WEEKEND COLUMNISTS
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Susie Boyt writes a column on shopping for the FT Weekend supplement. She is a novelist and lives in London. - -
Cupcakes and apple pie lies
A friend’s encounter at a cake shop prompts Susie Boyt to consider the false nostalgia surrounding the cupcake boom, which she believes is attempting to invent a version of life’s rites of passage
What would Watson do?
Sitting in a waiting room in anticipation of a dental procedure, Susie Boyt grows crosser and crosser and longs for the tweedy languor of Sherlock Holmes’ sidekick
I’ve learnt so much from TV
Susie Boyt says that she learned about the ins and outs of the British class system almost entirely from ‘Upstairs Downstairs’, a show she used to watch as a child
The icing on the speech
Susie Boyt wonders if a good speech about a friend should reveal, startle or merely confirm. Does one give a rounded view of the person or a partial one?
Moved to distraction
If your home is almost the fifth member of the family, can you separate from it reasonably and with good cheer? Susie Boyt doesn’t think so
The Palladium with a song in my heart
Susie Boyt heads to the back entrance of the West End theatre to meet Michael Feinstein, the sincere and elegant interpreter of the Great American Songbook
Why I’ve gone back to nursery school
Settling a child into school is perhaps the most poignant thing one can do that does not involve a church or a hospital and Susie Boyt thinks she may not be handling things very well
The magic carpet of the bedroom
While shopping for fabric for an upholstered headboard, Susie Boyt remembers a book that championed that little known marital aid, the bedspread, to the highest degree
Expect guns, nuns and shipwreck
A novelists’ self-help manual ruins Susie Boyt’s holiday mood as she ends up questioning her writing style
Pull of praise
Flicking through an American magazine, Susie Boyt contemplates her love of flattering remarks, the latest attribute to come under fierce scrutiny


