Twitter helps writer Maria Duffy get a book deal

I love Twitter. It makes me laugh, recommends everything from books to blogs to recipes and keeps me up to date with the news on a minute by minute basis. The only drawback is that it’s so addictive that hours can fly by without getting a stroke of work done. Lots of writers say they have to switch it off altogether between nine and five-thirty. Otherwise they wouldn’t write a word, let alone stand a hope in hell of hitting their deadlines.

But yesterday, thanks to a fascinating post by Chick Lit Club, I discovered that Twitter can even help writers get book deals. Dublin-based Maria Duffy explained how she got a message on Twitter from Curtis Brown literary agent Sheila Crowley.

“To cut a long story short, Sheila loved my Twitter voice and told me that if I could get that down into a book, I’d have something special,” said Maria.

The upshot was that Maria wrote the novel, Sheila sent it out to publishers and within a few weeks it had been snapped up by Hachette Books Ireland. Any Dream Will Do, the story of a group of people who meet (how else?) through Twitter hit the shelves earlier this month.
So next time you’re on Twitter, write the most superlative tweet you can. You never know, it could be the first step on the road to publication.

PS. Tom Stoddart, one of the best photographers in the business, was granted “exclusive, unprecedented access” to David Cameron and his family for a week. He snapped the PM sitting round the No 10 breakfast table with his family, poring over his red box, striding through rain-soaked Cannes at the G20 summit and being interviewed by BBC political editor Nick Robinson. But my favourite image by far was the picture on the cover of the Sunday Times Magazine. It showed the PM strolling at Chequers, his country retreat, with his baby daughter Florence strapped to his front. Somehow I can't see Nicolas Sarkozy following suit...

Pyjamas - what not to wear at the school gate

Mornings have never been my strong point. In the days when I took my daughter to the bus stop soon after 7am I used to rush out looking like I’d been pulled through a hedge backwards, without a scrap of make-up and my hair unbrushed. I’d then dash into Sainsbury’s to buy the papers and hope I didn’t scare the cheery man on the till or, horror of horrors, bump into someone I knew.

My lackadaisical approach wouldn’t go down well in London's Notting Hill, where yummy mummies like Elle Macpherson and Claudia Schiffer swear by glossy hair, immaculate make-up and high heels at the school gate. If you don’t wear the right outfit, some mums have warned, your children might not get invited round to play by their friends.

My teenagers are fiercely independent now but even when they were younger they were appalled if I ever tried to escort them into the classroom.

But at least I didn’t have to worry what I looked like. I cheered up no end when I realised I was a lot more appropriately dressed than parents doing the school run in some parts of the country. Why? Because at least I was dressed. A couple of years back the head of one UK primary school was so appalled at the number of parents arriving in their nightwear to drop off their children that he appealed to them to show a little more respect. Known as the “pyjama mamas,” some were turning up in baggy pyjamas and slippers while others sported dressing gowns and curlers.

As the head wearily told his local paper: “People don’t go to see a solicitor, bank manager or doctor wearing pyjamas so why do they think it’s OK to drop their children off at school dressed like that?”

PS: On the subject of night gear, a report in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph said millions of us stay in our pyjamas till midday on Saturdays. And shock horror, four out of ten sometimes go the whole day without getting dressed. I’m guilty of the first (not the second), but I’ve got one question. Does the Telegraph know that pyjamas are all the rage as daywear these days? Fashion designer Stella McCartney included a rather fetching paisley pair in her spring/summer 2012 collection while the likes of Celine and Louis Vuitton have featured them on the catwalk too. So don’t assume that the woman wearing pyjamas in the supermarket has just stumbled out of bed. She could be the most fashionable person in town.

PPS: I couldn't resist these gorgeous tartan reindeer (above) I spotted at Bicester Village. They're the best Christmas decorations I've seen by far this year.

House With No Name Weekly Digest: From the John Lewis Christmas ad to Anya Hindmarch and the art of the apostrophe

Every Saturday the House With No Name blog features a round-up of the week’s highlights.

The picture above shows the gorgeous Christmas lights that hover like mysterious planets over St Christopher’s Place in the heart of London’s West End.

While I was in the vicinity I couldn’t resist popping into H&M to see the much talked-about new Versace collection. There wasn’t a lot left in the Regent Street branch but what a disappointment. There were shocking pink patent bags, silver belts and a scary pair of palm print leggings that even Elle Macpherson would be hard-pressed to look good in.

House With No Name on grammar: Anya Hindmarch and the art of the apostrophe
House With No Name on the week’s most uplifting story: The journalist and the Afghan teenager
House With No Name on the John Lewis ad: I cry at anything, but this leaves me cold
House With No Name Book Review: India Knight’s Comfort and Joy
House With No Name Children’s Books: My obsession with Enid Blyton's Malory Towers stories

PS: Nineteen days into the National Blog Posting Month challenge and I’m nearly two-thirds of the way through!

Friday book review - Comfort and Joy by India Knight

I’m a huge fan of India Knight. She’s wise, fun and talks more sense in her Sunday Times column than most other journalists put together. In short, she sounds like the sort of best friend we’d all like to have.

If that wasn’t enough, I opened the December issue of Red magazine to find that her house boasts joyous pink walls (she says they’re “really cheering on a January morning”), huge amounts of clutter and an amazing personalised mural drawn by artist Charlotte Mann with black marker pen. She likes “books, colour and over-decoration” and, asked what she’d save in a fire, reckons she wouldn’t save anything, apart from people and her laptop. “I don’t think it would really make much difference if you had your favourite teapot or cushion,” she says. “You’d just have to start again.”

It’s for all those reasons that I knew I’d love her Christmas novel, Comfort and Joy. Out in paperback this month, it perfectly captures the chaos of a family Christmas. Knight admits that the book is “fairly autobiographical,” with lots of “mashed-up memories and experiences,” but I reckon it’s all the better for that.

Comfort and Joy is the story of a modern family Christmas hosted by mother-of-three Clara Dunphy over three consecutive festive seasons. Like most women I know, Clara is determined to make Christmas special. As she says, “I want it to be so lovely, so redemptive, so right. There’s no point in doing it craply, is there?”

But even so, it’s a tricky feat to pull off when she’s got 16 guests turning up and is doing everything single-handed. Sitting round her London table each year are her ex-husband, her about to be ex-husband, three children, eccentric mother, two half-sisters, her non-PC mother-in-law and a host of well-behaved and not so well-behaved friends.

Knight is brilliant at blending laugh-out-loud humour with real insight into the stresses and strains of a family Christmas. You’ll love her third novel if you’re hosting Christmas at your place this year (though it might make you want to book a one-way ticket to the other side of the planet) – and even if you’re not.

Comfort and Joy by India Knight (Penguin, £7.99)

The uplifting story of the journalist and the Afghan teenager

Few people, if any, have a good word to say about journalists these days. As the Leveson inquiry reveals shocking new details about deception, trickery and intrusion in our newspapers, it’s hardly surprising that us hacks are regarded as the lowest of the low.

Yet most journalists I've come across are honest, hard-working and dedicated to their profession. I don’t know anyone who’s hacked a phone or tricked someone into telling their story against their will. And in amongst the gloom, there are still examples of journalists who’ve gone that extra mile to make a real difference to people’s lives.

Jerome Starkey, the Afghanistan correspondent of The Times, is a case in point. I’ve seen his by-line loads of times but until I read his Times 2 feature yesterday I had no idea about the amazing role he has played in helping to transform the life of a young Afghan boy called Najib.

Starkey’s and Najib’s paths crossed in Helmand on August 20, 2009. Najib was cycling along an empty street with his younger brother Hamid on the back, when a rocket hit the road beside them. Starkey witnessed the attack but managed to scramble for cover. But Hamid died instantly and Najib was left badly injured.

As Starkey wrote in yesterday’s piece: “Neither of us knew it, but that rocket was to entwine our lives. It would propel Najib – the son of an illiterate cobbler – towards unimaginable opportunities that would change his life forever.”

Thanks to an American charity, Solace, Najib was eventually flown to the US, but doctors were unable to save the sight of one eye. When he returned to Afghanistan, he threw himself into his schoolwork, aided by an international charity that helps to get talented Afghan students to schools and universities in the US. He and Starkey stayed in touch and earlier this year Najib asked the journalist to help him study in the UK.

Thirty-year-old Starkey had no idea where to start but he agreed to email Anthony Wallersteiner, the headmaster of Stowe, his old school (above).

The long and the short of it is that after interviewing Najib on the phone, Dr Wallersteiner agreed to award him a sixth-form scholarship, covering the Buckinghamshire school’s £28,000 a year fees. Najib, now 17, moved to Stowe in September and by all accounts has settled in well.

Starkey is acting as his guardian and as he wrote at the end of his uplifting piece: “I could almost cry when I stop to think about how far he has come.”

Children's books, Jack Wills and a spelling mistake

I’m busy reviewing a batch of children’s books and can’t get over the fantastic array of titles. So far I’ve whizzed through a novel for teenagers about a missing girl, a gorgeous story by Anna Kemp and Sara Ogilvie called Rhinos Don’t Eat Pancakes and I’m now on to Jacqueline Wilson’s Sapphire Battersea.

When I was little I loved books like Richmal Crompton’s Just William and Noel Streatfeild’s Ballet Shoes. But Enid Blyton was my absolute favourite. I used to get two shillings and sixpence pocket money a week and every Saturday morning I’d wander down to the local book shop and buy a new Malory Towers or Famous Five story. Then I’d go home, curl up on my bed and read it from cover to cover.

Enid Blyton doesn’t get a good press these days. Some critics reckon her vocabulary is hopelessly limited while others accuse her of being elitist, racist and sexist.

Characters like the Famous Five’s prissy Anne and her liking for party frocks and dolls are a bit hard to take but there’s no doubt that Blyton could spin a great yarn. Her stories captured my imagination so much that I longed to be part of the Famous Five gang, to spend days swimming at a Dorset cove, taking a brown mongrel called Timmy for long walks and solving mysteries.

When I had a quick look at a Famous Five book recently what struck me most was the freedom children had in Blyton’s day. Julian, Dick, Anne and their tomboy cousin George are all aged between 11 and 13 but they dash out of the house after breakfast, land themselves in loads of scrapes and don’t come back till tea-time. They’re allowed to row out to Kirrin Island by themselves and camp there alone for two days. Two days! It sends me into a cold sweat just thinking about it.

PS. Thank you so much to everyone who commented on yesterday’s blog about the art of the apostrophe and students’ dodgy grasp of grammar. I didn’t even mention spelling, so I was shocked to get the new Jack Wills Christmas handbook in the post this morning and find two pages of greeting cards, diaries, notebooks and pens marked “stationary.” Ahem, Jack Wills, do you mean “stationery?”

PPS. Still on the subject of the Jack Wills catalogue, I did another double take when I spotted a gorgeous long black dress that would look divine on my daughter. She says Jack Wills, which markets itself as creating "fabulously British goods for the university crowd," is too preppy for her. But even if she liked it, there's no way she'd be tempted. Why? Because the Belford sequin dress costs a staggering £798. That's the cost of two or three months' rent for most students I know.