How a very small minority lives

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Picture the scene: I am doing yoga looking out over a 90 degree view of Jumeirah Beach in Dubai from the comfort of the 34th floor. Someone is pressing the dress I am going to wear this evening to dinner with my husband in a private dining room. Two cleaners are mopping up the Jacuzzi room. Our butler has just served Rupert’s cup of Japanese green tea.

No I am not dreaming….we are celebrating Rupert’s birthday in the Imperial suite at the Fairmont Hotel in Dubai. It is a suite made for what the French would call a famille nombreuse with three double bedrooms, countless bathrooms, a bar and at least three offices. Oh and did I mention the Jacuzzi?

It is a comforting feeling having countless staff at your beck and call, ensuring you have a lovely life, that you are massaged (we had a double aromatherapy massage this afternoon), fed (they keep bringing fruit and chocolate) and watered (the champagne is on ice). I feel like a princess, which is something you can really only get to experience if you are very rich, or a lucky journalist.

And to think I was considering giving up journalism for a more lucrative career; seems to me the best option would be to stay and enjoy the perks. Now where’s my butler….?

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2010


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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

 

 

© 2023 Helena Frith Powell
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