Hello and welcome to Goodness.

Do bear with me...

It has taken me three hours of attempting to upload a logo without then being allowed to press the Save button, before I’ve been forced to accept that I lack the requisite skills for seamless Substacking. This road may prove rocky. But what I am pretty good at (I’m told), is giving good recommendations for things I’ve bought, seen, visited, eaten, worn, used and made. I love hearing those of others, too. So when it occurred to me that Substack could be a place for me to log all the goodness and link directly to it when needed, it seemed like a fun, useful and satisfying thing to do.

A bit about me if I’m a stranger to you:

I’m 49, have been a journalist for some 25 years, an author for 10 and a content creator for maybe a little less than that. I co-founded and still co-run a charity called Beauty Banks, which provides essential toiletries to hundreds of UK charities, to distribute among people living in poverty. I have two sons (one a man, the other very nearly a man), a husband (also a writer) and a rescue dog named Sylvie (nervous, happy, enormous ears). I live by the sea in Brighton. My written work - beauty, lifestyle, opinion and interviews, mainly - appears in The Guardian and in women’s mags like Vogue and Grazia. I’m 5,3” tall, a vegetarian, homebody, fashion obsessive, TV and film addict, music and book lover, vintage shopper, good cook, bad baker and absolutely useless gardener. I have zero interest in cars and in any sport other than snooker. I have never found a fitness activity I enjoy, am good at or can be bothered to do with any regularity. I mention all these things only because they will prove relevant in the type of content I do and don’t post. Whatever I talk about, it will always, always be made clear what I bought, what I didn’t, and what came free as part of my job.

I think that’s it for now. Tell me what you’d like.