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Singing with Bob

2nd July 2007 by Helena Leave a Comment  

David OwenI can now die happy having watched David Owen sing along to Bob Marley’s One Love. On Saturday we went to a wedding. These were not friends of ours re-affirming their vows but the children of some friends. That’s how old we’ve become.

The service was in a little church in an idyllic village nestled in the mountains about half an hour’s drive from our house. The congregation was made up of mainly English and Australians; the groom being English and the bride Australian.

I have always thought David Owen is a rather dashing politician. Of course it helps that he started life as a doctor. Until last week when Brown appointed his new foreign secretary Owen was the youngest man ever to hold that post, aged 39. He founded the SDP and often turns up in trouble spots as a negotiator.

Nowadays, he told me during drinks after the service (and I think it is interesting to note that he failed to sing along to The Lord’s My Shepherd and only came to life once Bob started blaring) he is less involved in politics and more in business. He does a lot of work in Russia. We talked about Russia, the Balkans, Thatcher, Brezhnev, Blair, Bush, Clinton and Iraq all before dinner. Then we were told to go and sit down. We were given strict instructions to sit next to someone we hadn’t already met and who was from another country.

“Where are you from?” he asked me.

“I’m half-Swedish, half-Italian,” I said.

“Perfect, I’m partly Welsh, shall we sit next to each other?”

Over dinner we had many more fascinating conversations. Then we were told all the men had to move two places. I am all in favour of this when I’m being bored by someone droning on about how dreadful their commute is but for once I wasn’t.

I lost both Lord Owen and my charming friend Patrick who was sitting opposite us. Instead I found myself sitting next to a three-year old whose first move was to pour a bottle of rose all over me. Meanwhile the woman who had insisted we all change around was cosying up to Lord Owen.

I had to drown my sorrows and as a result woke up yesterday swearing never to drink again. Then at lunchtime I had a glass of red wine which made me feel much better.

Happily I noted that the woman who replaced my amusing and interesting guests with her wine-throwing son was feeling much worse than me. At brunch she lay on a sun-lounger with a towel over her head groaning, barely able to move.

As Byron commented: “Sweet is revenge – especially to women.”

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007


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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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