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The wallies from Wham!

5th March 2008 by Helena Leave a Comment  

George & AndrewI have had one of those days when nothing goes right. I go to grab something and break a nail (newly manicured I might add, I painted them last night before I fell asleep with the new Laura Mercier colour), I go to use a stapler and there are no staples in it, I go to get a towel down from the towel rail and the whole bloody lot fall on my head, I have NO work, my work phone rings and I think ‘yippee, it’s the Daily Mail’. It is not, it’s some man trying to sell me frozen foods. In French. Olivia’s CD player breaks and she says she will never be able to sleep without music.

This is where things start improving. We find Rupert’s old stereo, on which only the tape deck works. So then I have to dig out old tapes. Oh JOY – what do I find? The Bangles and Wham! So we spent a happy hour dancing and singing to songs I haven’t heard for at least 20 years.

It is a little known fact that Andrew Ridgley (from Wham!) was once very keen on me. I remember several nights at the Camden Palace when he and George Michael sidled up to me and I was informed by George that Andrew fancied me. Sadly this was all before they were famous. “The wallies from Wham!” we used to call them. We all thought we were much cooler and more talented than them. And would be more famous. Besides, he was far too thin for me.

Anyway, after the dancing Olivia and I had an even more exciting experience. A friend (God bless him) pirated the fourth series of Grey’s Anatomy from the Internet for us. So we watched episodes one and two. I can’t tell you how brilliant it was. Much better than Wham! and certainly better than working.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008


Filed Under: Britain, Children, blog --> Tagged With: wallies

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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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