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Arise Sir Jonny

21st October 2007 by Helena 3 Comments  

OK, so we lost, but it’s only a game.

You have my permission to kill anyone who says that. It’s not only a game, it’s the WORLD CUP and we lost, rather unfairly I think. I was in a bar full of French people supporting South Africa. Helllooooo??? Aren’t we all Europeans together? Apparently not. But we were gallant and Jonny was glorious. Percy Montgomerie doesn’t stand a chance. And what was that fall into the camera all about? “That’s Percy,” said a friend of mine who was watching with me. “He sees a camera and he throws himself at it.”

Sir Jonny

I propose a knighthood for Jonny and a permanent statue in Trafalgar Square. I will be designing a fountain with a vast statue of Jonny in the middle for our garden.

My scoop in today’s Sunday Times didn’t make it to the international edition but you can read it here. You can also read my seminal piece about Jonny in the news pages (since when was the fact that we all love Jonny “news”?). Someone at the paper put some stupid joke about the Aussies and All Blacks in the middle of my text which they got wrong, making me look like one of those awful women who talk about rugby but know nothing. Which of course I am. And they messed about with our scoop, making up some drivel about a lavender garden and cutting out the brilliant neighbour completely. I can see why people hate journalists. But as I have experienced this weekend, it’s often the editors or subs that make stuff up, not us.

Meanwhile I am pleased to report that Olivia is showing signs of becoming a true French woman. She sent her first text to me today. “Olivia + Quentin,” it read. “Darling,” I said. “How sweet, your first ever text. I’ll keep it forever.”

“Don’t keep it forever,” she responded. “I might get another boyfriend.”

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007


Filed Under: Children, Jonny Wilkinson, Journalism, Sport, blog --> Tagged With: arise, jonny

3 thoughts on Arise Sir Jonny

  • margaret says:
    21st October 2007 at 9:25 pm

    Don’t you think Percy looks like Prince Charming out of Shrek? What’s all that flowing long mane about? I can just imagine how long he hogs the bathroom for, perfecting his barnet.
    Johnny for Prime Minister, or at least my under-secretary. Divine!

  • Arthur Burland says:
    23rd October 2007 at 9:49 am

    Thought the article about the Lady of the Lake, excellent and such a good piece of writing. However, I think there was a similar case in England where a body was discovered by chance, in the Lake District. What horror for the murderer, if such it was, to realise as he waited, that the water level was falling, falling. Did he go and check each day?

    Percy was prodigious and never ever hesitant,
    Always in the thick of it; vote Percy to be President!

    Sorry, couldn’t help it! Arf.

  • helena says:
    23rd October 2007 at 10:16 am

    Thank you for kind comment on the article Bestarthur, but keep your thoughts on Percy/Prince Charming to yourself! I’m amazed he can see where to kick the ball through those luscious locks. And did you know he is coming to Perpignan next season? We should go and watch, Rupert is refusing to come with me.
    Hx

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi-based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor-in-chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she’s not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group. 

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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