Friday 29 January 2010

Cause for Celebration


The balloons are out and the bunting is up in the kitchen, and not just because last night saw the start of a new series of Secret Diary of a Call Girl with James D’Arcy in the role of sexy editor of Belle De Jour’s sexy book. No, yesterday The Birthday Season kicked off here with Daughter #3’s 9th, and from now until early March it’s wall-to-wall cake, wrapping paper and hard negotiations about how many friends should be allowed for a sleepover.

Sounds like the perfect time to take refuge in my own book, which might just get a whole lot sexier thanks to a weekly dose of inspiration in the form of lovely James. Here's a taster of what's in store for Thursday nights , with Billie/Belle summing up at the end how I feel too... (although in my line of work the opportunity of being taken on a desk by James D'Arcy so far hasn't presented itself. In reality, anyway. Shame.)


14 comments:

Abby Green said...

Damn - missed the first episodes...! You need to put up an alert system! And your kitchen is looking far too clean. Mess it up immediately!
xx

Rachel said...

Waaaa!! I missed it as well!! Looks absolutely brilliant. And very, VERY naughty.

Your kitchen looks like the stuff of dreams too, India. I've always yearned for one big enough to have a comfy sofa and chair to sip Earl Grey in. You are truly a goddess of taste.

But Abby's right, doing all that cleaning is letting the side down!

Lots of love,

Rach.
XXX

Morton S Gray said...

I missed it too, but all is not lost girls - the first two episodes are repeated several times over the weekend on ITV2. Sky box set to record already!!

Unknown said...

OK, comrades. Consider me the Naughty-Thursday-Night-TV-Alert Monitor from now on. Might make myself a badge.

Kitchen isn't clean or anything, just relatively tidy after a bad-tempered blitz the night before The Birthday, when I rounded up the cracker toys, pine cones and festive hama bead creations that were still lingering and threw them all in the bin.

Rach, kitchen is now big enough for sofa (mainly used by Ruby the Airhead Cat), chair etc thanks to the cavalier removal of a wall that turned out to be structurally rather significant. We've plastered over most of the big cracks upstairs now, but I do still worry (see New Years Resolution no 1.)

Unknown said...

Morton - thanks for that! You can have a Naughty-Weekend-TV-Alert Monitor badge.

Enjoy it, girls. I particularly liked the bit right at the end of Episode 2 when Billie (oops, Belle) had writers block and rang up James (oops, Duncan.) Feel sure my own manuscript would be storming along if I could do the same.

Kate Hardy said...

I have kitchen envy...

Kate Hewitt said...

India, I want to curl up in your kitchen right now! It looks so cozy and inviting--especially compared to my tiny, black and white apartment kitchen!! Who cares about supporting walls and cracks in the ceiling? It's all about the effect...

Sharon Kendrick said...

I have Billie-Piper-body-envy!

Have never watched this programme but now I will - clearly, the production team should employ you as their publicity person, India!

This man James you bang on about....he's alRIGHT - but reminds me of Max Beesley- who is famous for being the ex-boyfriend of Mel B!

Unknown said...

Kate, get away... I know for a fact your kitchen is absolutely gorgeous. (And the citizens of Norwich are going to know it too, very soon!)

But Kate, you step out of my kitchen (well, house) into a small market town where the shops close for a half day on Wednesdays and you can buy sheep dip, but not Jo Malone. You live in NYC!!! I love getting glimpses into your life there because it's exactly like all the films I've seen (where, incidentally, I always LOVE the apartments.)

Maybe we should all do blog things on Writers' Kitchens. (Abby Green is having hers revamped soon though, so would probably out-glamour us all.)

Sharon, hold that envy because apparently they did use a body double for some of the sex scenes as Ms P was pregnant. Anyway, to understant the James Lust (wasn't he a famous flautist?) you have to go back to the start, to 2003 when I was just emerging from the hormonal haze of babies and noticing that the world was still out there, and this programme was on on Friday nights... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CiqAlc20IQ&feature=related
I've always been grateful to him for reminding me that there was more to life than nappies and pureeing carrots.

Max Beesley has the same kind of almost-gorgeousness. In Bodies he was, at certain moments, superbly attractive, but in other roles not so much. (Hmmm... I remember a certain scene with the Scottish nurse... must re-visit.)

Jane said...

I just saw Billie last night on the Jonathan Ross show. Had no idea she was a pop star when she was a teenager.

Abby Green said...

...just laughing hysterically at the thought of out-glamouring anyone with my new kitchen when the whole space is about 1cm squared...!
xx

Heidi Rice said...

Billie Piper was a lot of things when she was a teenager... Including married to Chris Evans (the ginge DJ not the dishy Fantastic Fourth) so she probably deserves James D'Arcy after that!

Good luck with the sleepover negotiations India, my 12-year-old son talked me into five in December and I still haven't recovered. And neither has my kitchen for that matter!

Unknown said...

Ooh yes, Jane. 'Because We Want To' is a party classic - think Britney Spears on the set of Coronation Street. (Check it out here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1Aj_rVWb20 )

Abby, Abby - did no-one ever tell you that size isn't important? Tis what you do with it that counts. Be sure to tell your kitchen man this.

Five, Heidi? Five is quite a lot. My daughter has come into negotiations at six and I'm arriving at the table with two. From past experience this means that we'll end up with something in the region of fifteen teenagers camped out on my sofas and leaving red bull cans all over my kitchen. Must stand firm...

Trenda Plunkett said...

*sighs* Your kitchen is far too neat and clean, India. And yet, you manage to make it seem so warm and cozy too. You are a domestic goddess who's been pretending to be like the rest of us, hmm? ;-)

Hope the birthday celebrations of February and March are filled with an overflowing of joy and oodles of pink cakes.

Love,

xxTrenda