10 Scorching Spells, 13 July 2025

An eleven-year-old's new obsessions, Fiona Shaw on Virginia Woolf, 1980s space books and my favourite new novel

1. The revelation that Richard E Grant is into disco and techno.
   

2. The way Fiona Shaw guides the listener so beautifully, authoritatively and friskily through this multi-part Radio 4 documentary about Virginia Woolf (episodes 1 and 2 are out now). Bonus content: I love the recently reissued editions of her books, returning to the original cover art (see below).

   

3. The fact that my son has started playing Pulp’s Common People every time he goes into his bedroom to change for school, put on his pyjamas, go and get his Beanos, get ready for a shower, etc. I haven’t encouraged him, but on Glastonbury Saturday, we were on the way home from an afternoon gig in the car, around 6.15pm, when I knew Pulp were possibly about to play the Pyramid Stage, so I turned the radio on – and so they were, and so he listened.
   
   We got home just in time to see Common People on TV, and I was welling up like an idiot, remembering seeing them headline thirty years ago, as I’ve blabbed on about before. Nothing happened for a few weeks, and then there it came, under his door, across the landing, again and again and again.

   Before bed on Friday, he asked if he could watch the video. After it, I asked him what he thought of it. “It’s weird.” Good weird or bad weird? “I’m not sure!” He’s still playing the song. We’ll see.
   

4. My son also getting into Wimbledon this week, then the delight of sharing the highlights of the Goran Ivanišević vs Pat Rafter 2001 Wimbledon final with him after a particularly trying day.

5. Archive footage of cinema crowds queuing to see Jaws from the glorious Jaws at 50 documentary on Disney+ this week. I’m covering for Barbara Ellen on TV at the Observer this week and next, so go here to see what I thought of Lena Dunham’s Too Much (it’s too much) and Channel 4’s new. bought-in Belgian-Dutch dystopian drama (it’s much better).

6. A book of my husband’s, How To Be an Astronomer, from when he was a child, unexpectedly returned to him today. Something about this combination of typography and image (below) feels very magical.

   

7. The awe I feel every time I play this absolute stone-cold banger.
   

8. One of the satisfyingly perverse combinations of words that have helped me win LetterBoxed this week.

   

9. Ian McKellen on why he loves going back to Manchester (the bloody Instagram reel algorithm has me nailed now).
   

10. The scene in Wendy Erskine’s The Benefactors where Boogie goes to the shops, and the scene near the end, which is the absolute opposite of a gentle spell, but built up to and framed so brilliantly, I can only fall to my knees in praise. Buy this book and allow yourself to trust in its rhythms. What a writer.