Helena Frith Powell

I am the victim of a hate campaign from an otherwise peace-loving nation. It is not a nice experience. I am being inundated with emails, comments and facebook messages from extremely angry Swedes. The reason for their anger? An article I wrote for the Daily Mail in 2006 on the eve of Sweden’s world-cup football match with England where I was rude about my former home country.

These Swedes have clearly failed to understand the first rule of journalism: simplify and exaggerate. Of course I don’t find Sweden as boring as I wrote, if I did why on earth would I go back there for the summer whenever I can? Why do I go to IKEA every weekend? Why do I make the effort to speak Swedish to my children. But for the purposes of the piece, I wrote about the negative aspects of the country. And it is true that I would never consider living there again. In part because it is so boring, but mainly because it is too bloody cold.

I have been shocked by some of the emails. Offensive, abusive and, worst of all, terribly badly written. Most of them are rants about how horrible England is and how I belong there and never deserve to set foot in glorious Sweden again. And then more abuse about me. How I am certainly not Swedish as I am so unpatriotic not to mention boilingly ugly. And how COULD I be so disloyal?

I sent a few to my mother (who is 100 per cent Swedish). She told me to ignore it, or better still, write another article about them.

Anyway to any Swedes reading this whom I have inadvertently upset: I am sorry. I love many things about Sweden and I may have been a bit harsh in my article. But at least it got your patriotic juices flowing and gave you all something to complain about apart from taxes and the snow.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2010

While I was in India last week I interviewed the writer Amit Chaudhuri. He was charming and interesting and terribly middle-class. He comes from a middle-class Bengali family, grew up with “servants” as he called them (interesting note we PC Europeans would not think of calling them that but I just arranged for our maid’s visa and in her passport under job description is written just that) and went to private schools.

In a poem I read by him he said that: “My problem was how to suffer, for I knew suffering to be essential to art; and yet there was little cause for suffering. I had loving parents and everything I required.”

This is a sentiment Rupert and I have often discussed. OK so we have had our share of suffering but we have often wondered if we are just not angst-ridden enough to be serious writers. Actually all I ever wanted to be was Jilly Cooper so not much need for angst but you get the idea. Chaudhuri laughed when I asked him about his lack of suffering and said, “I suffered because I didn’t suffer.”

I am pleased to report that Leonardo will be able to call himself a serious writer. He is still suffering because of his “girlfriend”, the feckless Eloise. In fact the total angst and suffering knows no bounds. He won’t even CONSIDER the option of another girl and cries at the very mention of her. Here he is looking dreamy on the beach at the weekend.

The only sign that he is toughening up was that yesterday, after weeks of pleading from us all, he proudly told us “I haven’t called her for two days. Normally I call her every day, all day. Now she’ll be thinking ‘why hasn’t he called?’ Ha. I’m doing hard to get.”

With advisers like his canny sisters, there is no way his strategy can fail. And if it does, it will just be fodder for more poetry.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2010

The girls are totally and utterly obsessed with some game on the internet where you have a flat and pets and move your furniture around and go to sleep. My question is this: why not just play in a real room as opposed to a virtual one? Maybe it is because in a virtual world they are in total control?

Or they could even go outside. The weather is lovely at the moment. There is a cool breeze and warming sun, it is hard to imagine how hot and unpleasant it gets, right now it feels like paradise.

The novel is progressing. Not the writing, obviously, that comes last. But there is already interest from the US publisher of Two Lipsticks and a Lover, heaven knows how they heard about it. And Martin my publisher and I are back to our old habits of emailing each other at strange times of the night with “brainwaves”. When Rupert found me on my BlackBerry at 6am this morning responding to an email Martin sent in the middle of the night he quickly decided to go and play golf. “I can’t believe you two are back together,” he sighed.

Martin’s publishing assistant had come up with another title: Sex and the Chateau. I am not mad about it, but do see the need to make the title a little more intriguing and sexy than Lost in France. I came up with Three Lovers and a Vineyard, but we’re open to ideas….Meanwhile I need to get back to writing, or it will be a virtual book.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2009

Hello all and THANK YOU for such encouraging words from my lovely blog-readers. I just received this from my favourite publisher, Martin Rynja at Gibson Square…

“Hi Helena, you spake too soon on blog. I have been reading your novel (and so has Debora who helps me with some editorial stuff) and we both love it (though I have not been able to finish it to the end yet, as I am a slow reader) and I would love to publish it.”

So we’re off! Yippeeee! And tomorrow I interview Rafael Nadal, what joy. How could 2009 possibly get any better?

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2009 (for one last time)

Today was our last day in Rome. It has been a glorious seven days of walking (miles and miles of walking), museums, churches, cobbled streets and pasta (industrial quantities of pasta).

There have been many highlights. For example, the exhibition of Roman paintings where Leo and Bea spent hours copying the ancient images into little notebooks Piera bought them followed by dinner with Bea alone in our apartment one evening when Olivia was with my mother and Leo slept. I have rarely seen her so happy and animated. We ate cheese and bread and she ate sweetcorn and peas. It was most definitely our cheapest meal here but one of the nicest.

Bea’s first sighting of a prostitute (they skulk in the woods close to my mother’s house which makes it sound like a dodgy place but actually it’s not, it is a quite heavenly spot in the Umbrian countryside) was also one of the more memorable moments. When we explained to her what a prostitute does she said: “How silly, why don’t they just sell hats instead?”

Every day we have seen or experienced something special. Around every corner is something beautiful like a plant lit up or a fountain in a courtyard. Walking home just now we saw a tram covered in small light bulbs making its way up the hill lighting up the sky like a vast Christmas tree on rails. Rome is full of the most wonderful colours, sights, smells and hidden treasures. Even the air smells sweet.

We have visited at least one museum a day and I have loved it. For the first time ever I have really enjoyed wandering around looking at paintings. Maybe a year away has made me appreciate art and culture a little more.

Today we saw Benedetto, my father, who celebrated his 85th birthday two days ago. He gave me some good advice: Nulla dies sine linea. Happily he also told me what it means: Not a day without writing.

“Write anything, but write, even two lines” he said. “At the time you will think it is nothing but at the end of the year you will have a masterpiece.”

I realised that with my blog I more or less follow his advice although possibly not daily. I’m not sure about the masterpiece theory but I get the general idea.
As for the lowlights, well the worst thing will be leaving Rome and my family when we all head off for Florence tomorrow. Happily though my father is heading up that way too so we may see him again.

Another lowlight has been the Internet at the otherwise lovely Hotel Lord Byron where we moved after our little apartment (described in detail by Bea below). It is run by some crap company called Smartnet (should be called dimnet) and never works despite costing 20 euros for an hour. So if this blog is posted a few days late, blame them. When I am ruler of the world no hotel will be allowed to call itself five-star without having free functioning wireless.

And then finally to the loo seats, or rather the lack of them. Where are all the loo seats in Rome? Is there some huge black-market for second-hand loo seats I wonder? Is this how Romans supplement their income? And just how does one steal a loo seat without being caught? It is a mystery. In my view they should all be selling hats instead, much more profitable, and less menacing for us all.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2009

Today is a public holiday so Bea came with me to work. This is what she wrote, she called it ‘My first blog’. Here she is relaxing after work in a wig with her sister (Bea is on the right).

how working in an office is like?
well my parents work in an office and i think it’s good but you gotta know what to do !

So my mother works on the magazine that only comes out on saturday’s.

And my father works on the newspaper which comes out every morning.
So my mother works hard everyday off the week to make the magazine as good as she can and my father also hase to word very hard in the week .
But they both write books my father has writen 3 books and my mother has writen 5 books but she is working on a story book which will be called lost in france .
it’s about a mother with three kids they have two twins ones called charlotte and ones called emily and the little boy edward and the mother sophie so they moved to france and had a little house and were making wine and the kids went to school and one day the father came and said you can’t work here and they neeeded to go but they decided to stay in france because they liked it there .
and then for dooing the newspaper you ‘d have to write about hotels and acciedents like the sky news but on a newspaper and my father is a very good person he writtes coloms in the newspaper.
For the magazine it’s the same but it’s fashion and dresses and shoes and boots and jeans and tops .But my mother is a very important person she writtes blogs in the magazine.
but they both also have a little wepsite and have a million blogs on that ,like helena frith powell .com

satutday 2009 september.

Copyright: Beatrice Wright 2009

When I was last in London I had lunch with an editor I work for at the Daily Mail. Thankfully the credit crunch has not yet hit Derry Street. As we sipped our champagne he asked me if I ever read Allison Pearson’s column in the paper.

“Yes,” I replied.

“And what do you think?” he asked.

“I think how much more amusing I could be.”

And how much more amused. It has to be said, hers is a dream job. Apparently she earns around a quarter of a million pounds a year for a weekly page and has a full-time researcher to help her. She gets to write about anything she wants to and millions of people read what she has to say. But I don’t resent her, in fact I think she’s rather good. And she did write that very funny book (with cop-out ending though) called I don’t know how she does it.

“What do you think of Liz Jones?” asked my editor.

I almost had to down my champagne in one. This is a woman I really do resent. I find her futile, irritating, boring and totally self-obsessed.

“I hate her so much I won’t even click on her stories online in case her rating goes up,” I told him.

For some reason the powers that be at the Mail think otherwise. They have turned her into a star; their star. She always has some drivel in there, invariably about her. Her and her ex-husband, her and her horse, her and her underwear, her and her move to the country. Today the top slot online is dedicated to a story about her and her assassination attempt. Yes someone tried to shoot her (not me, I promise). Actually they shot her mailbox. She was in New York at the time (like you are) so in no immediate danger.

But why have they decided this talentless woman who seems to live through the press a la Jade Goody is someone worth turning into a star columnist?

“Why not me?” I asked Rupes.

“You’re too posh,” he told me. “Drop the Frith. I know, call yourself Wright.” (His surname)
He has a point. I remember being on some morning breakfast show once when one of the other participants turned to me and said “nobody likes a toff”.

I am not a toff. And anyway, even if I were, now that an Old Etonian is about to become Prime Minister, surely they are all the rage?

But while I wait for my chance I figure my best bet is to write a hugely successful book along the lines of Allison Pearson’s and then take her job when she retires. Either that or wait for the mystery mailbox gunman to strike again….

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2009

One of the things I did when I was in England recently was visit the home-shopping channel QVC. Their American office contacted me a while ago and asked me to take part in a promotion for lipsticks and glosses, because the marketing director had read and really liked Two Lipsticks and a Lover.
The plan is that I will write a short story and it will be sold as part of a special promotional package containing lipsticks and glosses. This is very exciting. The idea that I am going to be paid to write a short story makes me feel like I a really grown-up writer. The title I have been given is Two Lipsticks and a Lovely Gloss. Now I just have to work out what to write.

The film maker Jean-Luc Godard said that “a story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end… but not necessarily in that order.” I have been reading short stories for inspiration. F Scott Fitzgerald is a master. His story A Diamond as big as the Ritz is just brilliant. Then there is Chekov of course. But neither of them are big on lipglossses. Actually my favourite short story of all time is by Edith Wharton. It is called Roman Fever. If you haven’t read it then do.

But as I keep quoting (from the iconic film Muriel’s Wedding) “you’ve got to find your level”. I am not up to the level of those three. But I can at least have a beginning, a middle and an end. And if the readers don’t like the order, they can console themselves with the lip glosses.
Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2009

Swift, Shaw, Wilde, Yeats, Joyce and Beckett: the list of great Irish literary figures is long and extremely impressive. Yesterday as I wandered around the Museum of Writers I started to wonder why this ‘emerald isle’ has produced so many literary greats.

Is it something in the Guiness? Or the water? Or even the oysters?

No, it is the weather.

The weather here is so bad that you risk drowning by putting your head out of the door. So clearly you have to stay indoors. Because it doesn’t rain inside, or “in the pubs” as one Irishman told me yesterday. And what is there to do inside once all the household chores are dealt with? Especially when most of that list was around and there was no TV. You got it – write.

So there you have it, Ireland’s literary secret. You can see the proof in this picture of James Joyce. He is wearing a hat AND carrying an umbrella and he isn’t even outside.

The shopping in Ingolstadt Chic Shopping Outlet went well; I managed to spend my budget of 250 euros and for that I got a pair of trousers, a cashmere tank-top with matching cardigan (pink), a scarf, a beige wool cardigan and a see-through purple long top you could either wear over leggings or on the beach, with matching scarf. I also bought the MOST gorgeous rabbit-fur coat which will be very useful in Abu Dhabi, as you can imagine. But it was a bargain (in relative terms) and it is saving me from certain death through hypothermia here in Dublin.

Today we head off to Kildare, Dublin’s Chic Shopping Outlet and then Bicester Village in England. The gruelling tour goes on…..

I have long maintained that the Nobel Prize for Literature should only be given out every four years. I don’t think there are enough writers around to warrant such an accolade every year. Now, having met one of them, I wonder if it should be cancelled altogether.

The meeting did not begin well. I, of course, had no idea who he was. His name is Orhan Pamuk and he won the prize in 2006. I was at a dinner in Goa when the host asked if I had met so and so who won the Booker. I pointed to Orhan Pamuk and asked if he meant him.

“No, he won the Nobel,” he replied. Rarely have I felt more ignorant.

I tried to make amends with the Nobel Laureate. I apologised for the fact that I had never heard of him, said what an honour it was to meet him and asked him what it felt like to win literature’s highest prize.

“Such a journalistic question,” he spat out.

Funny that, coming from a journalist. But being a determined hackette I persevered. “Look, I’m just really interested, I just wonder what a difference it made to your life.”

“It made a difference to my bank account and my email account,” he replied before turning away to talk to someone far more important.

Dinner was awful. I sat in the middle of the table with two separate groups talking animatedly either side of me. This is not a position I am used to. Normally I am right at the centre of the party. I was strongly reminded of the bit in Muriel’s wedding where she finally cracks after years of trying to make friends with the cool gang. “I’m not nothing,” she weeps.

I am home now and very happy to be here. India was all I had imagined; colourful, busy, crazy, chaotic, messy and vibrant. The Nobel Laureate was not.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2009