pesto

today there’s something cloying about people’s compulsive need to be in touch all the time. In the 1960s, husbands and wives set out for their day’s work and came together again only when that work was done: there were none of those “i’m on the train” messages telling every stranger within a 10-yard radius the details of your private life. this difference was more than technical. people had individual lives to lead and were less dependent on each other for the rough and tumble of daily living. the call from the supermarket (“which pesto sauce do you want?”) was unthinkable. and not only because we’d never heard of pesto. people simply had to make decisions for themselves and it made them more resourceful. harold and I were very resourceful indeed

– joan bakewell