Delicacy: A memoir about cake and death

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In 2007, Wix joined the cast of sitcom Not Going Out as recurring character Daisy and then went on to be a regular from Series 3 until her final appearance in the 2015 Christmas special. [7] In Torchwood: Children of Earth she plays Rhiannon Davies, the sister of Ianto Jones. [8] In 2010, she presented the BBC Three series The King Is Dead. She made guest appearances on the BBC shows Horrible Histories, Outnumbered (2010) and Absolutely Fabulous (2011). Katy Wix: It’s so interesting, that idea of guilt. In school you’re taught about this very clear world of right and wrong that isn’t really there. But it’s so confusing because no one has to say to girls directly that food is bad but these messages are transmitted — consciously or unconsciously — through our mothers and the people around us. When I interviewed Susie Orbach [author of Fat is a Feminist Issue ] she was saying that in our culture it is almost impossible to be fully healed, but if you’re kind of 80% recovered, that’s a really good place to be. Welsh telly was slightly different to the rest of the country. We have S4C rather than Channel 4. I remember going through the TV listings and seeing what was on normal Channel 4, like The Word, then I’d look at Welsh Channel 4 and it would just be something boring in Welsh at the same time.

Gentle, heartbreaking, laugh out loud funny and poetically told –an intimate memoir that stays with you’ Mary left the rest of the Ghosts in episode four… (Credit: BBC) Why did Mary – actress Katy Wix – leave Ghosts? I have often wondered if the last book you read is important. I remember the last book I read to my dad [....] The last book you read before you die is like the type of coin that gets put under your tongue for Charon. It is mental substance for your journey, something to remember as you go on your way" (p.206). Caragh Medlicott: I watched the YouTube interviews you did to go along with the book and heard you say that reading other people’s memoirs sometimes jogged your own memory, and that reading other people’s stories in general was more enriching than self-help books. It made me think of a quote from Kazuo Ishiguro: “In the end, stories are about one person saying to another: This is the way it feels to me. […] Does it feel this way to you?” — I wondered, how much did you think about the reader when you were writing? Was there anything you hoped people would take from it? Katy sees the world like no one else and deciphers it with extraordinary beauty. Delicacy took my breath away' - Lolly AdefopeMcCrum, Kirstie (23 March 2013). "Katy Wix is Wales' newest funny girl". WalesOnline . Retrieved 31 December 2022. Katy Wix: Susie Orbach really made me laugh when I was speaking to her the other day because she said this thing about how she suspects that men think that women enjoy it. Like this, continual dieting, as if it’s just a thing that women do. Like, we haven’t stopped to ask ourselves why we’re doing it or if it’s enjoyable. As if it’s on par with shopping or something. Leaving that diet culture is almost like leaving a cult — except the cult is mainstream. Ultimately, it has strengthened my love for him. He hasn’t taken the friendship with him. I still care about him and I know exactly what he would think about himself dying and me being left behind, with all my half of our private jokes. I’ve absorbed his traits. I eat the foods he liked and use words he liked and say our jokes to myself. And I’ve come up with some new ones for us, too. I’m living for both of us. I have replaced this person with love. And I get to write this love letter to him.

Then everything was quiet and still, except the white powder from the air bags hovering above the dashboard, and an immense heat in my chest. We had come to a stop in the middle of a dual carriageway. “I’m dead,” was my first thought. “I’ve died at 25. I had such potential and now I’m dead. I’ll never go on a panel show and I’ll never fall in love. I’ve died.” I looked down at my body. There was no blood, but I could taste some in my mouth. I looked over at my dad. He was slumped in his seat, not moving, eyes closed. I’d remembered from watching Casualty that you should repeat the person’s first name to keep them conscious. So rather than use “Dad”, I began to yell his name to try and wake him. When the paramedics arrived, on hearing this, they asked if he was my partner and then I died for real, of embarrassment. I began to type: ‘Of course, I forgive you. It was years ago now. We were only young, we’re very different people now. We were teenagers. Let’s just move on . . .’ As I was writing it, I thought things like, This is so kind of me and, This is the right thing to do and, It feels good to do the right thing and, How nice of her. I’m not sure why, but I didn’t press ‘send’. A few days later, I recounted the whole thing to my therapist during our session and told her what my draft reply had said, waiting at home to be sent. She said, ‘And is that how you feel?’ and I thought for a while, and then I said, ‘No. No, that’s definitely not how I feel,’ and she said, ‘Well, don’t send it then,’ and I thought, What a good therapist. So, that evening, I replied with the truth instead. ‘No, I don’t forgive you,’ I wrote and pressed ‘send’.Morris, Mary (18 June 2021). "Lemon Drizzle: A life told in cake-related moments". The Times Literary Supplement . Retrieved 21 February 2023. It’s a feeling that’ll be familiar to anyone who was labelled sensitive or shy in childhood. The idea that, contrary to notions of child-like freedom and frivolity, by eleven years old Wix had already developed an acute sense of self-awareness, of her perception in the outside world, and the inhibiting perfectionism that so often accompanies that recognition. This incident culminates in Wix riding directly into traffic as a “punishment to all who had allowed the cycling to happen”. Yet, this is not the pivotal experience of this particular holiday. Instead, it is the one for which the chapter is named – ‘The First Cake’ – an event which is preceded by Wix’s statement that: “My mother’s hopes for me were that I would always be happy and thin. My hope for her was that she would never leave me.” In happening to stumble upon a delicious cake in a French cafe with her mother, Wix encounters a formative experience – one that ultimately permeates the entirety of Delicacy: I didn’t know the author was a celebrity when I bought this book, so considering writing isn’t her day job this wasn’t bad! Having said that, I have my reservations.

As we said our goodbyes on FaceTime that Tuesday, we talked about how excited we were to watch the final series of Peep Show. There was always talk of future plans. He said he might train as a tattoo artist or look into becoming a Buddhist. I felt as though it was OK to stop worrying about him, for that day anyway.Also, you know in the 90s, late at night you’d get some weird, bizarre performance art happening on BBC Two? I miss that. The sort of stuff that was on after The Word. And then finally, maybe just all of Peep Showagain? You are thin. But you feel cheated and as though you have been lied to. You aren’t any happier. In fact you hate yourself more because now you are so empty and tired. You don’t have the energy for romance, you don’t feel small enough anyway despite what friends say, and the hunger keeps you adrenalised and awake at night. Being thin means nothing. Your internal experience of who you are hasn’t changed. The women’s mags told you the problem lay within you, not the world, that it wasn’t society that needed to change, it was you. They promised you a day when you would finally get the love you wanted and deserved if you could reach your goal weight. It’s as if you have finished a game of pass-the-parcel that lasted for years, only to find no gift at the centre. A smaller body has little to do with intimacy, joy, pleasure, connection and power. All thinness gives you is a feeling of having a body that doesn’t stand out. She was burned at the stake on the grounds of Button House, implying she worked there as a servant.

Bird Island – Radio 4 Sitcom". British Comedy Guide. Archived from the original on 20 September 2017 . Retrieved 19 July 2017.Interview Extra – The King is Dead". TV Choice. 24 August 2010. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016 . Retrieved 12 June 2012. It’s like the way some writers think ‘strong female lead’ means a female character who is capable of violence/revenge, but it takes just as much strength to be fat or depressed. Young women were supposed to be desired and pretty, not moon-faced and depressed, pretend-eating pasta with their mums. I looked at her and wondered when and how I had somehow got the message that, despite knowing that I was smart, my real goal should be to have someone fall in love with me; that would be the pinnacle of being a girl. Jones, Alice (15 April 2021). "Katy Wix on comedy, cake and death: 'I just wanted to scream at people' ". inews.co.uk . Retrieved 31 December 2022. Caragh Medlicott: I really felt that your voice and style were so clear throughout the book. I always think there is something quite lonely about prose in particular. I wondered how you approached writing it, and how you found the transition from the script writing you’d done previously?