What do you thing your average Abu Dhabian does of a weekend? A spot of swimming in the warm sea? A trip to the desert? Some camel racing perhaps? No, we go to Carrefour.

For reasons too tedious to explain, I have been to two Carrefours today and you would have thought they had announced that you got a year’s free groceries judging by the queues. Or that every litre of milk came with a kiss from Carla Bruni for the blokes and one from Olivier Martinez for the girls.

Sadly none of the above was true. We just all happened to be there at the same time. Luckily the children and I had begun the day with a little more culture. We went to perhaps the only other building here that is bigger than Carrefour; the Grand Mosque. 

I was asked to put on an abya and a scarf before I went in and found it a rather interesting experience. It wasn’t hot or uncomfortable as I imagined it would be. I felt rather elegant sweeping through the vast rooms with my children in tow. Olivia and Bea, never one to miss an opportunity to dress up, donned scarves as well. If I could only get the photo from my phone to the computer I could show you. Leo acted as photographer and did a great job.

The Grand Mosque opened earlier this year and is the final resting place of Sheikh Zayed, the Father of the Nation, to whom it is dedicated. A friend told me today that there are several people employed to read The Koran out loud to his remains at four-hour stretches each. The building covers an area of 22,000 square metres (who does the hoovering is what I want to know) and the building is entirely clad in marble.

It is big enough for 30,000 worshippers, assuming they can tear themselves away from Carrefour that is.

 Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008

I am in Austria at the Viva Mayr clinic and online again after several days. I am here for my new book deal; I am writing a diet book based on the Viva Mayr philosophy, which is all about chewing a lot and not eating too late. Well, there is more to it than that of course, but as I only just arrived you can’t expect too many details. And anyway, I don’t want to put you off buying the book.

London was good practice for Abu Dhabi. It was unbearably hot and full of people from the Middle East. We stayed near Marble Arch at our Society of Authors affiliated club, The New Cavendish Club. Let’s get this straight, there’s nothing ‘new’ about it. And that’s what makes it so charming and so very English.

“This is a proper Englishman’s breakfast,” said Olivia tucking into bacon, baked beans, tea and toast. “Grandpa would like this. He’s a proper Englishman. He fought in the war and he won it.”

I doubt the club has changed much since the war (hence the lack of internet connection). The ‘public areas’ require a certain dress code, copies of The Daily Telegraph are strewn over lavishly upholstered sofas and fish and chips is on the bar menu. It is a little corner of London that remains forever England.

Step outside though and you may as well be in down town Abu Dhabi. I would say at least 50% of the people walking down the street are Middle Eastern, quite amazing. Why are they all there? What is it they like about it so much? If you walk through Hyde Park to Kensington Park Gardens and up to the Diana memorial playground the average increases to around 70%. Here at least I can see what has attracted them; the sand around the pirate ship makes them feel at home.

Anyway I am pleased to report they seem extremely nice and I am looking forward to moving there next week even more. Bea met a charming and beautiful young boy at the playground who clearly fell in love with her on sight. Olivia spent her time asking young girls if they liked wearing head scarves. They don’t really think about it is the impression she got.

I saw some very elegant ladies in traditional dress with just a touch of frivolity; a pair of pink shoes, or a Prada handbag, or some gold lace lining the austere black garb. It seems under all that cloth they are a bit like us.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008

When I was growing up there was only one supermodel who counted; Ines de la Fressange. She was Karl Lagerfeld’s muse, the face and body of Chanel, as good as it gets.

On my desk as I write I am looking longingly at an invitation to a reception next week to celebrate her being awarded France’s highest award: the Legion d’Honneur. I say longingly because I don’t think I’ll be able to go. Rupert and I are taking a break on the Atlantic Coast to celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary and I don’t think his idea of fun is carting up to Paris with a sore knee.

There are apparently several people who don’t think Ines deserves this award. They say she is a clothes-horse. Nothing but a model. I don’t agree. I first met her when I was writing my book about French women. To me she has always epitomsied what makes French women so, well, French. She is thin, elegant, haughty and smokes. What amazed me when I met her though was how lovely she is. Not just beautiful, but genuinely nice.

“I treat everyone like my best friend,” she told me, and she has. She had no reason to be nice to me, heaven knows my book was hardly going to make or break her, but since that first meeting three years ago whenever I have asked her for a favour or a contact she has helped, whenever I have sent her one of my books she has written to thank me. She even thanked me for writing when her husband died suddenly a couple of years ago, leaving her and her two daughters shocked and alone.

If treating some random English hack who comes to interview you as your best friend isn’t reason enough to give someone a Legion d’Honneur, I don’t know what is. And Ines certainly deserves it just as much, if not more, than other recipients like Richard Jenrette (who he? some American investment banker apparently), Vladimir Putin and Celine Dion.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008

When I went up to Paris for my style talk last week (which incidentally went very well except for the fact that I forgot the cardinal rule of hanging out with French women – never overdress – and consequently looked like a Christmas tree compared with the rest of them) I had lunch with my shopping guru and new friend Ghada.
The first time I met Ghada (in St Tropez, where else?) she recognised the designer of my hat at 20 paces. This is the kind of thing that bonds women for life.
Anyway, I suggested we have lunch and she sent me the following, truly incredible, list of choices which shows that there is no such thing as a casual lunch, at least not in Paris.
Can you guess where we ended up?
 

Café Charlot in the Nouveau Marais
o        Mood: low key café in an going up neighbourhood
o        Bistro food: Salads, grilled fish & meat
o        Shopping : Johnny Farah, Les Bouclards, Surface to air, Tsumori Chisato, Shine…
o        Who : people in the neighbourhood
 

Café de Flore in Saint-Germain des près
o        Mood: a bit Intellectual, a bit snob, a bit low key and place to be seen
o        French café food : salads, eggs
o        Shopping: Calypso, Sonia, Louboutin, Mona, Irié wash, Atika, Le bon Marché…
o        Who: Sonia Rykiel, Le Monde people, Prada team
 

Hotel Costes in Saint-Honoré
o        Mood: if the weather is nice, the terrace is the place to see and be seen
o        Costes food: Club Sandwich, grilled fish, pasta, vegetables
o        Shopping around: Goyard, Renaud Pellegrino, Miu-Miu, Jérôme Gruet…
o        Who : Actors, Comedians, Singers, Models

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008

When I was in London last I met Heathcliff’s wife. You may remember Heathcliff. He was the first love of my life and we were recently put in touch through a mutual friend. I have yet to see him again after more than 20 years but I have met the mother of his three children.

She happened to be having lunch in the same restaurant as the above-mentioned mutual friend and I. The friend, being rather mischievous, called her over and introduced us. He didn’t let on that I knew Heathcliff years ago and had been desperately in love with him.

So what did I think of this woman who ended up with the man I wasted more time dreaming about than I care to remember? It was slightly uncanny because she looked very similar to him; dark hair, fine features. She seemed rather cold, but attractive, and had a very deep sexy voice (rather like his). At one stage he called and they chatted like wives and husbands do. She called him darling and told him what train she’d be home on and not to forget someone’s gym kit. Just a normal domestic scene but I found it hard to grasp that that was Heathcliff on the phone being someone’s husband and father. To me I suppose he is still 19 and getting high in nightclubs.

Apparently his wife didn’t think much of me. “She was rather tartily dressed,” my source tells me she reported to Heathcliff. Tartily dressed indeed. I was wearing jeans, flat shoes (Tod’s, natch), a Sonia Rykiel strappy top and a Hobbs cardigan. Hardly play-boy bunny kit.

At first I was furious, but then I remembered that she’s meant to be a lesbian. So maybe tartily dressed is a good thing?

Meanwhile my youngest daughter Bea has me sussed. “This is mummy,” she announced this morning. “She goes to the shop and comes back with lots of bread which she puts in the freezer. Then she takes it out. But it’s too hard to eat so she feeds it to the ducks.”

Maybe I should stop by the river on the way home from the bakery; cut out the middleman?

Thank you all for your lovely comments and reviews as per yesterday’s blog. I hope that miserable onion is really bitter now s/he’s almost been pushed off the amazon page.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

Tomorrow we have been invited to lunch at a friend’s house and among the other guests is the editor of Vogue. My question is this; what does one wear to lunch with the editor of Vogue? The whole thing is too terrifying for words.

Do I try to go fashionista? Wear something designer? Do I actually have anything designer? Or should I go Sunday Yummy Mummy; all jeans and baggy jumpers and ‘oh aren’t I just so casual’? But which jeans? Is it now a crime to wear skinny jeans or have they come back in? I also have a pair of high-waisted jeans but worry these may be seen as an affront to her sensibilities.

Maybe a chic image? We are in France after all. Some tailored trousers and a white shirt (black and white is in fashion, I know because Harvey Nicks windows are covered in black and white). But does that tailored look seem a bit too much like I’m making an effort? And how well does the tailored look work with three children climbing all over me? Maybe I should follow the advice of Proust’s Baron de Charlus. “It is only the women who don’t know how to dress that are afraid of colours. One can be brilliant without vulgarity and soft without being dull.”

Today the editor of Vogue wrote a column in the Daily Mail about underwear. Well I can hardly go in my underwear; matching as it is. What will she be wearing I wonder? I imagine something that looks effortless but cost about £2,000.

Added to the stress of my own outfit I have to obsess about what the children should wear. I don’t even know if she has children but if she does they’re probably dressed head to foot in Ralph Lauren and Baby Dior. Olivia of course refuses to wear anything bar a pair of jeans that are too big for her and look dreadful. Bea is easier, I can put her in pink. Leo would like to wear pink but I’ll have to dissuade him. But it’s either that or his Spiderman pyjamas.

The only one I don’t worry about is Rupert who will look elegant and handsome in a shirt and trousers. Hopefully she’ll be so distracted by him she won’t even notice the rest of us.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

I am trying my best to fit in to LA life. I have rented a red convertible mustang, bought some gawdy gold shoes and even went to a Pilates class last night. My big hair and Smart-Lipo recovery corset also help. But still things are not quite right.

There seem to be two things missing; breasts. As far as I can make out, no one in LA has normal tits. I’d be amazed if you can even buy a B-cup bra anywhere in this city. Everyone from the sales assistants to the ladies-who-lunch on Rodeo Drive have implants. Or maybe they’re not implants, maybe there’s something in the water that stimulates the mammary gland and they’re all natural; but somehow I doubt it.

Yesterday I went to interview a leading LA dermatologist. In his waiting-room there was a rather (no, incredibly) tacky bronze statue of a mother and child called ‘Mother’s Love – Father’s gem’. This is the kind of thing Americans can somehow say without throwing up, like when you ask them how they are and they reply; “I’m feeling really good about myself, really positive. I went through a rough patch but now I’m like totally over all that and I feel a sense of wholeness I didn’t before.” Just a plain “fine” would have sufficed.

But back to the statue. The mother is gazing adoringly at the daughter, a toddler aged about three. She has her arm around the child. The toddler is gazing adoringly at the largest breasts I have ever seen.

I once saw a Rodin statue called Young Mother and Child. The naked mother in seated, the child is in her lap and their heads are close together. It is a beautiful depiction of the close bond between mother and child. I guess this is what the aim was here; but the thing that really hits you, as is so often the case in LA, is the ridiculous size of the breasts.

But the anti-ageing treatments seem to be having some effect. Yesterday I walked past a man sitting at a bus stop. “You got some change to help me get a sandwich,” he asked. After a week in New York I can barely afford my own sandwich so I walked past briskly. Then he added the words “young lady”. I immediately turned around and gave him a couple of dollars.

Today I am meeting a friend for lunch at the Ivy. This is LA’s “leading celebrity restaurant” and apparently when stars want to deny they’re splitting up they eat lunch there so the paparazzi can see them together. I’ll keep you posted on who is being dumped. A website tells me Brad Pitt was seen there recently but I don’t hold out much hope; he now lives with Angelina in New Orleans.
My only problem now is where to find a decent pair of tits before lunch? Maybe room service?

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007

The week after Britney Spears ended up with no hair, I ended up with twice as much. At Rodolfo Valentin’s salon in New York I have been treated to his famous “hair infusions.” They are an advanced form of hair extensions that don’t damage your hair but still make you look like a Desperate Housewife (which of course is my main aim in life). As you walk into the salon there is a big poster which reads: Come in with the hair you’ve got, leave with the hair you want.”

I had had a particularly dreadful haircut (at Harvey Nichols can you believe it?) and every time I looked in the mirror my hair made me alternately depressed, at how limp it looked, and furious at how much money it cost. Anyway Rodolfo sorted me out. I wafted out of his salon feeling like a million dollars. Even my husband (who normally hates all this sort of thing) concedes I am now more fun to be with and look better.

As I write I am tucked up in bed having had the treatment I warned you about below. This is called smart-lipo and is a much less violent form of liposuction which not only removes fat deposits but tightens the skin.

At the moment I look (and feel) like a mad-woman. I am wearing a strange black corset and my stomach (the area my new best friend Dr. LookGood treated) is swollen and slightly sore. The two pin-prick areas he used to get to my fat are turning a rather nasty shade of blue. But otherwise I feel amazingly good.

This might sound insane to you but in the interests of the book I felt I had to try it. And of course it helps that Dr. LookGood has promised me my stomach will be flat for the rest of my life. This is extremely good news for someone who has suffered from a pot belly since the age of nine and whose body has been ravaged by three children and industrial quantities of pasta.

“It’s like doing five million sit-ups,” Dr LookGood told me as I lay on his treatment bed and he manipulated a laser around my fat deposits. I will be uncomfortable for a couple of days but not nearly as uncomfortable as I would be doing five million sit-ups.
Anyway, I leave you with a brilliant quote from Bill Maher in the Los Angeles Times: “When you look at Britney [Spears], head shaved, half-naked, drunk, crying, puking, walking into walls, crazy as a loon, remember: This is the woman, back in 2003, who said, “I think we should just trust our president in every decision he makes.”

And I think Tony Blair is a jolly good bloke…..

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007