THE BOOKS THAT BUILT ME PODCAST - HELEN LEDERER

I'm still learning the ropes when it comes to recording the Books That Built Me (all tips gratefully received) - I've managed to miss off the introduction here, but fortunately captured Helen's cracking standup that preceded the BTBM itself.
Right, off to do some swotting for tomorrow's Chiswick Book Festival - I'm properly interviewing Helen Lederer at 5.15, not just having a cosy chat about books and I'm really quite terrified...

HELEN LEDERER AT CHISWICK BOOK FESTIVAL & CWIP (Comedy Women in Print)

In 'Love in a Cold Climate', Nancy Mitford's sharp, witty, glorious satire, Lady Montdore advises Fanny on her trousseau "The important thing, dear,' she said, 'is to have a really good fur coat, I mean a proper, dark one.' To Lady Montdore, fur meant mink; she could imaging no other kind except sable, but that would be specified. 'Not only will it make all the rest of your clothes look better than they are, but you really needn't bother much about anything else as you need never take it off. Above all, don't go wasting money on underclothes, there is nothing stupider - I always borrow Montdore's myself.' 
Lady Montdore is one of the great comic creations - appallingly, horribly snobbish, monstrously self-obsessed, she never fails to make me roar with laughter. The character was apparently inspired by Violet Trefusis, about whom I really should know more, since I appropriated her name for this blog. 

Anyway, I mention 'Love in a Cold Climate' because I've been trying to compile a list of the books that make me laugh in preparation for interviewing the wonderfully funny Helen Lederer at Chiswick Book Festival next Saturday, where we'll be talking about her career, her latest novel, and comic fiction.  It's oddly more difficult than I thought it would be.  I love Mitford, of course, and Stella Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm, and the acid satire of Waugh's Vile Bodies and Scoop. Martin Amis in Money is much funnier than Amis Senior's Old Devils. My taste for Terry Pratchett is validated by discovering my literary heroine, A.S.Byatt, is a fan. Diary of a Nobody is funny (and funnier now that I know it inspired another marvellously witty writer, Nina Stibbe - her Man at the Helm is a masterclass in tragicomedy), and Jilly Cooper and E.F Benson and Sue Townsend and Helen Fielding and Malcolm Bradbury and Molesworth (Geoffrey Searle?) and heaps more. 

Comic writing seems to be too pleasurable to be garlanded with laurel wreaths, despite its consolations for a reader. Only two comic novels have won the Booker in forty-six years; Kingsley Amis for Old Devils, which I can only think was a kind of 'lifetime achievement award' - because Old Devils is by no means his funniest - and Howard Jacobson for The Finkler Question. There is a literary prize for comic fiction - The Bollinger Wodehouse Prize - but it's the only one of its kind: Howard Jacobson is clearly an incorrigible over-achiever in the comic category - he's added two Bollinger Wodehouse gongs to his Booker.... 

The Bollinger Wodehouse prize introduced me to Helen Lederer, shortlisted for this year's prize. I quickly cornered her at the shortlist party, buoyed up by a glass of Bollinger, and persuaded her to be my guest at The Books That Built Me, and in getting to know Helen better, I've learned that she's establishing her own prize celebrating women's comic writing; CWIP, or Comedy Women in Print. Having had a long and successful career in comedy herself, performing and writing (and her first novel, Losing It, is very funny indeed, Helen's mission is to showcase female writing talent, fiction and non-fiction, - think Bailey's Prize for comic writing - and to show how wonderfully life-affirming and confidence building and empowering comedy can be for women. 

Anyway, we shall talk about all of that, about her novel (and the one she's writing now), about her forthcoming role in the film of Absolutely Fabulous, and much more at The Chiswick Book Festival next Saturday - tickets for the whole day only cost £10.  - it would be wonderful to see you there

In the meantime, tell me which novels have made you chortle, or snigger, or split your sides, and why?

LIMA BRAVO BRAVO AT GEORGE MAYFAIR

A little over a year ago, I founded a breakfast group called Lima Bravo Bravo. 

The idea behind it was to bring together bright, brilliant, like-minded women from a wide variety of backgrounds and industries and create a space where we could talk, share ideas and experiences, and generally do that thing that women are particularly good at; being nourishing and nurturing and generous with each other. 

I didn't want it to have a specific agenda, or a theme, or a formality, or even any outcomes other than going away with a spring in one's step, and feeling like one had had a really tremendous conversation. 

I had in my head a kind of eighteenth century salon for twenty-first century women - and a calm antidote to the white noise of the digital world - and so Lima Bravo Bravo was born. 

The group has grown fast over the last twelve months -  small numbers meet about once every six weeks and it's a source of endless joy.  I'm fond of quoting one of my favourite editors, Justine Picardie - 'when you bring women together, they do incredible things' and Lima Bravo Bravo lives that thought every time we get together.

Yesterday, one of Mayfair's most elegant private member's clubs, George, on Mount Street, hosted Lima Bravo Bravo for a delicious breakfast. I had conversations about digital detoxing, about story-telling, about A Little Life and Booker Prize Longlists, about the challenges of setting up a business and about the right place to drink Martinis (and whether drinking them at all was a good idea) and about how tiny a dachshund needed to be to qualify for the soubriquet 'cocktail sausage'. I heard other conversations going on about me about art and books and business and fashion and entrepreneurial collaborations, about lavish weddings at Castle Howard and about living and working in Paris. And there were many more involving and enriching conversations going on.

A huge thank you to Zoe Haldane at  George, and thank you to the members of Lima Bravo Bravo - what a privilege to know such women.

George created a delicious and perfectly pitched menu. George also is one of the rare places that makes perfect coffee, bliss for coffee addicts like me.

Sasha is completely right - eggs and avocado is the hipster breakfast of choice and particularly delicious at George

Lima Bravo Bravo - everyone intent on sharing stories and ideas

Sasha brought the show-stealing Lettice: she's definitely a cocktail sausage

George's mascot is a dachshund - and there are lots of Hockney pictures and prints of Dachshunds hung on the walls

I don't think tiny dogs like avocado and eggs on toast

More scene stealing from Lettice, safe in her mistress's arms - here with Sarah Churchwell and Nicola De Burlet

George coffee cups - Lettice might have posed for the illustration herself.

Avocado and poached eggs so perfectly executed, they deserved a second, more detailed picture

A lovely going home present of scrumptious chocolate and Annick Goutal (thank you very much to Nicola De Burlet of Kenneth Green) - Eau D'Hadrien is one of my favourite summer scents.

THE BOOKS THAT BUILT HELEN LEDERER, 28th JULY 2015

Helen Lederer at The Books That Built Me, with huge thanks to Tatler, Prestat chocolate, The Club at Cafe Royal and to Champagne Bollinger

I feel as if I've known Helen Lederer all my life. Possibly, that sense of intimacy is driven by her innate friendliness, coupled with exceptional warm-heartedness and generosity of spirit - five minutes in her company and it's as if the sun has come out on a cloudy day and is shining just for you. But it's also that, since before I was at university, there she was making me laugh, firstly at the Comedy Store, where she was part of the breakthrough group of women comedians back in the eighties, and in the Young Ones, and subsequently in Bottom and French and Saunders, all five series of Ab Fab and many, many more programmes after that.  

Helen has been a consistent presence on screen and on stage, and has only now published her first novel, Losing It, shortlisted for the Bollinger Wodehouse Everyman Prize for Comic Fiction this year. 

Losing It tells the story of Milly who, rather down on her luck, and pursued by bills and bailiffs, agrees to front a miracle weight-loss programme with her progress followed ounce by ounce in the magazine. The fee for the job is very attractive - the only snag is that it only pays out if she gets the weight off. It's extremely readable and an absolute hoot, and, encouraged by the success of her first, Helen has nailed the first three chapters of a second novel, which I can't wait to read. I know it will only confirm how deftly her quick, self-deprecating wit has translated from stage to page.

I'm going to write a little more about each of the books Helen Lederer chose for her Books That Built Me in a future post, because I think they say something insightful and intriguing about her as a writer, but in the meantime, here are the books we discussed over a glass of Bollinger at the Club at Cafe Royal

1. Enid Blyton, First Term at Malory Towers

2. CP Snow, The Conscience of the Rich

3. John Fowles, The Magus

4. Muriel Spark, The Girls of Slender Means

5. Philip Roth, Portnoy's Complaint

6. David Nicholls, Starter for Ten

7. Emma Henderson, Grace Williams Says it Loud

DEVASTATION ROAD, JASON HEWITT

Jason Hewitt at the launch of his second novel, Devastation Road

GLORIOUS GOODWOOD

Goodwood racecourse has such exquisite views over the Sussex Downs; you half expect the band to strike up Jerusalem at regular intervals. It was wonderful watching the horses race - at about this point they move up several gears from an average pace of thirty miles an hour to over forty as they near the finish line, every sinew stretching, their coats gleaming in the sunshine, their long, elegant legs carrying their jockeys past the finish. I can quite see why Diana Vreeland thought the horse was the definition of beauty. But then again, she also thought one ought to wash one's children's hair in left over champagne to bring out the blond highlights "as the French do". The French don't.

The day began with drinks at the house - which I nearly didn't make. My train was late, and so missed my car at the station but hopped on the double decker shuttle bus taking everyone to the racecourse. Very grandly, I persuaded the driver to let me off at the house on the way, and skipped over the gravel to the beautiful porticoed front, which the driver thought was hilarious. It was a marvellous moment. Ladies Day at Goodwood is more relaxed than other race meetings - one doesn't see quite such extravagant hats as one does at Ascot, and there aren't the same dress codes. I was having a Carolina Herrera moment, and wore a cream silk shirt with a satin floral skirt, a hat I'd made myself (which wasn't quite enough of a hat, so I will redesign it for next year.) and some wonderful Schiaparelli pink glace kid flats (a great sale bargain, and much as I love heels, they have no place at the races.) A quarter of the people who go to Goodwood are very county, straight from Jilly Cooper, another quarter are, like me, down from London and so dressed as if for an informal wedding. The other half are on the double decker bus. 

Tracey Greaves, of Goodwood, has a brilliant talent for bringing together really interesting women - I made lots of new friends amongst those she'd invited, and was absolutely delighted to discover there were old friends there too - Jacquie Greaves, Publisher of ELLE (centre) and Jacqueline Euwe, Publisher of Harper's Bazaar and Town & Country on the right, both looking wonderful in proper hats (see what I mean about my hat not being quite enough of a hat, though, I hope it was not so small as to class as a fascinator.) There seem to be several glasses of left-over champagne - perhaps I should have saved it to bring out the gold in  Trefusis Minor and his sister's hair? 

The Loro Piana Superyacht Regatta

I worked at Harper's Bazaar for nearly ten years before going out on my own and miss everybody because it's a magazine I love and I had great friends. However, I'm doing lots of work for a company called Boat international Media who have the leading magazine for Superyacht owners, and also do lots of amazing events so life after Bazaar has its compensations. One of their annual events is the Loro Piana Superyacht Regatta in Porto Cervo - it's a series of races for big sailing superyachts and it's incredibly competitive but also enormous fun. I followed the racing today on a lovely hybrid tender - the electric motor makes it incredibly quiet as you pull out of the marina and into the open sea and we watched the start of racing before going off to a beautiful quiet cove for a picnic. We watched the end of the race, then joined the owners back at the yacht club Costa Smerelda. One of my favourite yachts is called Marie - looks like a nineteen twenties ketch on the water but below the waterline it's built like an America's cup racer and it slices through the water incredibly fast - it also has a baby grand below deck and the owner likes to play Mozart in light seas and Wagner if the conditions are heavier. He also fires a shot when he crosses the start and finish of a race from a canon that was built for the Anglo French wars in the West Indies in the beginning of the nineteenth century.

It's enormously glamorous and huge fun and such a privilege to be part of it. The day ended with a party at Phi Beach, watching the sun go down on a perfect day.