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An evening up in smoke

24th March 2007 by Helena 4 Comments  

Where's my salad?Last night I found what I have been dreaming about ever since I knew I was going to Monaco for an anti-ageing conference. A perfectly intimate, family-run Italian restaurant with more pasta on the menu than even I can eat. How sad is that? It reminds me of Johnny Depp who once said that when you get to a certain age you start viewing sleep with the same anticipation as you once used to view drugs.

So I was in heaven as I tucked into my starter of rocket salad with parmesan, reading The Portrait of Dorian Gray and sipping my white wine. Then disaster struck. Two rather nasty looking people sat down next to me and started smoking. It was horrible. Suddenly my rocket salad was covered in second-hand smoke and I could barely see my book.

Before any smokers out there write and tell me I’m over-sensitive can I just say, frankly, get lost. It is you who are in the wrong. Smoking is disgusting, stupid and dangerous and if I want to kill myself with poison I’m quite capable of doing so without any help from you thank you very much. Imagine if I came and sat next to you and spent all evening farting? Would you like that? I suppose as smokers you have no sense of smell left so you probably wouldn’t notice.

Anyway, I couldn’t stand it. So I moved outside. Pathetic isn’t it? I should have told the smokers to move outside and poison the trees instead of me. But unlike Olivia, who had told two hooded youths to pick up their litter after them earlier that day (and they did as well!) I lacked the courage.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007


Filed Under: Life, blog --> Tagged With: evening, smoke

4 thoughts on An evening up in smoke

  • Peggy says:
    24th March 2007 at 5:11 pm

    You are totally in the right. You should have farted repreatedly and loudly until they left. Even with impaired olfactory functioning, the noise would have got to them eventually.

  • Amber Lee says:
    24th March 2007 at 11:37 pm

    I miss living where public smoking is banned.

  • Sara Wilson says:
    5th April 2007 at 8:53 am

    Excuse, and what you think concerning forthcoming elections?

  • Jo Butler says:
    12th September 2007 at 1:44 pm

    Come to Australia -smoking is banned in public places and even three metres outside every public place such as shopping centres. Your comment on farting made me laugh so loud I farted (just kidding – nice to make you laugh for a change).
    Reminded me of the children’s book, “Walter the Farting Dog”. The title is completely obscene. Who on earth would call their dog ‘Walter’.
    Haha

    Cheers, Helena
    Have a nice day!

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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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