Gywneth’s vagina candle explosion, and why I can’t stop watching shows I’ve already seen

There is possibly a psychological school — or at the very least a satisfying German compound noun — to explain the chasm between who you are and who you wish to be. Which is to say, can someone explain why, when I have shiny copies of the Booker shortlist on my bedside table (ink barely dry), do I keep going to bed with the same worn copy of The Secret History that I have been re-reading since I was 15?

While you’re at it, perhaps you can tell me why I’m having the same identity crisis over television. I vow to start The Serpent, only to find myself entering a fugue state and coming out of it cackling, already midway through an episode of Pulling — Sharon Horgan’s raucous nihilistic Noughties drama — on iPlayer. It, like Donna Tartt’s creeping and creepy psychodrama, is excellent, but I’ve seen it (at least) four times.  

On Saturday, I watched Pieces of a Woman (2021! New!), but after 15 minutes I paused it to read a full Wikipedia-and-then-some download of the plot in its entirety; as its credits rolled, I started an episode of Pulling as a chaser, an urgent return to the (very) familiar.  

I have my own theory of course. Namely, that of all the pleasures currently MIA from our lives, what you miss most surely depends on your temperament. Thrill-seekers mourn the death of spontaneity; masochists grieve the suspension of their 50-minute commute. Extroverts, obviously, miss people; introverts, presumably the opportunity to opt out of seeing others, rather than having solitude enforced by a lockdown.  

And the perma-anxious? Well, we miss the fallacy of control, of course: the reassurance of believing yourself to be in charge of your own destiny. To be able to make plans, set dates and direct the course of your own proceedings. In the absence of the above, there is delight in a neat resolution you can see coming from the first page, because you’ve read or seen it come to pass so many times before.  

Perhaps cultural novelty is superfluous when the news cycle/onslaught provides plenty.  

Behavioural scientists argue that there is some pleasure to be found in revisiting the familiar: far from it being lazy, you might find something new in well-worn ground. Except I fear in my case it is the opposite result I seek.  

There is an exception to my cultural Groundhog Day — the Premier League, which I have become fanatical about this season. Although even that contains some formalism: yes, there are thrills, conflict and theatre but each match is contained and resolved within 90 minutes plus stoppage time.  

And as an Arsenal fan, luckily I find there’s no danger of worrying about the surprise of ending up top of the league.

Gwyneth Paltrow’s This Smells Like My Vagina candle is not simply the most over-exposed homeware object in existence; it is also, apparently, a fire risk.  

A London woman who won the candle in a quiz (what a prize!), says that it “exploded and emitted huge flames, with bits flying everywhere”. There was “an inferno”. Mercifully, she and her partner were unharmed and disposed of the pseudo-fanny by chucking it out the front door.

In the (candle) light of what happened, it gives the description of the product added resonance. On the Goop website, where the candle goes for £69, it is described as “funny, gorgeous, sexy  and beautifully unexpected”.  Well, it definitely ticks some of those boxes...