Five sizzling summer reads - and Alice Pyne's mug

As MPs start their long summer recess this weekend they’ll no doubt be mulling over which books to pack along with their sun cream and swimming gear. Incidentally, why do politicians get such a long break when the rest of us have to make do with two weeks?

Many of them will no doubt be taking Mehdi Hasan and James MacIntyre’s biography of Ed Miliband, along with a couple of rising political star Louise Bagshawe/Mensch’s chick lit titles for light relief.

But if anyone, politician or otherwise, is looking for recommendations, here are five reads I’ve enjoyed hugely this summer. I’ve already raved about Alan Hollinghurst’s brilliant The Stranger’s Child, but these are some of my other favourites.

The nanny diaries: Best-known for her hilarious “Slummy Mummy” columns, Fiona Neill has now turned her attention to the trials and tribulations of the modern-day nanny. WHAT THE NANNY SAW (Penguin, £7.99) sees penniless student Ali Sparrow hired to look after a super-rich (and ultra-demanding) banking family. Charged with caring for five year old twins who speak their own private language, an anorexic teenage girl and a boy almost her own age, Ali’s on a steep learning curve – especially when a financial scandal erupts in their midst.

The tear jerker: Elizabeth Noble’s THE WAY WE WERE (Penguin, £7.99) is the story of childhood sweethearts Susannah and Rob, who break up when Susannah goes to university and Rob joins the RAF. The pair, caught up in different lives, completely lose touch. But there’s a sense of unfinished business and when they meet by chance at a wedding 20 years later, lawyer Susannah is stunned by the intensity of her feelings for Rob. What makes Noble stand out from the crowd is the quality of her writing, the deftness of her plotting and her recognition that life rarely goes according to plan.

The crime novel: Husband and wife writing team Nicci Gerrard and Sean French have turned out a cracking run of stand-alone thrillers under the name of Nicci French. But their new book, BLUE MONDAY (Michael Joseph, £12.99), is the first in a series of eight crime novels starring psychotherapist Frieda Klein. In her late 30s, Frieda’s an insomniac who walks the streets of London in the dead of night, drinks whisky and much to the irritation of her office, doesn’t own a mobile phone.

The haunting thriller: Rosamund Lupton’s first book, Sister, was snapped up by thousands of readers in 2010. She’s now followed it with AFTERWARDS (Piatkus, £7.99), the story of Grace Covey and her teenage daughter Jenny, who are both catastrophically injured in a school fire. Original and heartrending, Lupton’s second book definitely lives up to her first.

The classy read: Anne Enright’s prose flows so smoothly and eloquently that she makes writing look effortless. In THE FORGOTTEN WALTZ (Jonathan Cape, £16.99), the 2007 Man Booker winner chronicles a love affair that wrecks two marriages in modern-day Dublin. Narrated by Gina, who’s married to steady Conor but in love with the more complicated Seán, it’s a pleasure from start to finish.

PS: With its beach huts, seagulls and zingy sun umbrellas my new Emma Bridgewater mug (above) reminds me of summer. But more importantly, the story behind it is an intensely moving one. Alice Pyne, a 15 year old girl who is terminally ill, put together a “bucket list” of things she wanted to do with her life - a list read by millions around the world when it was posted on Facebook earlier this year. One of Alice’s wishes was to design an Emma Bridgewater mug – and this is the stunning result. It’s inspired by Alice’s summer holiday last year in Torquay, organised by Torbay Holiday Helpers Network (an organisation committed to running free, action-packed holidays for seriously ill children). Emma Bridgewater is donating the £10 profit from each £19.95 mug to THHN.

A weekend in Paris

“You shouldn’t have to buy an umbrella on vacation,” grumbled the American woman in the hotel lift. My daughter stifled a giggle. “Oh dear,” she whispered in my ear. “We’ve already bought three.”

We were in wet, grey Paris for a whistlestop weekend but the fact that the clouds had turned black the minute we stepped off the Eurostar didn’t matter a jot. We bought our first umbrella for eight euros at a tacky-looking tourist shop off the Champs Elysées. Big mistake. The shopkeeper warned us it wasn’t “très solide” and sure enough, the blooming thing snapped within half an hour. So we dashed into H&M and snapped up two garish brollies for just under ten euros. A much better move.

The great thing about being in Paris with my daughter was that we were keen to do pretty much the same things. We walked everywhere, lunched at the Rose Bakery, discovered that the ultra-chic Colette on the Rue Saint-Honoré now sells Topshop make-up and wandered round the Musée Rodin garden in the rain.

We stayed at La Maison Champs Elysées, a lovely hotel that’s been done up to the nines by Maison Martin Margiela, the avant-garde Belgian design house. We didn’t get an MMM room but the hotel is amazing, with a silver corridor, trompe l’oeil wallpaper and a pretty white drawing room where a waiter was playing jazz at the piano as we arrived. More to the point, it’s relatively affordable compared to other Paris hotels.

Our best discovery of the weekend though was a tiny shop called Popelini in the Marais (see above). Launched by Lauren Koumetz, who grew up in the Marais, and with a chef who used to work at Ladurée, it sells exquisite iced choux buns. Flavours range from cherry and pistachio to vanilla and strawberry and they’re so light and tiny you don’t feel guilty afterwards. You can buy just one or get a selection wrapped up in an elegant cerise box. Forget cupcakes and macaroons. Popelini makes them look completely old hat.

Mark my words, these choux buns will catch on in the UK faster than you can say Popelini.

Popelini
29 rue Debelleyme
75003 Paris

Will I get talked into buying a 2CV?

As building work continues apace on the House with No Name, the question of how we’re going to get around the rural back roads of southern France without a car is rearing its inquisitive head. We can bike to the nearest village for croissants and milk but for trips further afield we’ll need four wheels rather than two.

If I am going to buy a car in France then the only one that will do is a Citroën 2CV. They’re cheap, chic and well, not 100 per cent reliable, but I don’t care.

When I was little my mother had a bright green 2CV, which we drove through the Dorset lanes with the wind in our hair and Dory Previn singing Lemon Haired Ladies on the ropey old tape machine. My dad loathed the car because it was noisy and shockingly slow and my mum went off it after the canvas roof came adrift and knocked her half-unconscious as she drove along.

But my sister and I adored it and once my mother got a swankier car she gave it to us. I’d just started training as a reporter on the Mid-Devon Advertiser and when I set off for work at the crack of dawn every Monday morning me and my mum had to push it down the road for a quarter of a mile to get it started. My friends likened the car to “a deckchair on wheels,” but within a few weeks my fellow trainee and spin-doctor-to-be Alastair Campbell bought a Citroën Dyane (the slightly more sophisticated version of the 2CV) in exactly the same colour.

On a good day my top speed was 60mph but on bad days lorries and caravans whizzed past me with ease. I was still so entranced that when it finally gave up the ghost I bought an identical Deux Chevaux in a shade of pale blue Cath Kidston would give her eye-teeth for.

Twenty-five years on I’m still hankering after another 2CV – and my teenagers are egging me on in my quest. Even though 2CVs went out of production in 1990, you can still pick them up for a song in France. Last summer my daughter spotted a beaten-up turquoise 2CV for sale for three hundred euros outside a garage in Dieulefit and campaigned for days to make me buy it. I admit I was half-tempted but luckily someone else snapped it up before I could do something even sillier than usual.

But hmmm, this year I just might...

Why journalists need proper training

We’re living through extraordinary times. After the dramatic events of last week I assumed last week’s media storm would die down for a while over the weekend. Hopping on the Eurostar on Friday night I decided to abandon Twitter and enjoy spending time with my teenage daughter in Paris (see above).

But the minute I arrived back on Sunday night I sneaked a quick look at the latest tweets and discovered the story hadn’t let up for a second. Not only had Rebekah Brooks been arrested and questioned for nine hours but Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson had just resigned. By Monday the story looked set to run and run, with Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch and Brooks all set to appear before the Parliamentary select committee for Culture, Media and Sport on Tuesday and MPs meeting in emergency session on Wednesday to discuss the latest developments.

One point that’s struck me forcibly in recent days though is the importance of journalism training. When I started out as a reporter 25 years ago virtually everyone cut their journalistic teeth on local newspapers. I trained with Mirror Group Newspapers alongside spin-doctor-to-be Alastair Campbell, his partner Fiona Millar and a host of other ambitious young trainees. We spent eight weeks in a tatty-looking Portakabin on a Plymouth industrial estate getting up to speed with shorthand (Alastair cracked 100 wpm way before anyone else), law, local government and how to report fairly and accurately, before being dispatched off to weekly newspapers across the West Country for two years.

During my days on the Mid-Devon Advertiser, a newspaper based in Newton Abbot and edited with great panache by former Morning Star journalist Lance Samson, I learned how to write a news story, how to cover a court case and how to interview and quote people correctly. It wasn’t glamorous or ultra-exciting but it taught me the journalistic skills I needed - and still use a quarter of a century later. It also meant that by the time we made it to Fleet Street we were professional reporters who knew what we were doing.

Lance (father of novelist Polly Samson) could easily have thrown up his hands in horror at the inexperienced trainees thrust into his news room. But he was generous with his time, encouragement and support. He was a stickler for doing things by the book too. One day my fellow trainee Keith was sent home from the office for wearing a polo-neck instead of a shirt and tie. “What would happen if I had to send you out to interview the Archbishop of Canterbury?” demanded Lance (slightly unlikely considering we were based in a sleepy mid-Devon town where the most exciting thing to happen most weeks was the planning committee meeting, but still.)

In the second year of our training we progressed from our weekly papers to the heady heights of the Sunday Independent, which covered the whole of the South West. It was the era of the Falklands War and while we spent much of our time writing stories about golden weddings and village fetes, Alastair showed his star quality by scooping Fleet Street's finest on a story about Prince Andrew. It was obvious he was going places even then.

Harper Seven - where did that name come from?

It was obvious from the start that Posh and Becks were never going to call their new baby daughter something plain and simple - like Mary or Jane.

But how on earth did they come up with Harper Seven? I know her name had to match up to Brooklyn, Romeo and Cruz, her three big brothers, but Harper Seven sounds like an upmarket washing liquid. Even though the Beckhams themselves say they named their little girl after a character in the Disney TV series The Wizards of Waverly Place, other theories have been flying around thick and fast. Some reckon her moniker comes from Harper’s Bazaar magazine, while others claim it’s inspired by Harper Lee, the novelist who wrote To Kill a Mockingbird (I really don’t think so!)

Choosing children’s names is always fraught with difficulty, with relations quick to take offence if the baby is named after one side of the family and not the other. “Where did that come from?” asked my mother-in-law when I first told her Ned’s name. “Don’t you mean Edward?” Ahem. No, we didn’t. Ned is just Ned.

It’s also a good idea to check the baby’s initials don’t spell something dire and that the names don’t rhyme embarrassingly. On the day Lottie was born we were about to tell everyone that our darling daughter was called Lottie Rose when I stopped in my tracks. Fast-forwarding a few years, I could suddenly hear classmates shouting “Snotty Nose” at her the minute she started school. We had a quick rethink and came up with Clementine – which nearly 20 years on, she absolutely hates.

The best tip I’ve ever heard on choosing names was from my glamorous Lancashire grandmother. Her advice was to fling open the back door and yell the name you’ve set your heart on at the top of your voice.

If “Harper Seven – it’s tea-time,” sounds completely ridiculous, then it’s back to the drawing board.

The Chipping Norton Set

Until recently, Chipping Norton’s main claim to fame was that it’s the highest town in Oxfordshire. Oh, and that Jeremy Clarkson can often be spotted shopping in the high street.

But that’s all changed in recent times. Chipping Norton, known fondly to locals as Chippy, has suddenly hit the headlines for the powerful people who have weekend places in its environs. Dubbed the Chipping Norton Set, they live in stunning Cotswold villages, where front doors are painted that chic sludgy green colour and pubs have gastronomic menus to rival the very best London restaurants.

David Cameron has a farmhouse five miles from Chippy, Rupert Murdoch’s daughter Elisabeth and her PR husband Matthew Freud own the gorgeous Burford Priory and controversial News International boss Rebekah Brooks and her racehorse trainer husband Charlie have a converted barn somewhere near Churchill. Meanwhile Blur’s bass guitarist, Alex James, has a farm at Kingham and Kate Moss is a bit further afield in Southrop.

I know Chippy well and apart from its brilliant independent bookshop, Jaffe and Neale, it’s a perfectly ordinary market town. It’s got a small Sainsbury’s, a WH Smith’s and lots of antique shops, but nothing very exciting to write home about. Venture a few miles into the wilds of the countryside (see above) though and you’re in a different world. Driving between villages, along sun-lit lanes lined with clouds of cow parsley and immaculately kept dry stone walls, you suddenly spot huge gates opening on to leafy, gravelled drives. Occasionally the gates will open and a sleek four by four will whoosh past.

The smart crowd do their shopping at Daylesford Organic Farmshop, just off the road to Stow-on-the-Wold. With its yoga studio, spa and stylish restaurant, some critics reckon it’s a bit like stumbling across Harvey Nichols in the middle of the Cotswolds. Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Moss and Kate Winslet are all said to be fans, though along with the superstars in dark glasses you see locals picking up a loaf of freshly-made soda bread or a modest wedge of organic cheddar. When I pop in I buy a takeaway latte in a recycled paper cup for £2 and some chilled pea and mint soup for £3.95 – all absolutely delicious. If I was a member of the Chipping Norton Set, I reckon I’d be there all the time.

PS: If anyone offers you a ticket to see Betrayal at London’s Comedy Theatre, don’t think twice about it. The new production of Harold Pinter’s classic play, starring Kristin Scott Thomas, Douglas Henshall and Ben Miles, is touching, witty and brilliantly acted. Written 33 years ago, it still seems fresh and insightful.