HSaw a preview of the new TV adaptation of Jilly Cooper's 1988 novel Competitorson Disney+ on October 18), I can tell you it was a huge relief for me. Its makers, thankfully, didn't feel the need to re-educate the lusty inhabitants of rural Rutshire – not even the titular Kate, Rupert Campbell-Black – and the result is a feast for sore eyes. Throughout the eight highly buoyant episodes, exciting bums abound.
I wouldn't say that Cooper's work is art – there is certainly an art to it. But I am deeply connected to her. Her romances about posh girls at Fulham, which I knew nothing about then, got me A-levels, and I've thought of her as a kind of guardian angel ever since. In 2006, I interviewed her at home in Gloucestershire four days before I got married (reader, I had to file that before I went on my honeymoon). When I confessed this to dear, kind Jilly, she was horrified. Why, she wanted to know, wasn't I lying at home with cucumber slices in my eyes?
The day before the wedding – still no vegetables on any part of my body – I was frantically typing away when the doorbell rang. Outside there was a man with a bottle of champagne in his hands. It came courtesy of Cooper, with his best wishes and advice to help me with my work.
Celebrating the elements
James McWhinney wig out (technical term) to London's South Bank to see the groovy young organist. The grand organ of the Royal Festival Hall is an instrument that turns 70 this year. The program includes works by Byrd and Liszt and a performance riff-Raf British composer Giles Swain was in the audience and looked very attractive in a black turtleneck.
riff-Raf It had its premiere in 1983 and is incredibly exciting to listen to: a kind of prog-rock experience. Its influences include the music of Senegal, Philip Glass-style minimalism and boogie-woogie, and even a non-expert like myself understands that it demands a lot from the organist. When McVinnie played its famous wild bicycle solo, my friend Tom whispered, his legs flying from left to right over and over again as he sang (it's not easy) like Kermit when he sang Bean' Green. On that day The Muppet Show.
Miranda July fever
Prada runs an ad campaign in which a model is photographed holding a luxury handbag during a call described as the “Miranda July Hotline.” If this service really exists, I'm afraid I'll have to dial it myself soon. I was old enough to finish that July novel All fourA middle-aged woman embarks on a frenetic odyssey of experimental sex and interior decorating, and I often can't bear to read it in public (when a young man saw it in my bag on the train and He blinked Seeing me, my whole body turned crimson). Even now, I have come to the end, and I am in the grip of an obsession. I can always talk about it.
After the newsletter promotion
I'm not the only one. A minor character in a book makes a particularly, er, indelible impression on the reader, and a close friend of mine, whose identity I'm going to protect here, pranks me with his name at random moments during the day. “Aathra…, Aathra…, Aathra…,” whispers my phone, its screen now cracked as I drop it on a sidewalk in a heavily menopausal moment.
