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I don’t know you, but I hate you

21st May 2012 by Helena 10 Comments  

OK I promise I won’t go on about the AMAZING Champions League victory on Saturday, I realise most of my readers are not obsessive Chelsea fans. But today is George Best’s birthday, so it would be rude not to mention football at all.
Even those of you who don’t follow football will have heard of George. He was the first celebrity footballer, a two-footed genius whose flamboyant lifestyle eventually got the better of him. This quote from the man himself sums him up: “I spent 90% of my money on women, drink and fast cars. The rest I wasted.”
No one minded that he was a playboy, because he had charm. It is incredible how much one can get away with if one has it. And how many people are sadly lacking in it. As Oscar Wilde said: “People are either charming or tedious.” Just before the magazine closed down, we ran a feature by Anna Blundy, one of my favourite writers, called ‘I don’t know you, but I hate you.’ It was all about first impressions, and how we inexplicably hate some people on sight. Funnily enough I had the opposite happen the other day, I really liked someone on sight, quite an unusual experience. Especially as our sons were on opposing football teams.
Now that I am a stay at home mum I see a lot more of the school run and the school mums. I do think the ‘hate at first sight’ thing is most prevalent at the school gates. Why is this? Is it because we would all rather be having their nails done or lunching with a lover? Is it because we are all linked by the common denominator of children in the same school and somehow this common factor creates rivalry? Or maybe it’s just because, in the main, women don’t much like other women, or at least ones they don’t know? After all, they might be after their husbands. Or even worse, their lovers.
I would like to assure all the mothers at school that I am not a threat. I have yet to see anyone’s husband (apart from my own) that I want to end up in bed with.
Maybe I will try a charm offensive and smile at some of the grumpier ones today. In my post Champions League euphoria I am Miss Magnanimous. Or I could just send the driver to get the children and sit at home watching old youtube clips of George….

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2012


Filed Under: Chelsea FC, Sport, Women, blog -->

10 thoughts on I don't know you, but I hate you

  • Zanne says:
    22nd May 2012 at 12:31 am

    That article in M was one of my favorites, very insightful. For the record though, I instantly liked you… I think it was the cool, chic 1920’s flapper look that you were so elegantly sporting. 🙂

  • Trish Wakelin says:
    22nd May 2012 at 8:35 pm

    Hi Helena, it’s awesome to see the years of living in the French culture coming through in your writing…

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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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