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Falling on Dutch ears

4th October 2007 by Helena 20 Comments  

Not amused“Keep it light-hearted,” the producer tells me. “We’ve got a big feature on breast cancer so this item needs to be funny.”

The subject of my discussion on Woman’s Hour today is a new book written by a Dutch woman called Dutch women don’t get depressed. By the end of it, I am. I try a whole host of jokes, like Dutch men being so jolly despite bossy, scruffy women due to high drug intake and French women refusing to wear clogs (rarely in fashion). They all fall on deaf (Dutch) ears. Not even a snigger. The woman has no sense of humour whatsoever.

To make matters worse I get back home to a seriously POISONOUS comment on my blog about my performance. I am apparently snide, xenophobic and smug. And that’s on a good day. “I suppose, however, its all that can be expected from a woman who writes books with such ridiculous titles like ‘Two Lipsticks and a Lover’,” writes the rather bitter Abigail. (Rather smugly I notice she can’t spell it’s).

But I am safe. As I lie down for an afternoon sleep with my ill daughter (I am also ill having been out until 2am which only happens about once a decade, why did it have to happen last night?) she comforts me. “Don’t worry about that silly woman mummy,” she says. “Just go to sleep and pretend like it didn’t happen. I’ll look after you And I’ve got Max and Wolfie on my team.” Abigail beware.

PS By popular demand, here is the ghastly comment, posted on the About Helena section and also emailed to me just in case I missed it:

Abigail Jones

I just listened to a program on Radio 4 Women’s Hour on which you made an appearance – a discussion of Ellen de Bruin’s book ‘Dutch Women Don’t Get Depresssed’ and its sentiment. It is, of course (as de Bruin readily admitted) another example of a ready habit that many people have to stereotype nationalities in a wildly uninformed manner. I can’t say I’m very interested in buying the book or discussing such silly stereotypes, but de Bruin seemed like a pleasant enough woman.
Despite the fact that we were listening a discussion on de Bruin’s book, however, it was your drawling sarcastic comments and performance that really stood out. And not, I assure you, in a positive way. You seem to have an unpleasant obsesion with perpetrating such mindless, crude stereotypes, and some of your responses verged on xenophobic. The one about how Dutch people were happy because they smoked drugs? Embarassing. As for your claim about how women are happier when they believe they look better? I can only judge from the ridiculously smug picture you posted of yourself on this page that you at least are wholly believing that you look ‘good’? Your snappy tone and silly jibes on Woman’s Hour, however, was not the behaviour of a happy woman.
I suppose, however, its all that can be expected from a woman who writes books with such ridiculous titles like ‘Two Lipsticks and a Lover’

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007


Filed Under: Style, Women, blog --> Tagged With: dutch, falling

20 thoughts on Falling on Dutch ears

  • louise hurren says:
    4th October 2007 at 5:27 pm

    I don’t understand – where’s the comment from Abigail?

  • helena says:
    4th October 2007 at 6:48 pm

    Hi Louise, I have added it now.
    Hx

  • Laura says:
    4th October 2007 at 7:32 pm

    Can’t believe I missed it! Luckily I can still listen to it and see if the Dutch author really had a humour-bypass.

    As another bi-lingual person you will know however that humour doesn’t translate very well and I can only imagine how nerve-wrecking it must be to be on BBC radio in a language not your own.

    Then again, she’s Dutch. She probably doesn’t give a ****

  • purple says:
    4th October 2007 at 8:56 pm

    Surely it wasn’t exactly your finest hour. By the end of the program, the host read an unfavourable comment they received via the WH message board. The situation called for wit rather than jokes. Perhaps the Dutch woman didn’t get the same brief?

  • Peggy says:
    4th October 2007 at 9:49 pm

    Nasty comments from people who make basic grammatical errors should be immediately discarded and forgotten.

  • Miko says:
    5th October 2007 at 12:14 am

    Wow, I’m glad I don’t have a blog with my picture on! Don’t listen to Abigail. She sounds like a proper “rodstrumpa ” with clogs and pigtail=very attractive(not). Go Helena!

  • Jacqueline Bucar says:
    5th October 2007 at 1:54 am

    Helena, this comment is so deliberately nasty that one has to wonder what Abigail’s motivation is. The fact that she sent it to you just in case you didn’t see it makes me very suspicious of her intentions. Sounds like she’s either wound tightly or is jealous. Maybe her mean spirit penetrates all parts of her life that no one likes being with her and so she takes out her hostility on people who seem to have it together like you. Her “writing” reflects her personality. She didn’t try to say anything constructive. She didn’t criticize the topic etc. Instead it was a frontal ad hominum attack. I hope you don’t take this too seriously. Look at the source. She’s got to be pretty miserable.
    It’s one thing to say what you mean; another to say it mean.
    If I were you, I would look around you and all that you have and smile in the face of such spite.
    Jacqueline

  • Jacques says:
    5th October 2007 at 9:24 am

    If Abigail thinks Two lipsticks and a lover is a ridiculous title, what will she say about the current bestseller “the Blair years”? Why did this Mr Campbell give a politician’s name to a book of soup recipes. Now THAT’s ridiculous!
    If she doesn’t like your title, perhaps she might prefer my far more glamorous version in French “Deux rouges ? lèvres et un amant”. Ignore her.
    Ridiculous Jacques

  • margaret says:
    5th October 2007 at 9:28 am

    OOhher, I had to laugh (probably because it wasn’t aimed at me) but I had an image of a bitter, twisted witch, sucking a lemon sitting on the wrong end of her broomstick. I’m glad these people exist because it makes me feel so wholesome and apple-pieish.
    I will now go back to sticking pins in various dolls knowing that at least I don’t vent my spleen in public.

    Whilst you have supper tonight, surrounded by adoring husband, loving children, good food and a splash of chablis, raise a glass to old Abigail as she stirs her cauldron in lonely isolation!

  • Pepette says:
    5th October 2007 at 11:17 am

    Helena,

    Unfortunately, there will always be people who criticise, make rude and nasty comments and don’t share your sense of humour. Your Bea is very wise – rise above it all and pretend it didn’t happen…

    And I really like the titles of your books if that makes you feel better!

  • Kathryn says:
    5th October 2007 at 1:55 pm

    I was so intrigued by the blog and the comments that I logged on to listen to the interview. Even the wonderful Jenni Murray didn’t seem to appreciate that you were being ironic. It shows just how French you have become that even your sense of humour is now too sophisticated for the Abigail’s of this world.

    You were remarkably gracious over the fact that they got your book title wrong – at least it’s an original title and you didn’t just rip off someone else’s. Next time I’m bored I shall play a new game of filling in the blanks: “…….. Women don’t get …….”

  • Rupert says:
    5th October 2007 at 2:27 pm

    Margaret
    Nice comments in support of Helena, but just to point out that we don’t drink Chablis here, but Arrogant Frog, a local Languedoc wine made by our good friend Jean-Claude Mas. It comes in red, white & pink and has a screwtop so there’s no struggling with corks.
    I too listened to the radio programme, but am none the wiser as to why Dutch Women Don’t Get Depressed. Just listening to that dutch bint droning on and on was enough to send me to the nearest hoover, whatever that is.

  • Michael Calland-Brooke says:
    5th October 2007 at 3:06 pm

    How bitter. Perhaps Abigail should post a picture of herself. Notice she’s gone rather quiet now!

  • sabrina says:
    6th October 2007 at 8:07 am

    Good god. Someone needs some lipstick and a lover. And a bit more dietary fiber. 😉

  • jojo says:
    6th October 2007 at 9:37 am

    hi Helena

    Just remember it takes a lot of hard work and courage and determination to achieve anything (eg writing books, looking after children) but to ctiticise anyone all you need it a mouth!

  • jr says:
    7th October 2007 at 8:51 pm

    I have to say I agree with Abigail’s comments and don’t think they can be bettered (apart from the minor grammatical error).

  • ruth says:
    13th October 2007 at 10:27 am

    A grammatical error AND at least two spelling mistakes don’t recommend Abigail’s opinions to me, suggesting an uneducated and uninformed person wrote them. I feel sorry for her; it sounds as if she is not having much fun in life – maybe she supported the other side in the Rugby World Cup.

  • Jules Ritter says:
    15th October 2007 at 8:45 am

    I blame it on the BBC – did anyone understand the argument going on here? What an embarrassing muddle. The researcher hadn’t done her homework. Ellen de….hadn’t a clog (and yes they jolly well do wear them along with their tracky bottoms which are aching under all that assertiveness). H you were very good, a calm voice amongst a lot of embarrassing confusion for the BBC and Ellen de Buin.
    Pity Rupert only gives you cheap plonk to drink – we here in Switzerland favour local wines sold in handy juice style cartons. There’s no confusion over colour as they all taste the same with a lovely wiff of plastic.

  • Louise says:
    26th October 2007 at 9:29 pm

    To borrow Marco Pierre White’s phrase “you can dress a pig in a suit, but you can’t stop it grunting” seems to fit Abigail. Mean old bint.

    I love your writing and your blogs. I’m looking forward to your next book out. You and your daughters are beautiful, take no notice of the Sauerkraut.

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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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