Bits of crazy stuff!

In today’s Observer magazine, Eva Wiseman writes, “the vegan bleeding burger is everywhere - following Iceland, Tesco just debuted its Beyond Meat version. But: when has this ever been something to aspire to in a meal? And: why would a vegan want something that bleeds?”

Just so, Eva Wiseman!

She must have read my yesterday’s blogpost.

And while we are looking at crazy stuff, I also read something about a fashion designer called Batsheva Hay. Her name alone is enough to make you want to write a Thomas Hardy novel about her. Anyway, she has been reworking vintage Laura Ashley dresses - long dresses, lots of frills and flounces, high necklines and long sleeves - and making a fashion item of them. This all came about because her husband, brought up as a secular Jew, turned to orthodox Judaism with full observance of the Sabbath. While she did not fully join in with his new-found zeal, she went along and conformed. “But his new-found religious ardour”, the article told me, “presented her with a knotty challenge. How could she dress for the Sabbath without sacrificing her style?”

And so began a new stage in her career.

Serendipity!

As regards her husband and his religious change-around, it led to his throwing out all his old clothes after he married her. “He had such cool clothing, really super stylish three-piece suits, things like that,” she said. She tried to persuade him to keep some, apparently, but he was adamant. Those clothes had been worn around other women and therefore had to go. So he went and had 10 Hasidic suits made by a tailor.

Well, that’s all fine if you can afford to do stuff like that. But it seems he is a celebrated fashion photographer and so the cost was immaterial. But who really needs TEN suits anyway? I doubt if that had anything to do with Orthodox Judaism.

I am left wondering at the odd things that happen because of religion. But at least this one was harmless.

Other stuff in the news has had me going down memory lane. As a child I did not own many books. I went to the local library a lot. (By the way, Kate Atkinson, the writer, was on Desert Island discs today. Only a few years younger than I am, she had a similar book experience, going to the library a lot and stating that the only books she owned as a child were the children’s classics of the time: Black Beauty, Little Women, What Katy Did, etc. Same here!) Before I went off to university I needed to buy a stack of books listed by the Modern Languages Department. So I went along to what I think was the only bookshop in town, Broadburst’s, where I presented my list and acquired a great weight in literature and dictionaries.

Now that bookshop has achieved national, indeed international, fame by selling a children’s book which had been on its shelves for 27 years. The bookseller tweeted about her sale and the tweet went viral. Here’s a link to an article about it.

The bookshop also has quite a large secondhand books department. It’s probably one of the ways for an independent bookshop to keep going. Years and years ago, on a visit to my home town, we went to the secondhand department to see if they had anything of interest. Lo and behold, someone had unloaded their collection of chess books onto the bookshop. And they clearly did not appreciate the treasure trove this represented to a chess player. Phil did and we returned home with our little car laden down with almost its own weight in chess literature!

Of course, collecting such books, and in my case tolerating the existence of such a collection in your home, is another form of crazy!