Zoe Strimpel

Anyone who has allowed themselves to spend time on TikTok – to say nothing of those who have ever looked at porn on the internet – will have an inkling of the vortex that lurks. Even for those of us who have so far resisted full-blown internet addiction, the ever growing appetite can never be satisfied for more than a second or two. Gen Z, as we know, has been more shaped by these dynamics than anyone else. This has produced well-documented traits such as extreme sensitivity and apparent inability to cope with criticism or challenge; social anxiety leading to a lack of interest in spending time with others in person, ready hostility, a failure to mature emotionally and economically, and a complete estrangement from the old go-to escapist pastime of reading printed words.

For a long time it was handy dinner party fact that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One (2010) briefly filmed at my late grandparents’ house, and appeared as Hermione Granger’s house in the film. Even this required extensive exposure of my grandparents to Warner Brothers’ lawyers, the film crew and, of course, to young Emma Watson herself. Neither of my grandparents had heard of Harry Potter before they were approached, and throughout filming, they failed entirely to notice her, though there was some vague recollection of ‘that rather mousy girl’ from my grandpa, who was far more taken with Susan, the 60-something woman in charge of props. This description stayed with me as Watson’s star rose and rose, plateaued, and turned gender political.

There have long been Le Creuset fanatics. During lockdown, John Lewis reported that sales of Le Crueset increased by 90 per cent. And last year, a sale at a Hampshire outlet store brought a crush of hundreds of people; police even had to attend. Then there was the affair of Pauline Al Said over the summer, a Le Creuset burglar who boasted that she was Britain’s poshest thief. Pots and pans have become part of a competitive aesthetic portfolio that not only indicates your degree of stylishness as a cook, but your attitude to the latest trends in wellness and health. The ideal kitchen is now free of ‘forever chemicals’, and exclusively stocked with glass, wood, cork, ceramic, cast iron and stainless steel.

It is still the case on transatlantic flights that a drinks trolley comes to even the farthest reaches of Economy. If you’re lucky, the gay man or imposing Essex girl wheeling it will, with a wink and a smile, palmed you over an extra mini bottle of gin or a wine for the meal. They can tell who will be a good, and who a bad, plane drinker.  I like to think of myself as the former. I am not someone who drinks to get drunk. Yet that initial buzz from a lemony Bombay Sapphire and Fever Tree glugged through ice is hard to beat. It’s an empowering, controlled, merrymaking high. In the wrong person, this buzz causes unwanted chattiness, but in my case it makes me sit back in my cramped seat and think pulsing, magisterial thoughts about the wonders of modern life.

I remember it quite clearly, that moment I first clocked that fat models were now advertising clothing – fitness clothing no less. I was in America and, left with time to kill in a shopping centre, I went into an outlet of the trendy athleisure store Athleta (owned by Gap), which I had pillaged on previous visits for its generous yet clingy apparel. I stepped in, looked up and noticed the walls were covered in big proud pictures of silky-skinned but decidedly chunky women. They were sporting leggings and tops, even sports bras, with rolls of fat undulating out from under their chests, jiggling on the thighs, wobbling on enormous bums.

Over the years, I’ve made a lot of trips up and down the highway connecting the small Massachusetts town in which I grew up to a strip mall about ten miles away. In this strip mall is a branch of Trader Joe’s, the mid-range American supermarket chain known for its serviceable range of food, decent prices and workaday packaging. I do not drive, and nor do I live in America any more. But when I am staying with my parents, I like to accompany them on their shopping trips as I find American supermarkets fascinating, if freezing. Trader Joe’s is an OK option for my parents; not great, but fine. For good meat, my mother would go elsewhere, and the same goes for fish.

Maybe it was when M&S began selling chicken katsu sando-flavoured crisps, or launched its Plant Kitchen range with its inedible alternative to chicken, or began slathering ‘green goddess sauce’ on already clammy ready salads. Or maybe it was the thousandth time I traipsed, freezing, through the tightly packed rat run of a station M&S Food – there are no fewer than three in King’s Cross – in search of something that I never found. Namely: something nourishing and delicious, rather than a freezing piece of over-marketed randomness. At any rate, many of us in the more high-falutin’ bits of the middle class fell out of love with what was once the high-water mark of grocery.

Farmer’s markets are a very cheeky wheeze and we all know it. Their promise – getting back to peasants’ basics of veg yanked from the ground – carries a hefty premium compared to supermarket food, which actual peasants have to buy. Indeed, supermarket food, from veg and fruit to eggs and cheese and bread, is generally two or three times cheaper and tastes just as good. But it seems that we are already in a world so dystopian that only the rich want – and can afford – soily spinach sold loose on a table. Certainly, the rich will queue for sorrel and strawberries, yoghurt and kimchi, raw milk, chicken and sourdough. Especially the sourdough.

Is there any intrinsic problem with sex parties? Of course not. At least, not for those of us who believe in the liberal tenet of living and letting live. This tenet has been put to the test by recent events at Belair House, a Georgian pile in subdued Dulwich. Hired last month by the company Heaven Circle, which puts on ‘naughty events’, including ‘online parties’ (you can join with face blurred or wearing a mask), the event at Belair was very much offline, with 2,000 condoms provided, a naked fire show, plus ‘500 candles, 500 roses, two DJs, THE BIG BED, three playrooms, five performers, one shibari artist, one Domme, 2,000 condoms and 60 toys,’ according to the company’s Instagram post. Shibari is the Japanese art of knot-tying.