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Life is not a soap opera

26th April 2009 by Helena 5 Comments  

Just when you thought Brothers & Sisters could get no better Rob Lowe shows up. I first fell in love with Rob Lowe when Hotel New Hampshire came out. That was in 1984. We go back a long way. I met him a couple of years ago. I was sitting at Oriel’s wine bar in Sloane Square having a drink with my great friend Carla. He walked past us.

“I’m sorry,” I said to Carla. “I just have to do this.” I sprang from my seat, accosted Rob and told him he was the first love of my life. He was sweet. It probably happens to him at least twice an hour. He even said hello to Carla who was busy muttering “shameless” into her wine glass.

lowe.jpg

“Come see my play while you’re in town,” he said, grinned that cheeky grin and walked away. I did go and see his play, he was in A Few Good Men. He played Tom Crusie if you know what I mean.

Anyway, this has all got me thinking. Are soap operas the equivalent of the romantic novel? Are they the replacement for books like Pride & Prejudice, Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre? And if so, are we a new generation of Emma Bovarys, constantly dissatisfied because Rob Lowe is not about to show up on our doorstep?

I was just wondering.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2009


Filed Under: blog --> Tagged With: opera

5 thoughts on Life is not a soap opera

  • Jennifer says:
    26th April 2009 at 6:29 pm

    I hope it’s not annoying that this question is totally apropos of nothing, but I read somewhere that women in France wear skirts/dresses more often than women in America.

    Whenever I go shopping, it seems the selection of skirts has become pitifully small. Every woman wears jeans for casual occasions & dress pants for work. I’m afraid that eventually skirts will disappear forever!

  • Louise says:
    27th April 2009 at 9:40 am

    Not sure if this answers your question but i had to go to A&E the other day in London and was deeply dissapointed that my doctor was nothing like McDreamy. So not sure whether soaps affect my romantic aspirations but they have definitely affected my medical ones….. then again maybe i just need to try a different hospital xx louise

  • Natalie says:
    1st May 2009 at 5:02 am

    Talking skirts, Jennifer, I have really noticed coming from England to live in Canada that people here don’t wear skirts much at all. I always notice – being a lover of skirts and dressers (which suite my figure so much better then trossers, in fact skirt compliment most womens figures so much better the trossers do, especially if they get the right style and shape for them) I’m often the only one when out not wearing ‘pants!’ – if you get my drift.

  • Jennifer says:
    4th May 2009 at 2:03 am

    Where in Canada do you live?

    I also think that part of it is the climate. I’m American, and I live in a northern state. For many months out of the year, it’s simply too cold to wear anything but pants, along with “romance killers”–thermal underwear, underneath.

  • Natalie says:
    5th May 2009 at 3:19 pm

    I’m in Kelowna in the Okanagan, B.C. The winters are colder then England, but from March to October it is much much walmer. I think here people have just got into the habit of dressing very casual and then if they do dress up more they were smart trossers, not skirts. Lots of bikinis in the summer though and the odd little beach type of skirts that you were over them.

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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. Helena is also working on a thriller called Thin Ice that will be published in spring 2021 as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

Her latest non-fiction work Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles came out in hardback in 2016 and in paperback in April 2018.

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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