RCA Secret - how to buy a work of art for £45

The Royal College of Art invitation sits tantalisingly on the shelf. This year’s RCA Secret sale takes place on November 26 and looks set to be as good as ever, with original postcard-sized works by superstar artists alongside up and coming art graduates. Last year's show featured art by Tracey Emin, David Bailey, Peter Blake, Maggi Hambling and many more.

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 one-off work of art on a postcard. The public can then buy one of the 2,800 cards on display for £45 (all proceeds go to support student artists training at the RCA). But the catch is that you don’t know who designed your card till you’ve handed over your money.

The first year I went I queued for three and a half hours and failed to buy anything. So the following year we set the alarm for the crack of dawn and arrived at 6.30am. Big mistake. By the time we got to Kensington Gore the queue snaked right round the college and back again. Some intrepid art fans had pitched sub-arctic style tents on the pavement outside and rumours were flying around in the darkness that they’d been there for three days.

We thought we were well-equipped for the wait with coffee, iPods and thermals but our efforts paled into insignificance next to our fellow queuers. Most had sleeping bags, blankets, chairs and ski gear.

When the queue hadn’t moved an inch after 90 minutes my son whispered in my ear. “Shall we go home?” he said. Freezing cold and fed-up, I agreed. But my daughter wasn’t having any of it. “Don’t be so feeble,” she instructed firmly.

It was an agonising five hours till we reached the front of the queue. By the time we got inside the RCA building we were so numb with cold we could barely speak. And just like the year before, when we made it to the basement saleroom virtually all the cards we liked had gone. Electronic score boards flashed green for cards that were still available, red for ones that had sold. My daughter gave a running commentary as we inched closer and closer to the sales desk. “There’s one of your choices left, and one of mine,” she told us cheerily.

“Numbers 113 and 1898,” she told the saleswoman, when we finally made it to the front. And guess what? They were still there!

“You were right to make us wait,” I said as we trudged out, clutching our precious postcards. “But I’m not coming again.”

Except now it’s nearly time for the 2011 event… and I’m wavering.

You can view the postcards at the RCA from November 18.

From Victoria Beckham to David Cameron - the new Grazia

Tuesday is my favourite day of the week. Why? Because a loud thump on the doormat signals the arrival of the latest issue of Grazia. I subscribed to the magazine a few years back, ostensibly for my student daughter. But in truth I love its heady mix of news, reviews and fashion just as much as she does.

I’m supposed to be writing a book review right now but couldn’t resist a sneaky look at today’s edition. It’s a cracker, featuring news that Victoria Beckham’s “in torment” over David’s possible move to play for Paris St-Germain (what are you thinking, Posh, Paris is the most fashionable city in the world), claims that the scar on Kate Middleton's head was caused by a sporting accident at school and an exclusive at-home interview with David Cameron.

The chat with the PM, conducted at No 10 by Sun columnist Jane Moore, is clearly designed to head off criticism that he’s sexist following his “calm down, dear” remark to shadow treasury chief secretary Angela Eagle during a House of Commons exchange. Not only that, a recent YouGov poll found that one in three female voters regard him as the “greatest male chauvinist” of the three party leaders.

Today’s interview runs to five pages but I’m not convinced it will make much difference. Revelations include the fact that romantic dinners with wife Sam are tricky when the protection team is sitting close by, that Sam often tells him to “calm down, dear,” that the couple’s elder two children like taking Fox’s Glacier Mints from the cabinet table and while his daughter Nancy loves The X Factor he tends to wait till near the end of the series because he “can’t be dealing with the man in the silver suit.” Does he mean Johnny Robinson? I’m not sure...

The most touching disclosure is that whatever differences the PM has with Nicolas Sarkozy, he’ll always be grateful to the French president for his kindness before his father’s death on holiday in France last year.

“We didn’t really know how bad it was,” says Cameron. “I was going to do PMQs, then get a flight a bit later, but in the meantime someone told President Sarkozy I was coming to France, and he’d got his own doctor to call the hospital and had found out things were really bad. So he rang me in the car to say ‘you must get on a plane now.’ So I did, and when I landed, he got me to the hospital... Whatever row I ever have with President Sarkozy, I will always remember that he got me to my dad before he died.”

PS: It’s probably mad, but I’ve signed up to NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month), which challenges bloggers to post every day for, yes, a whole month. Can I do it? Watch this space!

Laura Marling plays Birmingham Cathedral

Under a grey October sky we joined a queue stretching the length of Birmingham Cathedral and across the churchyard green.

Everyone in the line had snapped up tickets for the last day of Laura Marling’s For Whom the Bell Tolls tour (you had to be quick because they sold out in a trice) and the sense of excitement was palpable.

The tour has seen the singer play a series of gigs at cathedrals up and down the country. Whoever came up with the idea should be applauded because if the Birmingham concert was anything to go by, England’s cavernous cathedrals offer the perfect acoustics for Marling’s amazing voice and storytelling lyrics.

She played two Birmingham events, one at lunchtime and a second in the evening. We had seats near the back but it didn’t matter because Marling, a slight blonde figure playing acoustic guitar, commanded the entire place from start to finish. From the moment she arrived at the front and quietly said “I’m Laura,” we sat spellbound. There were no gimmicks, no accompanying musicians and barely any chat. Apart from a couple of anecdotes about her former days touring in a five-piece band stuffed (drum-kit and all) into a Ford KA, she kept everything simple – and just sang her heart out.

With three albums and the 2011 Brit award for best female solo artist to her name, it’s hard to believe that Marling is only 21. Just hearing her play some of my favourites, Night Terror, Goodbye England (Covered in Snow) and Sophia, made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Every number she played was her own apart from a haunting cover of Jackson C Frank’s Blues Run the Game, which, she recalled, she used to listen to on a mix-tape driving home from concerts in the early days because she couldn’t afford to stay in a hotel.

I didn’t realise at the time but Marling never plays encores. It could be that the hundreds in the audience didn’t know either, or maybe they just couldn’t bear to accept it. As the final chords of Marling’s guitar faded away, the claps, cheers and foot-stamping sounded loud enough to raise the cathedral roof from its rafters. But with a quick shy smile and the lights catching the top of her blonde head, she was gone.

PS: Today’s Mail on Sunday reports that Pippa Middleton is close to signing a book deal on how to be the perfect party hostess. The Duchess of Cambridge’s sister already writes a blog on children’s parties for her parents’ mail-order business, Party Pieces, and apparently the book will have a tone similar to the blog. In a recent blog entry, says the MoS, Pippa advised: “The key to creating a wonderful party lies not in spending vast amounts but in planning – from choice of venue, entertainer and party theme to the selection of food, decorations and the birthday cake.” Talk about stating the blooming obvious. I’m sorry, Pippa, but you’re going to have to do a lot better than that...

House With No Name Weekly Digest: From the dreaded dog debate to the glittering Cosmo Blog Awards

A Saturday round-up of the week at House With No Name

House With No Name Book Review: William Fiennes’s The Music Room
House With No Name Film Review: The Help
House With No Name Glamour: The party to celebrate the 2011 Cosmo Blog Awards
House With No Name Goes to the Dogs: The dreaded dog debate rears its fluffy head
House With No Name Lifestyle: Country or City? The best place to live

FRIDAY BOOK REVIEW - The Music Room by William Fiennes

I’m one of the judges for the first novel category of the Costa Book Awards this year - so I'm up to my eyes in books at the moment. For that reason, I’ve decided to steer clear of novels for this week’s Friday book recommendation and choose a non-fiction title instead.

The Music Room was published in paperback last year but I only read it a few weeks ago. I was completely bowled over by it, so bowled over in fact, that I chose it for my book club to read. The eight of us have got very different tastes and it’s not often that we all love the same book – but this was one of those rare occasions. It got the thumbs-up all round.

Two things inspired me to buy The Music Room. The first was hearing a moving interview with author William Fiennes and the second was the fact that it’s set at Broughton Castle, the Oxfordshire family home where Fiennes and his siblings grew up. I used to live a few miles from Broughton and know it well. I’ve walked from Broughton Castle across the fields to North Newington scores of times and whether it’s the height of summer or the depths of winter, the beauty of the landscape never palls.

In one sense The Music Room is the story of Fiennes’s own journey to adulthood and in another it’s the story of an ancestral home dating back 700 years. There’s a moat, gatehouse tower, woods and parkland, (the castle has featured in loads of films, from The Madness of King George to Shakespeare in Love) and it’s clear that running the place is a major undertaking. While Fiennes’s childhood friends lived in “warm, compact and efficient” houses, his home was full of historical exhibits, rattling windows and a ghostly long gallery he was scared to loiter in alone.

But the heart of the book is Fiennes’s older brother Richard, a charismatic figure with a passion for Leeds United, puns and herons. Eleven years older than William and severely epileptic, Richard was a towering presence in everyone’s life and as his mother kept repeating to them all after his death at the age of 41, “we are rich in what we have lost. We are rich.”

Beautifully written, tender and heartfelt, The Music Room is a stunning read.

The Music Room by William Fiennes (Picador, £8.99)

The party to celebrate the Cosmo Blog Awards 2011

A pink cupcake, a gothic-looking ring, fake eyelashes, jelly beans and some blusher from the new beauty line by Nicola Roberts (aka the redhead in Girls Aloud).

It's been quite a while since my children used to bring home party bags, but I've forgotten how much fun they are - unless, of course, you're the hapless parent who has to organise them. I remember assembling healthy goody bags at my daughter's party one year, with miniature boxes of raisins, books and little jigsaws, and the guests were not impressed. But the treats listed above are just a few of the presents inside the glamorous goody bags we were given at the Cosmo Blog Awards celebration party.

I was thrilled to be shortlisted - and thank you so much to everyone who voted for House With No Name - but on the night the lifestyle award went to the talented Miss Thrifty.

The best thing about the evening though (apart from the bright pink Cosmopolitan cocktails), was the chance to meet some fantastic fellow bloggers. Kate Monro had two blogs shortlisted - BigGuySmallDog and The Virginity Project - while journalist Katie Byrne is the brains behind The Young Creatives, a blog that showcases the work of artists, writers, musicians and designers under 25. It was fantastic, too, to meet the lovely Marion Katrina from Rust and Gold Dust and the brilliant Olivia from The London Ladybird, whose blogs I subscribed to the moment I got home.

The bash, held at a club called 24 Kingly in London's West End, was glamorous, loud and lit in stylish pink. The only drawback was that I was easily the oldest blogger in town (even though I'm really not that old.) On the train home to Oxford, I texted my sister. "The party was great but I felt 103," I typed.

"I would have felt 153," she texted back.

PS: A list of all the winners can be seen here.