Does nobody remember Balzac?*

[shewhomust]

Reporting that the Body Shop has gone into administration, the Today programme's Mishal Husain reminisced about the range of products that she and her schoolfriends had favoured: she had forgotten the name, but listeners came to the rescue, and the show was deluged with reminiscences, fond and not-so-fond, of Body Shop Dewberry. For the benefit of even older people, does anyone else remember Aqua Manda? Do your own image search to see the full glory of its packaging, but I genuinely did like the scent as well.

Over breakfast, I was reading an article in yesterday's Guardian about someone who set up a YouTube channel about her lifestyle of spinning, quilting and keeping chickens. She called it 'The Last Homely House', "which is a place to feel comfortable, secure and welcomed." Oddly, I thought of it as the last place of domestic comfort before you set off for the Misty Mountains.

*The title I gave this rather random post was intended to convey the theme of memory. It is possible that this precise wording exists only in my memory, but it is my version of a line from Pierrot le Fou: Belmondo's character laments the switch to purely numeric phone numbers (this summary proves that I have not entirely invented it).

Comments

[cmcmck]

I still use their white musk products so perhaps I need to stock up!

[shewhomust]

Yes, you probably should! I preferred it to the very fruity fragrances, but I wouldn't call myself a fan.

[sovay]

She called it 'The Last Homely House', "which is a place to feel comfortable, secure and welcomed." Oddly, I thought of it as the last place of domestic comfort before you set off for the Misty Mountains.

Yeah, I'm with you on the allusion. Frankly these days, I'd assume from the name that the YouTuber was some kind of cottagecore apocalypse prepper.

[shewhomust]

Yes, if preppers were as common in the UK as they seem to be in the States, I'd have worried about that.

She must, if only subsonsciously, have heard the name somewhere, mustn't she? (She had visited New Zealand...) I suppose that's how you recognise a genuine myth, that people know it without knowing that they know it.

[sovay]

I suppose that's how you recognise a genuine myth, that people know it without knowing that they know it.

I like that definition.

Aqua Manda

[anef]

I don't remember this but following the link it looks as though I was missing out. I would certainly drink a fruit tea based on those flavours!

Re: Aqua Manda

[shewhomust]

Hah. Whereas mine is the opposite direction of travel: the scent of fruit teas quite often makes me think "I'd bath in that!" (and "pity it doesn't taste of anything...")