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The Amy Winehouse of his generation

28th April 2008 by Helena 5 Comments  

My friend Norrie sent me this poem over the weekend to celebrate the coming of Spring:

For winters rains and ruins are over,
   And all the season of snows and sins;
The days dividing lover and lover,
   The light that loses, the night that wins;
And time remembered is grief forgotten,
   And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,
And in green underwood and cover
   Blossom by blossom the Spring begins

A simple and evocative portrayal of all that is good triumphing over darkness.

It is a little known fact that Algernon (now why didn’t I think of calling Leonardo that?) Charles Swinburne was the Amy Winehouse of his day. He was an alcoholic sadomasochist; sounds like a rather heady combination and should probably not be tried at home.

Eventually though he was rehabilitated and lived to the ripe old age of 72 in Putney. Maybe the same will happen to Amy now she has finally ditched the dreadful druggy Blake in favour of a nice boy who wears glasses and has a proper job from Gloucestershire.

Good luck to him and to Amy, however I’m not sure she’ll ever fit into life in Putney, however long she lives.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008


Filed Under: blog --> Tagged With: generation, winehouse

5 thoughts on The Amy Winehouse of his generation

  • Letizia says:
    29th April 2008 at 12:46 pm

    Hi Helena!
    The poem is lovely, thanks for sharing it with us! I feel so good during Spring-time, i dont know why, but i guess it’s due to all these flowers, the nice sunny days, the hope of a new love…
    i love having a lovely glass of wine in my garden before dinner and listening to the boats going back to the port after a long day at sea…lucky them, i say!!
    as for Amy..yes, i quite agree with you, she might end up like Charles Swinburne (who, to be honest, i didnt have a clue who he was till i read your blog!) one day…hopefully soon! she’s young, it would be a shame if she wasted her life away…
    have a great day Helena!
    baci e abbracci
    Letizia xx

  • Sev says:
    29th April 2008 at 5:46 pm

    No one wants to see anybody self distruct in public, and I hope that Amy pulls herself together before that happens. However, for me there’s a big ‘but’.
    I think she is hugely overrated – particularly by the press – who compare her to true greats like Dusty Springfield. Have you ever played an Amy Winehouse record alongside a Dusty song?
    She’s got a long, long way to go before she’s going to get anywhere close to being as good as an artist like Dusty, or any of those great singers from the 60s.

    I don’t even think she’s as good as Lulu!

  • sharyn G says:
    29th April 2008 at 9:46 pm

    I agree Sev. Maybe its the weight of all that hair and makeup!

  • JULIE says:
    30th April 2008 at 1:16 pm

    Sev, Dusty was unfavourably compared to Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday in her day!!

    Having said that, I think Amy Winehouse always looks as if a bath and a square meal is required – love her voice but hate her looks – Helena, maybe she needs to be on your spa retreat

  • Sev says:
    1st May 2008 at 8:57 am

    Of course you are right , Julie. I think there is a difference though. Dusty was never trying to emulate Billie Holliday or Ella. They were a blues and jazz singer respectively. Dusty was always pure pop – in the best possible way.
    Amy is also ‘pop’ and it’s obvious from the songs and arrangements that her sound is based on a style that evolved in the 60s, pioneered by the likes of Dusty, etc. But just not as good.
    Hence my comparison!

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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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