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The day I bought a Catherine Walker dress
27th September 2010 | 0 comments | 1 person likes this
Mornings were a tough call when I worked as a news reporter on the Evening Standard back in the 80s. We had to be in the office at seven, ready to get cracking on the biggest news stories of the day soon after. Those were the days when Princess Diana was constantly splashed across the tabloid front pages – dancing onstage with Wayne Sleep as a birthday surprise for Prince Charles,...
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Vodka teapots and leaving home
14th September 2010 | 0 comments | 1 person likes this
After the agonising wait for exam results and the scramble for university places, thousands of teenagers will be leaving home in the next few weeks.
My 18-year-old daughter is one of them. She’s off to London and is busy packing clothes, books, pots, pans and her prized collection of Vogue magazines into two modest suitcases.In the midst of the chaos, an anxious friend texted her. “How’s your mum coping?” said the... -
Great autumn reads – and only two weeks to wait for Jilly Cooper’s new book
8th September 2010 | 0 comments | 1 person likes this
With the nights drawing in and an autumn chill in the air, I escaped to a remote Lake District farmhouse with a stash of new books to read. There are some great new reads out this month – including novels from two of my favourite authors, Elizabeth Buchan and Rosie Thomas. Elizabeth Buchan should be far better known than she is. Once a blurb writer for Penguin, she’s written ten novels, including...
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Jeffery Deaver and the art of the crime novel
25th August 2010 | 2 comments | 2 people like this
I’ve admitted it before and I’ll admit it again. I’m ridiculously squeamish and recoil from reading anything gory. But after reviewing books by writers like Ian Rankin, Peter James and Stuart MacBride over the last few months, I’ve begun to get a taste for crime novels. Why? Because when it comes to writing cleverly-plotted story-lines and razor-sharp dialogue, crime writers are second to none.
Reading a string of Jeffery Deaver’s novels... -
Proenza Schouler and the Wish Tree
18th August 2010 | 0 comments | 2 people like this
If the arguments were anything to go by, finding a holiday that suited both my 18 year old fashionista daughter and my bike-mad 16 year old son seemed impossible. She craved sunshine, art galleries and shops while he wanted high-octane action and excitement, preferably somewhere outside Europe.
In the end there was only one place that fitted everyone’s requirements. New York. Even so, the pair of them had to agree to compromise.... -
Reading an Alastair Sawday guide changed my life
5th August 2010 | 2 comments | 1 person likes this
The news that today is Alastair Sawday’s 65th birthday brought a wry smile to my face. The founder of Sawday’s Special Places to Stay will be utterly oblivious to this fact but reading one of his books changed my life. I’m not joking. Seven years ago, desperate to book a last-minute summer holiday, I bought a copy of his guide to self-catering properties in my local WH Smith’s and began...
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Muddling along
3rd August 2010 | 0 comments | 1 person likes this
Talk about stating the obvious. Oscar-winning actress Emma Thompson has declared that no woman can have a high-flying career and be the perfect mother at the same time.
“The only way you can have it all is by delegating the running of the home to other people – which I don’t ever want to do,” she says in an interview with the US edition of Good Housekeeping magazine.I adore Emma Thompson... -
The benign Lord Mandelson
23rd July 2010 | 0 comments | 1 person likes this
I don’t know what came over me. Of all the events to take a BMX-loving, YouTube-obsessed fifteen-year-old to, why did I choose a talk by Peter Mandelson to celebrate the publication of The Third Man? The LSE was packed for the occasion, which saw Times editor James Harding quiz the ex-business secretary on everything from the Blair years to the fevered days following the May 2010 election. At a guess,...
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My sporting life
30th June 2010 | 0 comments | 2 people like this
Sport is a bit like Marmite. You either love it or hate it. I won a running race at primary school once and reached the heady heights of the under-12 netball team a few times but that’s about it. Until two months ago, that is. My teenage daughter suddenly decided to join the gym and after a few sessions declared it would be much more fun if we went together....
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Hooked on Lynda La Plante
8th June 2010 | 0 comments | 1 person likes this
Crime has never been my favourite fiction genre. I’m absurdly squeamish and hate reading anything gory.
But over the last three years I’ve become hooked on Lynda La Plante’s compelling Anna Travis stories. I was gripped the moment I read the first one, Above Suspicion, and read the rest the moment they were published.Silent Scream, out in paperback this week, is the fifth in the series. And yet again, despite the gruesome...
CONTRIBUTOR
Emma Lee-Potter
Emma Lee-Potter is a journalist and author of four novels. She has two teenage children and spends her spare time worrying about the ramshackle farmhouse she bought in the south of France. The wreck has half a roof, assorted wildlife and an alarming damp problem but her friends assure her it all be perfect by 2020. She writes a weekly blog for Easy Living magazine.
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