The other Middleton in the news
The Princess of Wales's brother has just announced a new book. I hope it sells in droves because he's a good egg who didn't snigger when I once said something quite silly in front of him...
God name droppers are awful. Aren’t they awful? Awful, vulgar, tedious, self-important bores. Now listen, can I tell you about the time I met James Middleton?
The Princess of Wales’s brother has just announced that his memoir will be published in September. It’s titled Meet Ella: The Dog Who Saved My Life and it’s about his beloved cocker spaniel, who sadly died last year, but saw him through various rough patches. James has talked before about his struggles with depression and how his dogs have helped, and this book will apparently delve further. ‘He offers insights into an extraordinary period of his life with his pet, from trips with Ella up Scottish mountainsides, to royal weddings and his first meeting with his wife,’ a Tatler article declared last week announcing the new memoir.
I hope it does extremely well and sells many, many copies, because James is a lovely chap and here is how I know:
I first met him in a pub on the Hollywood Road in Fulham (naturally). This was some years ago, probably not long after Kate and William had married, and he was having a drink with my brother, who he knew a bit. That day, I’d been to the hairdresser for a Brazilian blow dry. Remember them? It was a popular hair treatment a few years ago when we all wanted hair as ramrod straight as Jennifer Aniston’s. It’s a boring, unnatural process where you have chemical gunk slapped on your head at the salon, then you have to drift around with hair like Morticia Addams’ for three days until you can wash the gunk off again and your hair miraculously becomes all shiny and straight. Off I went to the pub that day, feeling self-conscious about my gunky, flat, lifeless hair. ‘Sis, what HAVE you done to your hair?’ my brother asked I sat down opposite him and James. ‘Oh, nothing much,’ I said, embarrassed, my hands flying to my head. ‘It’s called a Brazilian blow job. I MEAN A BRAZILIAN BLOW DRY!’ I’d been trying so hard not to say or do anything stupid in front of James Middleton that I did say something a little bit stupid and embarrassing indeed. It’s one of those silly memories that makes me cringe even now (you know the ones that tragically still make you shudder when you think back?), but James didn’t snigger so I suspected then that he was a Nice Guy.
The year before the pandemic kicked off, I was invited to stay at a big posh Scottish lodge called Glen Affric, which is owned by the Matthews family. You know the Matthews family. Pippa Middleton is married to James Matthews; Spencer Matthews is the one who used to be on Made in Chelsea and is now married to Vogue Williams. They have a big, 10-bedroom Victorian lodge at one end of a lovely stretch of loch about an hour west of Inverness, and I went up there to write about it. The rental price was £10,000 a night and if you were a rich tech bro who wanted to lark about like the Monarch of the Glen for a few days, for that fee you’d also get James Middleton chucked in as a host. He’d be on hand to pour you tea when you came from a day’s fishing, point out the best walking spots, chat to you about stalking over dinner and generally make himself entirely at your disposal. Why was the brother of the future queen selling himself in this role? Well, James had spent a lot of time on the Scottish estate and loved it, so he offered to do it for the Matthews family. ‘Some people like spending their weekends playing golf,’ he told me during my two-day stay there. ‘I love it here so much I don’t even see it as work.’ Fair enough. It’s a beautiful and fancy spot - a private chef, staff serving hot breakfasts in kilts, a bar stocked with 83 types of whisky and extremely comfortable and WARM bedrooms, which isn’t always a given in posh Scottish lodges. James encouraged me to go swimming in the loch one morning (I didn’t because I didn’t want to flash my arse and dimply thighs in front of Kate and Pippa’s brother), and he was thoroughly charming and friendly throughout even though he hardly knew me. (I was a nosy journalist who’d written about his family from time to time, and we’d only met once before when I’d said something peculiar about Brazilian blow jobs). My only gripe would be that he was much too discreet. I stood chatting to him on the last evening (about his dogs, obvs), and he mentioned that he’d just sent a photo of his spaniels on his family WhatsApp group. His hand slid into his jacket to retrieve his phone, as if he was about to show me the picture, and I thought ‘PLEASE can I catch a glimpse of the Middleton family WhatsApp group?’ But then he seemed to think better of it (weird?) and dropped the phone back into his pocket.
He’s been given plenty of stick over the years for various business endeavours but has quietly carried on with things. And OK, OK, I’m sure the Middleton family have benefitted from all sorts of advantages in the past decade or so thanks to Kate and William’s marriage, but I think the current furore over his sister shows it’s not necessarily a fun fair every day. And James didn’t ask for any of this. Imagine if you were suddenly one of the most famous brothers in the world simply because of who your sister chooses to marry. Imagine being James right now, given the rampant speculation about his sister’s health lighting up the internet. Not an easy role. I hope his book’s a best-seller.
Pic of the week
In 2018 I went to Japan and spent a few days in Kyoto, home of the geisha. Here I am, training to be one. Only joking, I’m just posing beside her.
I was visiting Japan to write a travel piece comparing Japanese etiquette with ours (we both have strong feelings about tea, gardens and Royal families), and as part of this trip, the tourist board organised a geisha to perform for me in a teahouse. I arrived to find it was a very select performance - just her, me and my guide - and I sat in embarrassed, awkward silence while she danced in front of me, then sat and poured tea.
I mention it because Kyoto has just announced a ban on tourists entering certain streets in Gion, the district where most geishas live, to prevent them being harassed by tourists. I don’t think this is a wholly bad idea. I read Memoirs Of A Geisha as an impressionable teenager and remember being fascinated by it - these women did what for money? Jilly Cooper taught me some things about sex; this book taught me other things. I suspect it was the same for others, since people remain pruriently fascinated by these Japanese women and chase them around the old, narrow streets with selfie sticks.
No more, says Kyoto council, which I’m in favour of because plenty of misconceptions still exist about these women (theirs is a cultural practice and not about sex, for example), and I’m not sure they deserve to be hounded. Hopefully, the new ruling will also protect them from tourists who are inappropriately dressed (I’d pulled on leggings and an old running top that morning because I was going to be walking around so many temples), and whose feet smell when they remove their trainers. I think you can see the poor geisha’s reluctance to sit any closer to me in her eyes.
Recommendation of the week
Is it narcissistic to put forward my own book having already made myself picture of the week? Quite possibly, but this is my newsletter so too bad. Last week, very thrillingly, proofs for my new novel arrived on my doorstep. It’s called The Right Place, and it’s about a woman called Maggie who’s done all the ‘right’ things in life - job, marriage, house, trying to have a baby - and is therefore quite confused about why her life doesn’t feel right. Sounds a laugh a minute when I put it like that, doesn’t it, but I promise there are lols in there. It’s mostly set in a big Fawlty-Towers-esque hotel in the South of France and the story flashes back to moments of Maggie’s childhood and adolescence as she tries to make sense of the decisions she made in the past, and how they’ve affected where she’s got to now. It features a handsome American, an amusing French lawyer, a couple of donkeys and quite a lot of food because Maggie’s a chef and I’m very greedy.
This was the book that I ‘researched’ by going to live in Provence for six weeks or so at the end of 2022. So think croissants, salted butter, olives, vanilla madeleines, melty camembert, Pissaladière, beef bourguignon, salami and cornichons, honey and lavender ice cream, roast turbot, jambon baguettes ETC ETC. Also, a pudding called Douilllons aux Poires, or ‘Pears in Pyjamas’, which means baked pears wrapped in puff pastry, usually drenched in cream. I learned about the pears reading Felicity Cloake’s excellent, funny, evocative book, One More Croissant For The Road, which covers her epic cycle ride across France to discover the origins of various French recipes. I very much recommend it to anyone interested in French food, or just food in general. So actually, that’s two recommendations this week, you lucky devils - Felicity’s book AND mine. Like hers, I want people to read The Right Place and dribble right into the spine. OUT ON JULY 18 and you can preorder it HERE if you like.
Nonsense Sadness of the Week
Sadness instead of nonsense this week because Pigcasso has died. What? What do you mean you haven’t heard of the world-famous, Pigcasso? She’s the artist whose work was (reportedly) collected by George Clooney and Nadal, who painted the Queen and Prince Harry, and commanded five-figure sums.
She was also a pig. A pig dubbed ‘the world’s most successful animal artist’, who painted holding a brush in her mouth. In 2016, she was rescued from a factory as a piglet by animal lover and campaigner Joanne Lefson, who whisked her to a farm and animal sanctuary in Franschhoek, an hour or so from Cape Town. 'There is much sadness that such an inspiring figure for welfare animals has passed, but we also celebrate a life well-lived and the profound difference she made,’ said Lefson, announcing Pigcasso’s death from rheumatoid arthritis last Wednesday. Gorilla champion Jane Goodall flew into SA to meet Pigcasso before she died, but arrived one day too late. Sad!
While in South Africa a couple of years ago, I made a special pilgrimage to the farm where Pigcasso lived and painted (more name-dropping, SORRY. I’ve met James Middleton AND Pigcasso). Holly, my best pal, had read about the pig some years earlier and even bought a Pigcasso online, and we knew the farm was nearby so we made a visit. There’s been some speculation over the years about whether Pigcasso was a gimmick, and whether she was properly looked after. Could a pig really paint? Was it all just a rip off? (Supposedly, when Pigcasso originally arrived at the farm, she’d eaten or destroyed everything in her stall except a paintbrush, so Joanne subsequently left paint and a canvas with her to see if she was up for having a go.)
I’m delighted to report that Pigcasso seemed as happy as a pig in a lovely, clean, straw barn. We stood by her stall and watched her merrily snuffle about (she wasn’t painting that day, but several nearby screens showed her, er, method). We met various other animals that Joanne had rescued from a miserable factory existence (chickens, goats, and an enormous cow), and browsed Pigcasso’s paintings. I quite wanted one because they’re jolly and colourful and because I thought it would be a magnificently pretentious thing to say to anyone who came over for dinner. ‘See that painting? That’s a Pigcasso.’ But they were on sale for several thousand pounds so I decided against it and bought a Pigcasso baseball cap instead, which I still wear to this day. Although I’m slightly kicking myself now because I presume her art will soar in value, as it does for many posthumous artists. RIP, Pigcasso.
Worried about the baked 🐻 🐻 😂😂😂
Oh, that's a cheery cover!