Without, hopefully, alienating any readers we might have gained during Gents’ Week, today is about bigging up super magazine The Gentlewoman.

That’s issue no 6, currently on the news stand – your correspondent only bought it for the first time last week to make up the newsagent’s minimum card spend of £10. But it’s worth saying, it offers a positive voice from an industry that gives a lot of gushy and trivial. Don’t get me wrong, I love gushy and trivial too…

Also in this mag, words are given almost equal prominence with photography. Somehow, before you know it, you’re reading (even enjoying) a feature about a personal trainer.

The profiles tend to be about under-the-radar types, like Leila McAlister, who runs a grocer’s shop and cafe near Arnold Circus on the Boundary Estate.

Or musician (and David Byrne collaborator) Annie Clarke – AKA St Vincent.

There’s still vox pop, but instead of bossy barometers, there’s a weirdly compelling text-only feature about what people (fashion designers, artists, celebs) keep in their handbags.

I’d like to show Victoria Beckham what this working Mum’s bag looks like.

Gents, there’s a brother title called Fantastic Man that might be worth trying. Otherwise, the gentlewoman, read it and let us know your thoughts.

Great White hope

Can you tell what it is yet? Not art, but a form of self-expression I guess. It’s me trying out paint colours again. Yes I’m back on the colour charts. My bedroom, though it has a wallpapered wall done, has not been painted since I moved in. The putrid peach remains. The awful stuff is […]

Seeds of shame

Remember my garden Real Reveal of a few weeks ago? Interesting how debate raged (ahem) in the comments, over whether I was a sensitive respecter of Mother Nature’s plan, or a garden slattern, who’s land should be taken off her by the council. Somehow the most shame-stirring response was the most kind and generous. Patricia […]

Book club: Candia McWilliam

I have doubled the number of Glaswegian’s in my life, and find myself tempted, without thinking, to mimick their lovely way of putting a sentence around. So I will give in, this once, and say, inauthentically, “that’s me,back from my holidays”. Tomorrow, some of my amatuerish snaps of the South of France, but today I […]

Crockery counseling: hello Madeleine Boulesteix

A reader writes: Dear Friends I left this plate in the sink to wash as it had just come from a flea market. I then dropped a mug on it and it was gone before even being washed. I felt very dumb for doing this. It cost next to nothing as it was in a […]