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 March 2007 I win a prize! Infested with blackbirds! Leftover anecdote from Argentine trip! Have authors' Christmas lunch! Yes, I won a prize! At the British Book Awards, The Oscars of the Book World (not my slogan), also known as the Nibbies. And I have to admit, it was up there with the Very Best Moments of My Life and a huge big GO RAIBH MAITH AGAIBH (Irish for Thank You) to all the people who voted for Anybody Out There as Sainsbury's Popular Fiction Book of the Year. I am so TREMENDOUSLY grateful and in fact I did thank you on the night but when it was televised 2 nights later, they'd cut out all my thanks, which was a bit unfair because it's not like I did a Gwyneth Paltrow on it and thanked my binman. God yes, it was so fabulous. 
And, the thing is, 2 weeks earlier I'd been up for a similar award in Ireland and didn't win (but thanks to those of you who voted, I swear to God, I'm so grateful.) In fairness, I was delighted with the person who did win the Irish prize, Ross O'Carroll Kelly (aka Paul Howard) because not only are his books vay, vay funny but he is extremely nice in person, also good-looking (not that that should matter), also a self-confessed feathery stroker. So I thought if I didn't win in Ireland, I hadn't a hope in Britain - I was up against the very fabulous Jilly Cooper, Martina Cole and Philippa Gregory - but yes, mes amigos I DID bloody well win! I have striven - and I suspect succeeded - in being gracious in victory. But the fact of the matter is THEY lost and I, yes I, won. I'm sorry to go on about it. I've been unbearable since it happened. It's just that I was so sure I hadn't a hope and apart from enjoying freakish good luck at the Christmas bingo at my Dad's golf-club, I've never won anything in my life, except a fruit-cake in a raffle when I was 8.And you know what was HILARIOUS!? When they called my name and I jumped to my feet and started shoving my way through the crowd, maddened with trophy-lust, the telly showed the other authors and Jilly Cooper was clapping and smiling warmly like the angel she is and Martina Cole was clapping and smiling warmly like the angel she is and Philippa Gregory was clapping but NOT smiling and wearing an excellently sourpuss expression, she didn't even bother to fake a smile, which is pretty admirable, I think. She is her own woman, without a doubt. (I've written before on this site how much I love her books, and yes I still love them. I have not withdrawn my love.) I am waiting for the backlash, of course. In my experience, whenever something good like this happens, fate always sends his henchman a-calling, seeking high-interest karmic payback. This time I suspect it will be slightly different from the usual - the usual being - oh the tedium! - some Irish journalist going on about the shame of a crappy Irish 'woman-writer' winning a prize in the UK and god be with the glory days when it was the likes of James Joyce who was winning prizes and what are we reduced to now. Well, what I have to say to you is, you weren't nice to James Joyce either! He had to be dead 40 years before you decided he was okay. Where was I? Oh, yes, sorry, I feel a rant coming on. Just sick - BORED, BORED, BORED - mes amies, of being attacked for being a pink fluffy writer by a load of fuckheads with a misogynistic agenda, who have never read my books or the great reviews they get. There's been a lot of it lately and although it doesn't upset me the way it would have 10 years ago - because I have nothing but contempt for those men and sometimes women (I call them collaborators) who write articles undermining what women like and enjoy, intending to unsettle women enough that they won't ask for things. Like equal pay. And decent child-care. And money for refuges for victims of domestic violence. And an end to joke sentences for convicted rapists. I could go on… Right yes, like I said they don't upset me the way it would have before I understood what they were up to, but mes amies, I'm so tremendously bored of it. (And can I also say, because if I don't, the fuckheads will, that I don't expect everyone to like my books. I am simply asking for 2 things. 1) Don't judge my books if you haven't read them. 2) Leave women alone. We don't try to make you feel ashamed for the things you like, like Kate Moss's arse and expensive hi-fi's. Please return the favour.) Anyway, back to the Karmic payback. This time I have an enormous terror that I'll show up on the 'Sack the Stylist' pages of celebrity magazines. (Speaking of celebrity magazines - what happened? Once upon a time, there was Heat, which is brilliant. Now there are 4,837 shoddy imitators and they look exactly like Heat, if you don't study it carefully enough on the shelf. I've been snared now a couple of times, thinking I've bought Heat and it's only when I'm at home and I settle down for an enjoyable read of my Heat that I discover I've inadvertently purchased a far less superior periodical. Called 'Hah!' Or 'Whop!' Or 'Leg!' Or 'Bingo!' Or 'Pox!' Or 'Shite!' ) There were millions of photographers at the 'do' ('Hi. I'm Frank Murry, Shite! Magazine. Big smile now.') and I had to stand on a red carpet and smile anxiously and hope my stomach wasn't too sticky-outy (which of course it was.) And while I tried my level best to be stylish (I wore a lovely Issa dress and a Braccialini bag) but still I fear I might have got it all terribly wrong. If anything unfolds, if I am 'shamed' in the pages of 'Pox!' I'll let you know. A few days before I went to London for the prizewinning, we had our authors' christmas party. Patricia Scanlon, Sheila O'Flanagan, Cathy Kelly and I have an annual tradition - Christmas party in March to avoid the crowds, alternating annually between north and south. This year, Patricia and Sheila came to the South Side and we had a right laugh  Right, the blackbird. Things have come to a pretty pass if this is what qualifies as news around here but apart from the prizewinning, it's been a quiet month, if truth be told. This is the third year in a row that this has happened and it must be something to do with Spring but this blackbird - I don't know if he's the same one, or just a similar-looking, but equally stupid relation of his - has taken to seeing his own reflection in our windows and taking agin himself and dive-bombing and trying to start a fight with himself. He keeps flying into the glass, bumping himself terribly, recoiling - and clearly having learnt nothing - attacking again immediately. I mean, what a gobshite! It's very distressing to watch and I don't know how he hasn't knocked himself out by now, but he's incredibly hardy and aggressive, because he just keeps on at it, so in order to stop him, we've had to close all the shutters on the windows so that he won't see his reflection, so myself and Himself have been creeping around the house in sepulchral gloom. And when we go out and forget to close all the shutters, me laddo starts again with the dive-bombing and sets off the house alarm and we have to come racing home from wherever we are and run into the house waving pitchforks all fired up to do battle with the local skangers, only to discover that we're not being burgled at all and that it's only the fecking blackbird. Other than pleading with a blackbird to see sense, I've been trying to write. I feel I'm quite near the end of the book and I'm girding my loins (whatever that is exactly) and trying to gather together energy for a final assault towards the summit. But I'm still reading Orange Prize books around the clock and it's funny, this has never happened to me before, but it's like there are too many words in my head and they're trapping my own words from getting out. 
Okay, let me tell you about the thing that happened in the Argentinian lake-district that I pure forgot to tell you about last month, because so much had happened that it simply got overlooked mes amies and my apologies for that but actually am damn grateful for it this month as very little has happened. Right, myself and Himself were staying in this hotel in Bariloche called Llao Llao (pronounced sort of like 'Yow Yow' I believe, or maybe the person who told me was just taking the piss and hoping to make a gom of me.) Apparently it's a famous hotel and it's been there a long time and frankly, mes amies, I found it slightly odd. It sort of had a Swiss/Wild West peculiar identity. Lots of wood and stag antlers and wooden banisters and wooden floors and dead animals looming out of walls and cowhide on floors and… you know. But nice enough. In fairness we were in a tiny horrible room with twin beds, altho' we had asked for a doubler and if there's one thing that makes Himself cry and put his back out, it's twin beds (he puts his back out when he shoves the twin beds together, even when they're glued to the floor.) Basically we got off to a bad start. But then things picked up and we went out in a canoe in the lake beside the hotel and all in all a lovely time was had, but from the lake we noticed that there were massive building works going on which we hadn't noticed up to that point. (Bear with me, this all becomes important.) Anyway, 2 days later, we are in this massive concourse downstairs having our breakfast (I will also explain that) when who do we see wandered in desultory fashion around the breakfast buffet, plate of scrambled eggs in hand, than John Rocha. Now, for those of you who don't know who John Rocha is, let me explain. He's an Irish designer and he designs clothing and glasswear and hotels. He 'did' the Morrison hotel. Also, he is a fairly distinctive looking character, with waist-length, black-but-greying, straight hair and he was dressed in designer black and he looked - the truth hurts but I am obliged to say it - out of place amongst the Argentine holiday makers, who were dressed in jolly holiday shades and fleeces and other relaxed clothing. Himself and I were TREMENDOUSLY excited. To see a famous Irish person and in such an unusual location and it couldn't have happened at a better time because we were beginning to get homesick. Anyway, Himself decided to climb to his feet and cup his hands together to form a loudhailer and shout at the top of his voice in his best Colin Farrell accent over the heads of the stylish Argentines eating their dolce con leche (they're mad for it, I was fairly mad for it myself, it's like caramel and they have it on their bread, very sweet, gorgeous), "John, JOHN!!! JOHN, ya mad bollix, what the FOOOK are YOU doing here?" (I should at this point tell you that John Rocha doesn't know me and Himself from a hole in the ground.) Anyway, Himself didn't actually do it, he just pretended to do it and we got great enjoyment out of it and we concluded that John must be 'doing' the new wing of Yow Yow and that hopefully he'd steer clear of antlers and suchlike (was that a pun? 'steer' clear? Could have been.) Then when we were leaving the breakfast concourse, didn't we see Mr Rocha, sitting with his companions, 2 other blokes with those black-framed glasses and also head-to-toe in black eating their rashers and sausages and - is this wrong of me? - they just looked like eejits amongst the pastel-hued holiday-makers. Although to be fair, they WERE obviously there to work. They are designers. It's just, did they have to look so like designers?I hope that Mr Rocha's presence in Yow Yow was not top secret, as I have just blown his cover. Oh yes. I have to explain what we were doing at the breakfast buffet because although I love buffets, I hate being in the presence of strangers eating their breakfasts. I'm bad in the mornings, jumpy and nervy, everything seems louder and brighter and - yes, forgive me, mes amies - smellier. And the smell of eggs - particularly fried eggs, but I will also include poached, boiled and scrambled and any other way you can think of - makes me want to cut my own throat. So I try to avoid communal breakfasts because if I'm feeling in any way at all suicidal, the stench of eggs tends to nudge me that little bit closer to the edge. However, this was not our first breakfast of the day, but our second. The first we had had several hours earlier, when we had checked out and left for the airport, but en route to the airport we discovered that our flight had been delayed by 11 hours, so we came back to Yow Yow and they let us in and suggested that we kill 1 of our 11 hours by having a second breakfast. Which we duly did. And to think that if our flight hadn't been delayed we would have missed the sight of John Rocha nosing around the Coco Pops. (I apologise to non-Irish readers. The sight of John Rocha making his own toast may not be as thrilling to you as it was to me.) Also, I forgot to tell you about my Dermalogica epiphany on my holidays. Before I went, lovely, lovely Helen Donegan (who waxes my legs and suchlike) gave me an armload of Dermalogica samples and now I am besotted. Do you know it? I wasn't terribly familiar with the range and I can't believe I shunned it for so long. The Precleanse - it is so brilliant at removing grime from my face and smells so swoonily of essential oils - I couldn't recommend it more highly. Do not be confused by it being called the Precleanse, it isn't a swizz to make us buy 2 cleansers, but if you have a Dermalogica facial (and Christ, I would recommend that you put it on your list of things to do before you die, with Helen Donegan if you could manage it at all, even if it meant flying 6000 miles you'd feel it was well worth it), they do something called 'a double cleanse' with the Precleanse going first, then something else coming along next, but for day to day stuff, we only need one. Also the skin-rehydrating booster is a serum which was a godsend on all the flights. And then - my favourite product - the Super Rich Repair cream, a heavy-weight night and day cream which takes no prisoners. It's so thick that you nearly need to apply it with a knife and fork and I know some people prefer their creams to be light and airy, but I don't, the thicker the better, as far as I'm concerned. But if you're one of the light and airy types, apparently there is a light and airy cream, so no-one needs to lose out. Then I used the face SPF 25 which is tinted and the hand cream which smells of lavender and other essential oils and really, I'm MAD about it all. So there we are, March. Thank you again to all of you who voted, I cannot tell you how happy and grateful I am. It really was one of the best moments of my life. And everyone in Penguin has worked so hard on the book, so it was great for them as well. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Have I anything to tell you about April? I'm supposed to be on the Paul O'Grady show on April 17th. I LOVE that show, I especially like the part where the guests have to dance while he plays the organ. I really hope they don't cancel me. (Oh it happens, mes amies, it happens.) I hope your March was as nice was mine. Here is an old Irish blessing, commonly given in March. 'May no blackbirds dive-bomb your windows. May your day-cream have the right thickness. And may your Colin Farrell impersonations always be convincing.' Thank you again, I am so grateful I can't express it adequately. Lots and lots of love Marian xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx |
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Photo © Neil Cooper