceptionally talented friend Julia Murray in New Zealand.
I'm in fits of laughter about your marriage-aversion to the opportunity clock!
All hale the voicenote. Excellent and exciting list of content for combating my Jan blues - most grateful! X