Words by Charlie Gladstone

The Wind of Change podcast is a particularly wonderful and improbable long-form investigation into whether the CIA wrote the band The Scorpions’ multi-million selling song (Wind of Change) to help hasten the fall of the Berlin wall. Really!

Country Funk Volumes 1 and 2. I can’t remember how I discovered these but they are great. Country funk encompasses ‘the elation of gospel with the sexual thrust of the blues, country hoedown harmony with inner city grit’. I bought them on vinyl but they’re on Spotify.

Amanda Cowley Heller’s debut novel The Paper Palace has been heavily hyped and I think it’s very good. It is richly evocative of place and brilliant in its unforgiving descriptions of family chaos and deception. The author was major force in US TV and there are traces of Big Little Lies here.

Ceraudo London have some wonderful traditional French bistro chairs in a great range of colours which I am sizing up for our latest property at Glen Dye Cabins and Cottages.

I bought Flos’ wonderful, sleek, simple Tab Lamp in black and in blue, too. Quite widely available but my goodness John Lewis are quick and reliable.

I am enjoying excellent pop albums from Lorde (perhaps a tad samey, but oozing class) and Jungle (a real return to form). Watch the exceptional one take video to Keep Moving by Jungle. Rough Trade have lovely versions of both on vinyl which have been added to my collection.

Happy Endings ice cream is a great discovery. We now stock this at our farm shop. Small batch ice cream sandwiches with unusual but delicious flavours and great wrapping.

I bought a new sought-after cleaver from Blok Knives. What an investment. What joy every day!

I bought a new pair of those plastic Birkenstocks called Arizona Essentials. This pair is in a colour called “multicolor Bright Violet’. They’re £40, they last well and once I start wearing them I find it hard to go back to proper shoes.

I also bought a wonderful, very engaging book of photos of The National called Light Years by their long-term photographer collaborator Graham Macindoe.

More good recommendations…