-
Bit of a Blur goes west
4th March | 0 comments | 2 people like this
Alex James’s hilarious account of life behind the scenes of Nineties’ Britpop is one of my favourite non-fiction reads of recent years.
In Bit of a Blur the irrepressible James recounts how he was catapulted to fame and fortune as bass guitarist of the rock band Blur. One moment he was a university student living in a slug-infested squat in Camberwell. The next he was living the high life – hanging... -
Merci comes to London
25th February | 1 comments | 2 people like this
I discovered my new favourite shop during a trip to Paris last Easter. After an afternoon marvelling at the paintings and sculptures at the Musée Picasso, I stumbled across Merci. A stunning lifestyle emporium, it was launched a year ago by Marie-France and Bernard Cohen, the couple best-known for creating the chic children’s fashion store Bonpoint more than 30 years ago.
Merci, their new venture, is housed in a vast disused... -
Snowflakes in Manhattan
10th February | 0 comments | 2 people like this
“Where d’you wanna get to?” asked a woman as I puzzled over my subway map. It was my first ever trip to New York and I couldn't figure out how to get from my hotel to Madison Avenue. In London stony-faced commuters would have rushed by without a word, but New York is the friendliest place I’ve ever been.
It was also one of the coldest. The sub-zero temperatures and bone-chilling... -
Tough choice for the Costa judges
27th January | 4 comments | 3 people like this
Goodness knows how the judges, an eclectic bunch who included the likes of model Marie Helvin and Spandau Ballet’s Gary Kemp, decided between the five writers vying for the 2009 Costa Book of the Year Award. Somehow they had to weigh up the respective merits of a novel set in 1950s New York, the account of a young Bangladeshi fleeing an arranged marriage, the biography of a physics genius, an...
-
The Spice Girl who could actually sing
4th January | 1 comments | 2 people like this
I’m a bit sceptical about big names being parachuted into West End productions. But when I saw that the critics had given ex-Spice Girl Melanie C a standing ovation on the first night of her spell in Blood Brothers I couldn’t resist booking tickets. Critics are a steely bunch so if Melanie C’s debut acting performance managed to get them all on their feet the show had to be worth...
-
My top ten books of the year
15th December 2009 | 2 comments | 2 people like this
Newspapers are busy filling their pages with their top tens of the year. 2009 has been a vintage year for fiction so here are a few of my Christmas must-reads. High-brow, low-brow, you name it, it’s an eclectic list. In no particular order (as they say on The X-Factor), my favourites include:
1: I've bought Kamila Shamsie’s Burnt Shadows (Bloomsbury, £7.99) for almost everyone I know. An ambitious, epic novel, it... -
Bond Street in the country
9th December 2009 | 1 comments | 2 people like this
When I moved to the wilds of Oxfordshire I was amazed to discover we had the out-of-town equivalent of Bond Street right on the doorstep. Bicester Village looks like a quaint New England street, all white clapboard shop-fronts and tasteful landscaping, but in reality it’s a shoppers’ paradise just two miles off the M40.
The 130 or so shops include all the names fashionistas worth their salt dream about, from Vivienne... -
The devastating floods in Cumbria
23rd November 2009 | 0 comments | 4 people like this
The devastation the floods have wrought in Cumbria is truly shocking. With its soaring peaks and gorgeous countryside, the Lake District is one of the most beautiful places I know. Now the area around Cockermouth, Workington and Keswick looks more like a mud swamp, with towns and villages cut off from the outside world and predictions that many people won’t be able to move back into their houses for months...
-
A work of art for ÂŁ40
10th November 2009 | 1 comments | 1 person likes this
The bright green Royal College of Art invitation sits tantalisingly on the mantelpiece. This year’s RCA Secret takes place on November 21 and looks set to be the best yet, with original works by artists like Grayson Perry, Gerhard Richter and Julian Opie on sale.
RCA Secret was launched back in 1994 and is now an annual event. Each year hundreds of artists, from penniless students to household names, create a... -
The Rise and Fall of Little Voice
29th October 2009 | 1 comments | 1 person likes this
Every Saturday night my teenage daughter Lottie and I sit glued to the latest dizzying instalment of The X Factor. Forget has-been Strictly Come Dancing, The X Factor has got the lot – glamour, drama, dazzling white teeth (apparently Simon Cowell insists all the young hopefuls get their gnashers whitened), rival judges at each other’s throats, even back flips.
It’s not quite as nail-biting as last year though when we...
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.
