helena frith powell

  • Lifestyle
  • Women
  • Beauty
  • France
  • Contact

One of the upsides to journalism

2nd August 2007 by Helena 7 Comments  

Dear Helena Frith Powell

Wonderful piece in Thursday’s Mail on the pomposity of ladies who object to
an innocent pinch of le derriere.

I’m what you might describe as an older man, but still have hair, most of my own teeth and am told very occasionally that I don’t look my age. I wonder if you think I might be considered one of your followers, so that, at a time and place to be agreed, I might apply a subtle tweak.

Yours sincerely

Neil Coppendale

This charming reader added his phone number to his letter, which of course I won’t be sharing with the rest of you.

Nice letters like this make me as happy as nasty ones make me miserable. But as my friend Jonathan says when I get a really nasty one “mail like this is a sign of success. It shows you can evoke passion in the very stupid”.

Mail like the above is a sign that there are still people in England with a good sense of humour (unlike the lady who had her bottom pinched).

Richard & Judy just called and I may be on tomorrow’s show to talk about bottom pinching. How will they introduce me I wonder? “Bottom pinching expert Helena Frith Powell”? So another upside to my article is that I get to cruise around in a chauffeur-driven car for an afternoon, have my own dressing room and feel like a celeb for three minutes.

If I ever meet the man who carried out the daring deed that caused all this (see today’s article) then remind me to pinch his bottom as a thank you.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007


Filed Under: Journalism, blog --> Tagged With: journalism, upsides

7 thoughts on One of the upsides to journalism

  • snusmormor says:
    2nd August 2007 at 3:15 pm

    I watched the crime taking place on the news and must admit it made my day: he pinched her bottom! Just like that! In front of the cameras! You must give her a point for keeping her composure though. At lease in front of the camera. However, in my experience, it matters rather a lot WHO it is that is doing the pinching.

  • Arthur Burland says:
    3rd August 2007 at 7:29 am

    In 70 odd years, and I mean odd, I have never pinched anyones bottom. I can’t quite understand why the news woman felt humiliated. What if it had been a female who tweaked the behind of a male newsreader? I suspect all would have found it quite amusing, and the male newsreader would not have called in the Police for fear of being laughed to scorn if nothing else. Arthur.

  • Wendy says:
    3rd August 2007 at 3:44 pm

    Where’s today’s article… I can’t find it.

  • Yvette says:
    3rd August 2007 at 8:47 pm

    Richard and Judy was interesting. I wish that Lowri could have been quiet enough to hear you and other people speak. I work within the criminal justice system and personally I wouldn’t have sanctioned any criminal action simply for pinching a bottom on the journalist in Oxford as he didn’t have a sexual motivation. I suspect that that would have been the view of most of my colleagues (although the official line maybe different). Then again, if a woman turns around and slaps the “culprit”, I wouldn’t have prosecuted for that either.

    PS I like your highlights and cool glasses.

  • helena says:
    4th August 2007 at 3:39 pm

    Hello Wendy
    If you click on the pink Thursday’s Mail link at the beginning of the letter you’ll see it.
    Hx

  • Graham says:
    5th August 2007 at 9:11 am

    Dear Helena.

    With thousands of eminently forgettable “investigative” journalists scribbling away in small town news rooms, I suppose one has to do something to get noticed.
    This is so obviously a set-up and will now be shown ad- nauseam on those programs with suspicious home-made videos of baby putting a bowl of spaghetti on his head and dad falling off a kiddies tricycle.

    Graham

  • Wendy says:
    5th August 2007 at 12:03 pm

    Seen this today?

    http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/fashion/article2186880.ece

    Am off to Ile de Re tomorrow (free hols as granny’s got gites there…) and the whole place is full of over-designered people wearing stripes as though they’ve all got off their boats… it’s one of the best places to people watch…

    Wendy
    PS see my blog here: http://www.frenchhelpservices.com/blog

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

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

 

 

© 2023 Helena Frith Powell
Website by Web Inclusion
/* ----------------------------------------- */ /* Content Template: content-template-for-layout-for-header-and-footer-layout - start */ /* ----------------------------------------- */ .helenaHero .mainTitle h1{ font-size:3em; -webkit-transition: all 0.8s; -moz-transition: all 0.8s; -ms-transition: all 0.8s; -o-transition: all 0.8s; transition: all 0.8s; margin-top:-100%; padding-top:100px; padding-bottom:50px; margin:0; } .scrolled .helenaHero .mainTitle h1{ font-size:1.2em; padding-top:30px; padding-bottom:20px; } /* ----------------------------------------- */ /* Content Template: content-template-for-layout-for-header-and-footer-layout - end */ /* ----------------------------------------- */ /* ----------------------------------------- */ /* Content Template: 17hfp_about - start */ /* ----------------------------------------- */ .HFPA-section{ width:100%; background:#eee; } .HFPA-Image{ background-position:center right; background-repeat:no-repeat; height:276px; width:100%; -webkit-filter: grayscale(100%); /* Safari 6.0 - 9.0 */ filter: grayscale(100%); } .HFPA-Text{ padding:20px 10px; } /* ----------------------------------------- */ /* Content Template: 17hfp_about - end */ /* ----------------------------------------- */ /* ----------------------------------------- */ /* Content Template: 17footer - start */ /* ----------------------------------------- */ .footIt{ background:#222; padding:20px 10px; } /* ----------------------------------------- */ /* Content Template: 17footer - end */ /* ----------------------------------------- */