Hotel review: Mama Shelter in Paris

If you’re looking for a chic hotel in Paris that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg then Mama Shelter could be the place for you. I’d been wanting to stay there for ages and last weekend I finally got the chance.

Situated near the Père Lachaise cemetery in the 20^th district (or as Parsians would say, the vingtième), it’s not the most central location. The metro is a brisk ten-minute walk and then it’s eight stops to Hôtel de Ville. But if you don’t mind that (and we didn’t at all), then give it a try. 




Designed by Philippe Starck and opened in 2009, Mama Shelter boasts ultra-modern rooms with crisp, white linen, Kiehl’s shampoo and soap, iMacs and free Wi-Fi. Best of all, the prices are reasonable by Paris standards. My daughter and I paid 79 euros each for a room with twin beds and an en-suite shower.

From the chic dining room (boasting every make of trendy chair you can possibly imagine) to the rooftop terrace, Mama Shelter is gorgeous to look at. I particularly liked the giant mirrors with details of the day’s events in Paris scrawled across the glass and the low blackboard ceilings covered in chalked drawings and graffiti.

On Saturday morning we had coffee at a traditional café en route to the metro station at Gambetta but on Sunday we decided to treat ourselves to breakfast at Mama Shelter. The cost was 15 euros each, which seemed a little on the steep side – until we tried it out. As we helped ourselves to limitless coffee, fruit, yoghurt and croissants we realised we didn’t need to eat again till supper-time.

It was a balmy 26 degrees in Paris on Sunday so we sat outside on the long, narrow terrace overlooking a disused railway line. With its huge outdoor lanterns, massive sofas and friendly staff, Mama Shelter has an urban charm all of its own.

Now is Good - trust me, you will cry

A word of warning. If you’re planning to see the movie Now is Good, remember to take tissues. In fact, remember to take a lot of tissues. I always cry in films but I don’t think I’ve wept so much since I watched Love Story as a teenager.

Now is Good is based on Jenny Downham’s bestselling young adult novel, Before I Die, which I read a few years back and, yes, wept buckets over. It’s interesting to discover, though, that Ol Parker, who wrote and directed the film, wasn’t totally convinced by the project when the producers first told him about it.

“When they pitched me a film about a teenage girl, with the title Before I Die, I almost passed before the end of the meeting,” he says.

“But they persuaded me to read the book and I found myself at two o’clock in the morning, blinded by tears, texting them and demanding that I be allowed to write and direct the film. The book is passionate, beautiful and brilliant, and paradoxically, fantastically life-affirming.”

I completely agree. The film is the story of Tessa, a feisty 17-year-old who’s been diagnosed with a terminal illness. But instead of shutting herself away and feeling sorry for herself, she resolves to live her life to the full and do all the things she reckons a teenager should do - like shoplifting, taking drugs and having sex.

There was always the risk that the movie, shot on location in Brighton and London, could have been mawkish and over-sentimental. But in fact it’s every bit as life-affirming and inspiring as the book. It helps, of course, that the script is funny, touching and not in the least bit maudlin, and, of course, that the cast is a stellar one.

Hollywood actress Dakota Fanning, who plays Tessa, is by turns sharp, annoying, passionate and wise. But best of all, she comes across as a teenager you might actually meet in real life. And yes, her English accent is utterly believable.

Similarly, Jeremy Irvine, as Adam, the next-door neighbour Tessa falls in love with, is convincing and real. The young English actor is also jaw-droppingly handsome (you’ll recognise him as Albert Narracott from Steven Spielberg’s War Horse), so it takes a few minutes to concentrate on his acting rather than his exquisite profile.

Paddy Considine and Olivia Williams (in a blonde wig) give cracking performances as Tessa’s parents. No longer living together, they react to their daughter’s leukaemia in very different ways. While Tessa's dad has given up work to look after her and spends hours trawling the internet for a cure, her mum is positively flaky, turning up late for hospital appointments and panicking as her daughter’s condition worsens. Look out for young actress Kaya Scodelario (of Skins fame) too. She is clearly a star in the making as Tessa’s best friend and partner in crime Zoey.

So, yes, go and see Now is Good. But trust me, you'll cry…

Now is Good is in UK cinemas from September 19. Certificate: 12A

Now is Good by Jenny Downham (David Fickling Books, £6.99). Originally published as Before I Die. 

The kindness of strangers Part 1

“I can’t believe I’m leaving you in Paris,” I told my daughter as we hugged goodbye on the Boulevard St Germain.

“I’m more worried about leaving you on the metro," she replied, deftly handing me a train ticket and a bright pink Post-it note with scribbled instructions to Charles de Gaulle Aéroport.

We’d just spent two action-packed days together and it was time for me to head home while she embarked on her new student life in France.

Determined to allay her fears, I strode confidently through the metro gate (getting my suitcase wedged in the barrier in the process) and hopped on the train to Châtelet-Les Halles.

But after that, everything came unstuck. As I waited in vain for the RER (the express train that connects the city centre to the suburbs), I started to panic. My flight was due to leave in 90 minutes time and I was still miles away.

Then suddenly a couple walked past and murmured something incomprehensible. “Je suis Anglaise,” I replied – my default response when I haven’t got a clue. The man replied in faultless English and told me the train to the airport wasn’t running.  We apparently needed to get a train to Mitry-Claye, a place I’d never heard of, then catch a bus.

It sounds ridiculous but I instinctively knew I could trust the pair. I hurried on to the packed Mitry-Claye train behind them and we hurtled through the grey suburbs of north-east Paris together, past places I’d be afraid to walk alone. The man told me he was originally from Cameroon and was on his way home to South Africa from a business conference in the US. He and his wife had stopped off in Paris en route to see friends.

When we finally reached Mitry-Claye I lost sight of them in the melée. As hordes of passengers tore down the platform in search of the airport bus, a few RER staff in red T-shirts apologetically handed us a tiny biscuit each. Not exactly what you’re after when you’re about to miss your plane, but still.

I pushed my way on to the packed bendy-bus, wondering where my new friends had got to. As it pulled away I spotted them standing patiently at the barrier. My bus was full and they’d clearly been told to wait for the next one. I waved like a maniac and mouthed “merci.” I don’t think they saw me…

PS. The kindness of strangers Part 2 is here.

Hope Springs - fine acting but a tedious script

No matter what part she’s playing, Meryl Streep is one of the most watchable actresses around. From monstrous magazine editor Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada to Mrs Thatcher in The Iron Lady, she’s always charismatic and convincing.

And it’s the same in Hope Springs, her latest movie. Here she stars as suburban wife and mother Kay, who is devoted to her grumpy husband Arnold but realises that after years of marriage their relationship needs spicing up.

So when she hears about a couples’ counsellor based in the pretty seaside town of Great Hope Springs she persuades Arnold to sign up for a week of marriage therapy with her. The pair book into a cheap motel and turn up for daily sessions with Dr Bernie Feld (played absolutely deadpan by Steve Carell).

Streep and Tommy Lee Jones, who plays Arnold, act their socks off in this movie but I can’t for the life of me work out who on earth the audience will be. Young movie-goers will squirm with embarrassment as the couple discuss their sex life (or lack of it) while older viewers will find Kay and Arnold’s attempts to re-ignite the spark in their relationship too uncomfortable by half.

Directed by David Frankel of The Devil Wears Prada fame, the film has a few laugh-out-loud moments. Streep is genuinely touching as the unhappy Kay and Lee Jones is gloriously taciturn as Arnold, but the script is lumbering and the counselling scenes seem endless. And the soppy last scene definitely should have been cut.

When I attended the UK Cinema Showcase last week, Heat film editor Charles Gant declared that you can sum a movie up in two words. A film, he said, is either ‘”really bad” or “really good.” Ignoring his advice, I’m going to sum up Hope Springs in 14 words. If you like Meryl Streep, go. If you don’t like Meryl Streep, don’t bother.

Empty nest syndrome

There’s an autumn chill in the air, the garden is covered in leaves and the traffic in Oxford has resumed its usual snail-like crawl.

But this September feels very different for me. Why? Because for the first time in 16 years I haven’t got a child going back to school. I haven’t had to rush round frantically buying new shoes, files and geometry sets or doing the annual (always unsuccessful) hunt for my son’s rugby gum shield.

At the moment my children are both still at home but by the end of the week they won’t be. My daughter’s off to university in Paris while my son’s heading west to Wales (with his beloved road bike, of course).

I’m so excited for them but every now and again I find myself asking plaintively “where on earth did the last 20 years go?” It seems no time at all since my daughter, clad in a yellow flower-sprigged pinafore and matching hairband, clung to me as I took her into nursery school for the first time. And since my son was a toddler with white-blond curls and a penchant for Thomas the Tank Engine.

Now my daughter’s moving to another country for a year and my son’s excitedly looking forward to Freshers’ Week. The house is full of packing boxes, my son’s busy practising his cooking skills and my daughter’s rushing round seeing all her friends before she starts her new Parisian life.

It’s going to be very quiet around here in a week’s time…

The new Marks & Spencer ad - and dressing for middle-age

Thank goodness Marks & Spencer has seen sense and ditched those annoying ads starring Dannii Minogue, Myleene Klass and Twiggy in favour of a campaign featuring professional models.

The new line-up ranges from 20 to 56 in age and from the curvy to the slender.

Actually, the oldest model is the most stunning of the lot. With her long grey hair, high cheekbones and glowing skin, Yasmina Rossi is like a breath of fresh air. She shows women of, ahem, indeterminate age that it’s perfectly possible to age in style.

The clothes look pretty good too. When I popped into M&S at London’s Westfield this week I spotted loads of covetable outfits – elegant tailored coats, pencil skirts and (I can’t believe I’m saying this) a rather fetching pair of floral Jacquard trousers. There wasn’t a flouncy skirt or asymmetric cardigan in sight.

I hope that all the other high street stores follow suit. It’s about time they realised that when women hit middle age they don’t suddenly yearn to dress in beige twinsets and trousers with elasticated waists.

Mind you, it doesn’t mean that we want to copy Carol Vorderman’s tightly-cinched dresses or Kate Garraway’s alarming new hair extensions either. We don’t!

How to be a film critic

Sunday mornings tend to follow the same pattern. A trip to buy croissants and The Sunday Times, then strong coffee and the omnibus edition of The Archers.

But last weekend I broke out of my rut and did something completely different. By 9.15am on Sunday I was sitting in a darkened cinema in London’s Haymarket – full of excitement at the prospect of seeing some of this autumn’s hottest new movies. I’ll be reviewing films like the eagerly anticipated Anna Karenina when they open in the UK but first up was a Q&A session with a host of well-known film critics and publicists.

The workshop, organised as part of the UK Cinema Showcase, was packed with bloggers covering all film genres – from sci-fi and horror to rom coms and thrillers.

We were all keen to hear the critics talk about how they tackle their reviews. Charles Gant, film editor of Heat magazine, stressed the importance of staying true to yourself. “What you can’t do is write against your gut,” he said. “If you do, it’s a road to disaster. The important thing is that you retain the trust of your readers and that you write what you truly believe. Once you try to second guess the readers you are lost as a critic.”

He added that sticking to your word count is crucial. “One of the great skills of being a critic is the art of concision. I see myself as a reviewer rather than a critic. People read my reviews to know whether to see the film or not. And after all, most people who aren’t film critics give their verdict in two words – ‘really bad’ or ‘really good.’”

Meanwhile Press Association film critic Damon Smith, whose reviews are read by eight to ten million people across the country, explained that two-thirds of the content of his reviews is commentary, while a third focuses on the plot. He concentrates on the screenplay, direction and acting and reckons that mediocre films are the hardest to review, while writing about bad movies can be fun – “because the bile pours from you.”

The conversation also covered the thorny question of awarding stars to films. In Damon Smith’s view the general advice to filmgoers is “three stars out of five – go and see it. Two stars – stay away.” David Hughes, film critic of Empire magazine, nodded. “And five stars means it’s unmissable,” he said firmly.

The critics agreed that it’s vital to stick to your guns and not be influenced by anyone else. They don’t talk to other critics after screenings and don’t read other reviews before they’ve filed their own. “Just sit and write in the dark,” instructed Charles Gant. So that's what we did.

The Lake District - a guide for Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and co

The British papers are reporting that Hollywood superstars Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt have booked a holiday in the Lake District with their seven children.

Apparently they plan to take Maddox, 11, Pax, eight, Zahara, seven, Shiloh, six, and four-year-old twins Vivienne and Knox to a converted boathouse on the shores of Lake Windermere while Angelina shoots her new movie.

For a family used to jet-setting between glamorous homes in LA, Malibu, New Orleans and the south of France, the rugged, windswept Lakes might seem like an odd choice. But I reckon it’s inspired.

Why? Because there’s so much for children to do. Over the years my two have built rope swings across a stream in the Newlands Valley, cooked supper on camp fires, climbed Causey Pike and mountain biked in Whinlatter Forest. My son managed Catbells when he was five, a feat he was so proud of that he pleaded to climb Maiden Moor the very next day.

It admittedly rains a lot in the Lake District, but there are still loads of places to visit. There’s the Pencil Museum at Keswick, the Windermere Steamboat Museum (where you can see Beatrix Potter’s rowing boat and Captain Flint’s houseboat from the TV adaptation of Swallows and Amazons) and The World of Peter Rabbit, a museum at Ambleside that brings Beatrix Potter’s 23 tales stunningly to life – complete with sights, sounds and even smells.

Best of all, young (and old) fans of Beatrix Potter’s books can visit the real-life places that inspired her. If you gaze out across Derwentwater from the top of Catbells it’s hard not to be reminded of The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin, which is set there. And if you walk round the Newlands Valley there’s always the thought that Mrs Tiggy-Winkle might magically appear with her washing basket. Beatrix Potter was walking there when she met Lucie Carr, the local vicar’s daughter, and she later wrote The Tale of Mrs Tiggy-Winkle for the little girl.

So I hope the young Jolie-Pitts enjoy their Lake District adventure. Even if it rains (and it does rain a lot), they’ll have the time of their lives.

Interview with Eowyn Ivey - author of The Snow Child

“…a touching and truly exceptional portrayal of heartbreak and hope.” Those were my words in March, after I'd read Eowyn Ivey’s The Snow Child for the first time. Six months on, Eowyn’s debut novel is still one of the most memorable books I’ve read all year. It’s out in paperback in the UK today - and I was lucky enough to get the chance to interview her about it.

I understand you were named after a character in The Lord of the Rings. Did you read JRR Tolkein’s books as a child and what did you think of them?

Eowyn: I have to confess, I’ve never read The Lord of the Rings in its entirety. I tried several times when I was younger. After a chapter or two, I would lose interest, skip ahead until I found my name in the text and then put it down. Somehow I could never get past all the complexities of the world and battles. However, I did read The Hobbit when I was a child, and have read it several times since. It’s one of my favourite stories. I love the characters and the simplicity of the quest. It’s very endearing.

Did you enjoy writing as a child? And if so, what did you write?

Eowyn: I read a lot when I was a little girl. And occasionally I would get in a certain mood, often on a rainy, boring day, or when I was feeling thoughtful and melancholy, and I would write stories. I once wrote a story about a planet inhabited by talking cats, and another about a little boy who disappears into the reflection in a puddle. In high school, English literature and writing classes were my favourites and I realised I wanted to find a way to earn a living with words. But never did I imagine I would someday have a career as a novelist.

You have worked as a journalist and a bookseller. What impact did these jobs have on you as a writer?

Eowyn: I would like to think they helped shape me both as a reader and a writer. As a newspaper journalist, I often wrote 10 or 12 articles in a week. I strove for clarity and conciseness and making each word do as much work as possible. I worked with editors and did a lot of editing myself, which is tremendously useful in learning the basics of the English language. But the downside is that the job was demanding, and I had no energy or time for writing fiction. My work at Fireside Books has been the opposite – it’s a source of inspiration and creative rejuvenation. I’m surrounded by books and ideas and people who love both. As a bookseller, I’m constantly discovering new books and authors and seeing how people have broken the very rules I spent years learning as a journalist.

Could you tell me about how and where you found the inspiration for The Snow Child. Was the book straightforward to write and how long did it take you?

This is a perfect example of how Fireside Books has been quite literally a source for my inspiration. Several years ago I was working an evening shift when I discovered a little paperback children’s book that retold the Snegurochka fairy tale. I had never come across the story before, and I quickly read it standing there among the shelves. It was an incredible experience – I just knew this was the storyline I had been seeking. For nearly five years I had been working on a different novel, and I abandoned it to begin The Snow Child. In less than a year, I had a first draft. I felt inspired in a way I had never been before as a writer. As quickly as it came, though, I never knew exactly where the story was going until I wrote it.

The Alaskan landscape is beautifully portrayed in The Snow Child. What are the main characteristics of Alaska that you wanted to convey in the book?

Eowyn: I think like a lot of extreme locations, Alaska has become somewhat mythologised and romanticised. But what I love about this place is its complexity and contradictions, and that’s what I hoped to bring to the page. The northern wilderness is both awesome and delicate, beautiful and frightening.

The winter is so hard for Jack and Mabel, the two main characters. When you were growing up did you experience a similar sense of isolation during the winter months?

Eowyn: That was one aspect of writing The Snow Child that I really enjoyed as a writer – the challenge of seeing Alaska through eyes so different than my own. I have always loved the extremes here, the wind and snow and dark of winter, the lush green and midnight sun of the summer. And there is a sense of loneliness and isolation, but for me that has always made the camaraderie of neighbours and friends somehow all the sweeter. As a child, I found it exciting, and I still do. But I have always wondered what it would be like to come here for the first time as an adult and to not immediately love it. That’s what I had to imagine as I told Jack and Mabel’s story.

Do you live in a remote part of Alaska now and is it in any way similar to Jack and Mabel’s homestead?

Eowyn: Like a lot of Alaskans, we straddle two worlds. We live along the road system, so can drive easily to Anchorage and all its urban opportunities. We live near a small town, where we work, shop for groceries, go to the movies. But our home is in a relatively rural area, and we share some similarities with Jack and Mabel – we hunt moose, caribou and bear for meat, raise a vegetable garden and chickens, fill our freezer with salmon and heat our home with a wood-burning stove. There is an independent spirit here, and a lot of us strive for a certain amount of self-sufficiency.

Where do you write now?

Eowyn: Wherever I can find a quiet spot in my home. Right now I’m at a little sewing table in my bedroom where I can look out our back window toward Castle Mountain. Usually I am easily irritated and distracted by noises, like my daughters arguing or my husband talking on the telephone, so I’ll sometimes even put in earplugs. Then, once I’m particularly engaged with a project, I can write standing at our kitchen counter with the radio blaring, the phone ringing, and everyone talking at once and it doesn’t faze me.

Are you working on your second novel? Is it set in Alaska and can you give any hints as to what it is about?

Eowyn: Thank you for asking! I am working on another novel, although it is still early in the process. It will share some similarities with The Snow Child – set in historical Alaska with some mythological, magical elements. But I also want to continue to stretch my wings as a writer, to break some of those rules I learned, and try something new. I’m having a lot of fun.

Thank you so much to Eowyn for a fascinating and illuminating interview - and to Sam Eades at Headline for organising it. And for those of you about to read The Snow Child, trust me, you are in for a treat.

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey (Headline Review, £7.99)

Shadow Dancer - an outstanding film

“If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it. The more things you do, the more you can do.”

Lucille Ball’s famous quote has always been one of my favourites – and it's certainly true in Tom Bradby’s case.

Bradby is now political editor of ITN News but as well as his day job he’s also carved out a successful career as a thriller writer. And along the way, he’s found time (how?) to write the screenplay for his first novel, Shadow Dancer.

Shadow Dancer opened in the UK last week – and is one of the best films I’ve seen in ages. Set in Belfast in the early 1990s, it’s the story of Colette McVeigh, a young IRA woman who is offered a stark choice. She can either agree to work as an MI5 informer or go to prison for the rest of her life and see her young son taken into care. The trouble is, if she decides to betray her family and comrades, she’s pretty sure she’ll be dead in no time.

Bradby has said that writing the script for Shadow Dancer combined the skills he has learned as a novelist (structure and characterisation) and as a TV reporter (brevity, fluency and writing as people speak) – and he’s done a superb job. The film is taut, tense and beautifully shot. It also gives a compelling insight into the deeply divided world of pre-peace process Belfast.

Directed by James Marsh (whose Man on Wire won an Oscar in 2009), the film features some stand-out acting. As Colette, the luminous Andrea Riseborough is by turns anxious, protective parent and steely Republican, while Brid Brennan, who plays her sad, careworn mother, gives a performance that breaks your heart. Clive Owen, as Colette’s MI5 handler, is slightly marginalised, but even so, he’s as watchable as ever.

PS. As well as writing the script, Tom Bradby appears in the film as a news reporter covering the troubles in Northern Ireland. It’s a neat twist, as Brady was a young reporter there in the 1990s.

Shadow Dancer, certificate 15, is showing in UK cinemas now.

What should freshers take to university?

Like thousands of other teenagers, my son is counting the days till he starts university. He’s bought the Freshers' Week wristband (it gets him into every Freshers' event – alarming for me, thrilling for him), has worked out which student block he’ll be in and has “met” most of his new flatmates on Facebook.

But what should he take with him? I mean, apart from the obvious things like his beloved road bike, tea bags and industrial-sized packets of pasta. His list comprises essentials like a bike pump, puncture repair kit and iPod dock, while I’m more worried about how many saucepans he'll need and whether he should buy a mini fridge for his room.

A blog I’ve just read has got a host of other ideas. Key recommendations include a cake tin (because “everyone loves cake”), a laundry bag (he’s not convinced), a clothes horse (he’s definitely not convinced) and a sewing kit.

If anyone can offer any suggestions, I’d love to hear them…

PS. He’s off in three weeks’ time and even though I’ll be bereft I’m not going to cry. And I’m not going to be the sort of parent (apparently increasingly common) who muscles in on his university life. Apparently parents have been known to move into their children’s student halls, bedding down next to them while they settle in. I just hope they don’t snap up a Freshers' Week wristband while they’re at it.

Friday book review - Monday to Friday Man by Alice Peterson

Alice Peterson must have been stunned when her sweet romantic novel about a group of dog walkers soared to the top of the Kindle charts in the UK this week. And she was probably even more flabbergasted to learn that her book, Monday to Friday Man, had knocked the third instalment of Fifty Shades of Grey into second place.

I was so intrigued by her feat (echoes of David and Goliath) that I immediately downloaded Monday to Friday Man to my Kindle. It’s available in book form, but the e-book is currently selling on Amazon for 20p.

Monday to Friday Man is Peterson’s third novel and tells the story of 30-something Gilly Brown, whose fiancé jilts her two weeks before their wedding. Devastated by his rejection and struggling to make ends meet, Gilly fleetingly considers moving to the wilds of Dorset, then hits on the idea of renting out her spare room during the week. It works a treat when the glamorous Jack Baker turns up on her doorstep.

Jack is a hotshot TV producer working on an X Factor-type show called Stargazer and most of Gilly’s friends think he’s a real catch. Except, that is, her dog Ruskin, who is deeply suspicious, and the enigmatic Guy, the newest member of Gilly’s dog-walking group.

Peterson, whose promising career as a tennis player was ended by rheumatoid arthritis at 18, was inspired to write her book by Darcy, her beloved terrier. She walks him in London’s leafy Ravenscourt Park with friends – many of whom are name-checked in her acknowledgements.

If you’re after a literary tome, then Monday to Friday Man isn’t the book for you. But as an antidote to the torrent of erotic novels being published in the wake of Fifty Shades of Grey, it’s an easy and at times touching read. Even though the romantic storyline is predictable, Gilly’s fractured family background and childhood loss are moving and convincingly told.

Monday to Friday Man has sold more than 500,000 copies since the novel was published on July 21 and looks set to sell many more. Peterson will be hard pressed to match EL James’s 40 million global sales, but all the same, she’s doing pretty well…

Jilly Cooper's verdict on Fifty Shades of Grey

My children still haven’t got over the embarrassment of walking into my office last week and seeing my desk covered with erotic novels. From Jane Eyre Laid Bare to Eighty Days Yellow, they were piled up all over the place.

I was reading them for a newspaper review (really) but even so, my son and daughter shut the door hurriedly and scuttled off to laugh about it with their friends.

Scores of erotic novels have been published following the massive success of Fifty Shades of Grey (now the bestselling book of all time in the UK) and judging by the ones I’ve read they vary hugely in quality. Some are sassy and entertaining, while others are absurd and downright degrading to women.

But as I read through the torrent of erotica I kept thinking one thing - “actually, I’d far rather be reading a Jilly Cooper novel.”

I’ve been a fan of Jilly’s books since Emily was published in 1975 and have read every single one since. Her novels are full of sex too (though thankfully not so graphic as the ones I’ve been reading) but what sets them apart is that they’re also witty, funny, poignant and above all, well written.

I’d been wondering what Jilly Cooper would make of Fifty Shades of Grey and the rest – and now I know. Not a lot. In an interview with Stefanie Marsh in The Times today she describes Christian Grey (EL James’s lead character) as a “terrible, terribly silly man” and reckons “you would hate him in real life.”

She also stresses the importance of plot and characterisation in novels – whatever their genre. “…If you have a terrific plot and terrific characters,” she says, “it doesn’t really matter what they do, because you want to know what happens to them. You’re biting your nails to discover whether they do get into bed or they have a fight or they fall in love. I haven’t read any of the new genre of books but they don’t seem to have any proper characterisation, and what they do have is from books or screenplays written by other people. So it’s not writing in that sense, or even a reimagination of a text.”

Jilly adds that she’s a huge fan of writers like Shirley Conran, Jackie Collins, Penny Vincenzi and Barbara Taylor Bradford – because, like her, their key aim is to tell a good story.

She loves writing about horses, dogs, the countryside, laughter” and reckons that “for sex to really work in a book it has to be funny and it has to be loving.”

“There is always a massive amount of research that goes into writing a bonkbuster, “ she says, “and there’s less sex in it than you would imagine. My books are usually about one-50^th actual sex scenes, if that. But Christian Grey is at it most of the time, isn’t he?”

If teenagers don't like camping, why do they go to festivals?

Tent – check. Sleeping bag – check. Wellies – check. Fancy dress outfit – check. Yes, it can only mean one thing. Like thousands of people her age, my daughter’s off to a music festival and is busy packing a rucksack the size of a house. At this time of year you can spot young festival-goers at railway stations up and down the country, waiting for trains to muddy fields in the middle of nowhere.

My daughter’s going to Shambala and I'll spend the next five days worrying about her. At one festival she went to, scores of tents were set on fire and the riot police were called in, while at another her tent was flooded. Mind you, she has seen some amazing acts over the years – like Prodigy, Crystal Castles, Patrick Wolf and Florence and the Machine singing upside down on a trapeze.

It’s ironic that just as they all set off, a new survey has been published claiming that more than a third of teenagers don’t actually like camping. Why? Because they can’t recharge their phones and iPods.

Actually, I’ve never been enamoured of camping either. Not because I worry about my phone running out of battery, but because living in a tent for a week is cold, wet, miserable and uncomfortable. Oscar Wilde was right when he said: “If nature had been comfortable, mankind would never have invented architecture.”

I love the idea of cooking on a campfire and going to sleep under the stars but my one and only camping holiday wasn’t like that at all. Along with about 30 other Girl Guides, I was dropped off by coach at the side of a road in deepest Sussex. We then trudged a mile across the fields to find – well, nothing. Before we could even think about campfires and singing jolly songs like Quartermaster’s Store, we had to work out how to pitch our tents and worse still, dig trenches for the “latrines.” It took hours and hours, and yes, it was enough to put me off camping for life. Glamping maybe, but camping – never again.

The inspiring story of Paralympic contenders Adam and David Knott

It’s a week since the London 2012 Closing Ceremony, so we’ve had seven days to recover from Boris Johnson’s alarming “dad dancing” and gradually come down to earth after our euphoria about Jessica, Mo, Tom and co.

But the Paralympics are just round the corner and I reckon they’re going to be every bit as uplifting as the Olympics. Actually, if the story of two partially sighted brothers in The Times yesterday is anything to go by, they’ll probably be even more uplifting.

Adam Knott, 17, and his brother David, 15, are both members of Paralympics GB’s six-man goalball squad.

I didn’t know this before either, but goalball is a game where two teams of three players (all blindfolded to ensure a level playing field for differently-sighted players) throw a hard ball with a bell inside at the other team’s goal. It sounds completely terrifying, especially as the ball can fly at you from 18 metres away at 60mph – and you can’t see it.

Hampshire-based Adam and David were born with a condition called oculocutaneous albinism, which means they have only ten per cent of the vision of a normally sighted person. I loved Adam’s brave description of what this actually means. “You know when you go for an eye test and they have that big A on top?” he told interviewer Hilary Rose. “That’s for us. That’s why the big A is there.”

Amazingly, the boys only started playing goalball two years ago, after their dad saw the sport on TV.  Adam was talent-spotted at a Paralympic potential day at Brunel University in 2010, and began training for competition immediately. His younger brother joined him soon after.

They both seem like incredibly level-headed boys, with ultra-supportive parents. In fact their mum Bridget sounds positively heroic. The goalball squad has been training in Winchester, not far from where the family lives, so everyone, even the coach, has been bedding down on mattresses at the Knotts’ house. Asked how many she was cooking for on the night of the interview, Bridget Knott replied airily: “Only ten… not too bad.”