Bernadette Strachan

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO MAVIS  It's been a varied week for the hairiest member of the family. One afternoon she was sporting a headscarf, courtesy of Niamh. It rather suited her. Another day she went past my study door in a doll's pushchair, pushed by Niamh's giggling friend, Skye. The look of silent pleading on Mavis' face was moving. And funny. But this morning she asserted herself, growling, jumping and protecting the family from a pizza flyer that came through the letterbox.

THE WRITING PROCESS  I wrote my first book, back in 2003, in longhand, sitting at the kitchen table. It felt pleasantly retro. These days I write straight on to a sleek white Apple MacBook. There are always notebooks around, though. I have favourite pens, just cheap ones I buy in bulk on the internet. I enjoy their familiar narrow shape as I bash down sudden inspiration.  I have a study of my own these days, too. It's a pretty room, sticking out from the back of the house, with a window over the desk and french doors out to the garden. It's tiny, yet manages to boast a Victorian fireplace too. My desk is a chrome 1930's boxy design with a leather top. The blind is pink (as befits a romcom writer), the walls are white, and on the chimney breast there is green geometric wallpaper.  There are books crowding shelves, along with box files of paperwork covered in an Orla Kiely print. My favourite photo of my Dad, who died in 1998 (twelve years ago! All that love gone to waste!) smiles from the mantelpiece. Mavis generally snores from a rug on the floor. Niamh pops in slightly too often during the school holidays. Matthew leans on the door jamb a lot, suggesting tea, coffee, an illicit biscuit. I can see the pear tree out of the french windows. And the banal block of flats beyond.

Can you tell how much I love this room?

ENCOUNTERS WITH THE FAMOUS: ROBBIE WILLIAMS & ME
He's in the news again, getting married to somebody called Ayda and teaming up with Take That again: I prefer his slightly bonkers phases when he sees UFO's and buys wolves for the back garden.

Years ago, when Robbie was enjoying the first flush of his solo success, I had a boyfriend who was chummy with Guy Chambers, the uber-talented bloke who co-wrote Robbie's truly memorable stuff. One evening we found ourselves at Robbie's 'pad' (it was a pad, not a flat, trust me) in Notting Hill, awaiting a barbecue prepared by Terry Wogan's son. (Yes! Terry Wogan's son – this sounds as if I was dreaming, but it's true.) The pad was the top floor of a large white stucco house. Every surface was white. The furniture was space age-y white and chrome, huge leather sofas and pristine white rugs.  Tasteful, classy and luxurious, with a long terrace offering a view of a sunset conjuring up pinks and apricots and mauves just for us.

Guy sat beside me on the sofa and said out of the corner of his mouth “What do you reckon is the only thing Robbie chose in this room?” I looked around at the books on art, the striking paintings on the wall, the tasteful furniture. My eye fell on something in the middle of the  white marble coffee table.
“The movable action figure of Darth Vader?” I suggested. Guy nodded.

(BTW Robbie Williams was delightful, if shy. When we left I thanked him for having me and he snorted and said “Ooh missus”. Just like you'd expect him to.)

WHAT ARE THEY TRYING TO TELL ME?  I suspect my iPod shuffle of sarcasm. I laboured long and hard over a key romantic moment in the current book (it was a three Fondant Fancy scene: the chick lit equivalent of coal mining) and sat back to read my lush, pink-tinged prose. Cue Chopin's Funeral March.

Likewise my Ocado account is being facetious with me. The 'Things We Thought You Might Like' feature suggested hair remover and a marrow.

TELLY  Grandma's House BBC 2 Monday nights, 10pm
I didn't expect great things from this, presuming it to be a TV presenter's vanity project, presumably funded in an attempt to keep Simon Amstell, late of Never Mind the Buzzcoks, at the Beeb. Idly roaming the channels, listless and Victorian Invalid-like, I happened on the first episode, and fell for it. A slice of Jewish life, it had me from the line “I don't have a life any more. I can't eat crisps” uttered by Rebecca Front, as Simon's Mother. Affronted by his decision to resign from his high profile presenting job, she unleashes the maternal thumbscrews to try and force him to carry on, so she can carry on boasting about him.

How much this fictional family reflects Simon Amstell's real one is impossible to know (unless I ask him, I suppose, but that would entail tracking him down and befriending him; I don't have the time). The detail smacks of truth – I'm thinking of the aunty with the moustache here. I've long cherished a theory that Irish and Jewish families are alike and Grandma's House bears it out: Amstell's horrified refusal to reprise his childhood (very poor) impression of Dame Edna Everage for his Grandma ends with him giving in and shrieking an anguished Hello possums! as the only way of escaping from ruthless maternal pressure. Irish Mothers know how to do that too. Possibly there's an academy somewhere teaching the Golda's and the Bridgets the rudiments of child domination.

And of course, like the poor, Masterchef is always with us. Well done, Lisa Faulkner, you cooked the best, on a train, in a field and in the far more gruesome environs of the Masterchef kitchen, containing as it does Wallace and Torode. I was crazy for Lisa, constantly on the verge of tears and the possessor of 'a fantastic palate'. Neil Stuke invoked my ire early on by mentioning his late Father; departed dear ones who 'would be so proud' are the next worst thing to a 'journey' in my book. How will I fill my evenings without watching Christine Hamilton scare grown men by making jokes about sex whilst beating eggs as she would a runaway slave? Just have to cope, I guess.

I DON'T LIKE HER  Perhaps I shouldn't criticise. After all, I've never given evidence at a genocide trial. But even so, Naomi Campbell was hard to like. The strange high hair, the mustard coloured outfit, the Duchess-at-a-garden-party demeanour all made me long to rush to The Hague and muss her up a bit. Mind you, I do admire her sang froid when woken in the night to be given diamonds by strange men at her hotel door: each and every time that's happened to me I've told everybody about it.

I LIKE HER  Politics aside, what a woman. Stylish and magnetic without being off puttingly perfect, Michelle Obama looks strong and capable and decent, with a killer figure. I love the long arms, the slightly loping stride. She nags the most powerful man in the world, and he seems to love it. A perfect role model, her femininity and her strength in perfect harmony. Because that's what real femininity means, right? The strength to keep it all together. (Compare and contrast with the woeful freeze-faced Carla Bruni, mistress of the hair toss.)
 
Michelle seems to be a grown up. We need them at the moment.

FAVOURITE QUOTE of the moment An actress friend visited the other day, with tales of her current job performing sedate concert parties in old folks' homes. She loves her audience and we heard all about the various characters she's met. After the conversation moved on, she realised she'd left somebody out. 'Oh! Oh! Oh!' she flapped. 'Did I tell you about my lesbian with a phobia of balloons?'

Oh look! It's the start of another occasional series!
ENCOUNTERS WITH THE FAMOUS
Note: as this series continues, we may have to be generous about the term 'famous' but not today! Because today we hear about
ME AND DAVID BOWIE  I have a friend in the music business. A friend in the music  business is handy, ladies, because music business expense accounts make tory MPs' receipts look like a Quaker light lunch. For some reason, he had to visit Dublin. I went along, murmuring the words five star hotel like a mantra. There was a rumour that David Bowie was in residence. I reeled. David Bowie's face on my bedroom wall got me through adolescence (even when my Aunty Eva put her head round the door and disparaged his teeth). Sitting alone in my room I opened the door to a housekeeper who said 'Laundry!' and pushed in a rail of white shirts. 'We didn't …' I began to say, but then I held my whisht, as they say in Dublin. Pinned to one of the sheets was a scribbled note – D.Bowie.

Yes, I was alone with David Bowie's laundry. I did what any rational person would do. I put on one of the shirts and danced to 'Rebel, Rebel'. Then I rang room service and watched them take them away.
(After a few drinks I can work this story up so that I am practically engaged to David Bowie by the end of it.)