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The Quest for Eternal Youth

14th October 2008 by Helena 16 Comments  

Colin FirthI am about to interview a handsome young man called Ben Barnes who is in Abu Dhabi for the Middle East International Film Festival. He stars in a great new film called Easy Virtue with, among others, Colin Firth.

Tragically Colin is not here or I would have been interviewing him as well. I was rather depressed last night as I watched the film and quickly realised that I found the middle-aged Colin a thousand times sexier than the young gun. This is clearly a sign that I am just that – middle aged.

Ben’s next film is Dorian Gray. We all know the plot; young man makes pact with devil to stay handsome and young. Staying young is a bit of a theme this week. As you may know I saw Duran Duran on Sunday. I was so excited. John Taylor and Nick Rhodes were among my top ten list of gorgeous men for many years.

“This is such a great east meets west event,” a young Arab said to me while we waited for my heroes to show up.

“I was rather hoping it would be more of a Helena Frith Powell meets John Taylor kind of event,” I replied, edging closer to the front of the stage. Big mistake. Huge. Getting close to the front that is. Being so close made it easy to see the decline in the heroes of my youth.

John Taylor has for some reason turned into Jim Carrey. His face is all crinkled and rubbery. Nick Rhodes is a square blob with hay-stack hair and Simon Le Bon is horribly jowly. He also had a dreadful habit of spitting onto a piece of kitchen paper (obviously laid out for that purpose) every ten minutes. And all the songs they were going to do were written in HUGE BLACK LETTERS on a piece of paper on the floor. Possibly so they wouldn’t forget them. I saw straight away that Save a Prayer wasn’t on it and although I did enjoy bopping along to the others, that was the one I wanted.

The extraordinary thing was that Le Bon acted as if he was Dorian Gray; as if he still looks twenty and is incredibly sexy, which he just isn’t. I suppose the sad truth is that although we age on the outside, inside we still feel as funky and pretty as we did when we were young. My mother-in-law says she is often horrified when she catches a glimpse of herself. “Who’s that old dear?” she asks, before realising it is her.

So although I did fancy Colin more than Ben, there is something undeniably attractive about youth. And it is something we all long to hold on to. But Duran Duran should stop dying their hair, prancing around in badly-cut nylon suits and realise they have no portrait in the attic.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008


Filed Under: Men, ageing, blog --> Tagged With: eternal, quest, youth

16 thoughts on The Quest for Eternal Youth

  • Polly says:
    14th October 2008 at 2:41 pm

    Oh dear. As a Duran Duran fan, this is funny, yet disturbing. We need photos!
    I am reminded of that scene in “Music and Lyrics” when aging 80s star Hugh Grant is playing at the class reunion and throws his back out.

  • Jules Ritter says:
    14th October 2008 at 4:08 pm

    Hi Helena, I’m just reading your book To Hell in High Heels about anti-ageing so this posting is fitting! What a sad experience. I think it is all about evolving. To be perfectly honest those guys didn’t have a lot of talent to fall back on in the first place and as they got older they just stayed in the same rut working the little bit of fame they had to exhaustion, hence they end up doing private gigs in Dubai. Real talent moves on. It could have been worse, at least they didn’t lip synch.
    Julesritter.com.

  • Miller says:
    15th October 2008 at 7:35 am

    I think the quest for eternal youth is barking up the wrong tree, si tu excuses la métaphore mélangée…

  • Val says:
    15th October 2008 at 11:22 am

    Wisdom comes with age, but sometimes age comes alone!
    Helena,
    I thoroughly enjoy reading your work! Entertaining and amusing!
    Regards,
    Val
    (Australia)

  • mimi says:
    15th October 2008 at 3:31 pm

    Is this Ben Barnes who was a director ( I think) in the Abbey Theatre in Dublin? Love your blog ,mimi

  • helena says:
    15th October 2008 at 3:38 pm

    Hi Mimi
    No, he’s only 26 so I don’t think so. Thanks for kind words.
    Hx

  • Carol says:
    15th October 2008 at 5:07 pm

    Simon Le Bon will always be gorgeous to his fans. Poor you for not appreciating how he can still looks yummy as ever!

  • helena says:
    15th October 2008 at 5:53 pm

    He was never my favourite, but actually he looked better than the Nick, whom I adored.
    Hx

  • Rachel says:
    15th October 2008 at 8:03 pm

    I read How to be Impossibly French (I like the other title better.) a year ago and loved it so I was thrilled to discover your blog shortly before you moved. I have since uped your Amazon ratings by purchasing all off your other books online and am eagerly awaiting their arrival.

    All the best with the housing situation. I empathize as I currently live with my in-laws while awaiting renovations on my dream house (I’ve been waiting 5 years.) I live in France so maybe that says it all.

  • Patricia says:
    15th October 2008 at 8:10 pm

    “40 is when you finally get your head together and your body starts falling apart.”

    Ugh!

  • Ruth says:
    15th October 2008 at 8:34 pm

    Unfortunately, these are all the normal signs of ageing – well, except the spitting – how gross is that? You are still at the stage of refusing to believe this ageing process will ever happen to you. I don’t want to depress you but….

    ….you don’t mention how they sounded; apart from not lip-synching, did they sound the same/different/better or worse than in days of yore?

    After all, they are supposed to be hired for their sound, no?

  • sharyn g says:
    15th October 2008 at 9:15 pm

    Duran Duhoo?????????????/

  • Jennifer says:
    16th October 2008 at 2:13 am

    Maybe I’m crazy.

    I’m 31, but for several years now, I just haven’t been attracted to “pretty boys.” Perfection just isn’t sexy to me.

    The older I get, the less appearance means to me. Well, let me rephrase that. Appearance that doesn’t suggest an inner quality that I admire just…bores me.

    Colin Firth = fine

    random guy with a six-pack = eh

  • snusmormor says:
    16th October 2008 at 9:41 am

    I don’t think many people actually think of themselves as being any number of years (apart from when you’re a child or rather old), but rather timeless. Only when one’s toy boys are approaching their 40ies does one start to think that the years must somehow have passed!

  • reluctant memsahib says:
    19th October 2008 at 12:58 pm

    oh gawd. so know what you mean: about fancying firth more than young guns he stars alongside. i first fancied him back in the 80s. I was in my twenties then. one forgets that as he has aged so have i. ”man mama”, says indignant teenager daughter, ”he’s lke sooooooo oooooooooooold’. Rather like your mother, girl.

  • reluctant memsahib says:
    19th October 2008 at 1:05 pm

    i first fancied firth when i was in my twenties. sometimes i rather forget the fact that we have both aged since then. i am only reminded when my teenage daughter wails in horrified disbelief, ”but he’s like ssssssooooooooooooo ooooooooold mama!’

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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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