twenty things to tell my children

1. Marry for money. Your children will never forgive you if you marry for love and then complain about school fees and offer up only feeble holidays and shared bedrooms.

2. Boys, you should marry a girl you admire. A girl who is your intellectual equal or superior. A girl who will stand by you when you are a fool – and you will be a fool. All men are fools. A girl who will chivy you out of the blues. A girl who can keep you guessing.

3. Only drink tea in good china.

4. Diamonds must always be worn if there is even the slimmest chance you may drink champagne at breakfast, luncheon Tiffin or supper.

5. Never befriend someone who hasn’t attempted to cultivate a personal style even if it isn’t entirely appealing to you.

6. Wear lashings of pearls and cashmere and expensive scent when going to confession - you will find it softens the blow of the penance.

7. Diamonds fare better in mud than pearls so team your Hunters and Barbour with diamonds when feeding the hens or mucking out the stables.

8. Be extravagant when it comes to knowledge and experience. It never pays to be stingy or penny pinching over books, culture, travel or “the new”.

9. Crocodile shoes and handbags are a must for school visits but alligator is better. It is much easier to ensure the upper hand with teachers and headmistresses in sturdy shiny accessories. Also crocodile shoes have a better chance of surviving the inevitable trudges across fields required on speech days.

10. Only eat oysters in months with an R - the other months are for storing your fur. A light ocelot may be kept on hand for chilly summer evenings.

11. The thank you note is at the heart of good manners. Always take the time to send a thank you note after you have stayed with someone, been taken out or shown a special kindness by another.

12. If a man invites you out on a date and suggests going "dutch" or in any way at all insults your finer feelings with gross behavior, do not look shocked or glare. It shows awfully bad breeding! Stand, gather your belongings elegantly and with extravagant flourish throw his wine stylishly in his face. Nota Bene: This is not an excuse to neglect writing a thank you letter afterwards though perhaps a stern letter of complaint to his mother may also be in order.

13. Never slap a man with red hair across the face as they feel no pain - Edward de Bono told me this repeatedly along with a lot of blonde jokes of which I don't think you or anyone else will benefit.

14. Never raise your voice to anyone. It is for this reason that I encouraged you to cultivate linguistic superiority from an early age.

15. Never strike a child especially your own. Limit yourself to chinese burns or tiny pinches but only if they are very dangerously naughty - and never while angry. Nota Bene: you were never dangerously naughty.

16. Anger is terribly aging, as is self-pity. Besides you are a Catholic, which enables you to gorge yourself on mea culpas and wander proprietarily through luxurious cathedrals so cheer up.

17. In times of crisis when even family seem inadequate your faith will be of great comfort as will your minks and jewels. A few decades of the rosary and you'll inevitably be wrapped in the boon of sleep.

18. People let you down. Don't obsess over this. Put on your nicest attitude and do something selfless for another.

19. Avoid reading the bible - like most books written by bearded men it is part thriller, part horror. Focus on Our Lady a fabulous role model. The Queen of Heaven never sullied herself with he said/he said gospels or nagging letters or warnings not to lead blind men the wrong way across a field or whether or not to stone a rapist. She busied herself chatting to angels and didn't even require sperm to bear a God/Man. No, the bible is for the most part though perfectly suitable for those studying theology or misogyny.

20. When something needs to be said say it. Truth since fine architecture and 4.30 dining has been dying out since Georgian times. Don’t demean yourself with excuses such as “trying not to hurt feelings”. Lies are the wickedest sins of all. Having said that, not everything needs to be said.

death by Chanel Rouge Noir & Expensive pots of beautifying cream

The book is not going well. My Greek Chorus were right with their Cassandra prophesies. "We said as much," they nag. But maybe they are write and my nice supportive Inner Gran is wrong? What if my blockbuster with film deal wrapped in is never written?

The bank were very unfriendly about the £8,000 bauble as they insist on referring to my ring and flabbergasted by the £700 shoes. I have been threatened with a CCJ which is not a Circus Carnival for Juveniles as you’d imagine but a nasty mark on your file that stains your good name and means no one will ever lend me money again. 'You will be a blight on your children’s life!' The Greek Chorus wail.

My husbands will feel jolly righteous because I’ll have to come clean to them about my incomprehensible behavior in the Burlington Arcade. This whole episode will be another black mark against my name. See why I don’t like getting out of bed? I always end up in the soup. Much better to stay in bed. I know how to do that with panache and aplomb. I am safe from stylessness in bed.

So yes the Husbands will make a great deal of fuss about all this and as ever I will make it all sound far worse than it is. I always do. Catholics love nothing more than a good shriving of the soul. It is my nature to highlight my mistakes and flaws to anyone fool enough to chastise me. The world is my confessional since the church brought in “reconciliation” to replace the private box. Now we must confess our sins face to face it makes every man on a stern disposition an instant priest in my eyes. I always said, the day they stopped sung Latin mass was the thin edge of the wedge. Almost everything introduced in the sixties led to bad taste and badly made clothes. Vatican 1 and 2 were no exceptions. Take away the bells, smells and spells and what are we left with as Catholics - a guitar and nuns with bad haircuts. So I shall confess all to my husbands. My penance will be harsh. It will take courage and for that I best stay in bed with a fortifying bottle of champagne - now can one get more Catholic than that?

I haven’t left the flat for four days. I have been living off an old tub of yogurt, espressos from my Gaggia, some out of date vitamin pills, and the last of my Valium script. On the up side I have lost 3.3 kilos whatever that is in old money. I preferred pounds. Stones and pounds were solid and satisfying. When people ring up I mute the television or music or dvd and talk my life up. I make out I am having the most luxurious pampering relaxing “me” time. “All curled up with books and magazines and doing a bit of internet shopping while my face pack sets,” I tell them. “Are you writing?” they ask. “Like a Trojan,” I assure them.

I tell no one that I am sans credit cards, sans credit rating and by day four sans yogurt. All that’s left in my refrigerator now are some Chanel Noir nail varnish and lots of pots of expensive face cream that make me red, spotty and peely. Yet despite the Health and safety warnings on them none of them is likely to lead to a successful overdose. Shame, I would look so pretty spread out in my peignoir, a few pearls strewn about, the new diamond ring and Louboutins. And with my literary skills think of the note!

Then I think of the note and I think knowing my luck it will be a bestseller that is turned into a film with a big star like Angelina Jolie attached. And I think it would look rather glamorous having “Death by Chanel and Expensive pots of beautifying cream” read out at my inquest. That would up the anti on my suicide note sales too. They’d probably auction it off for my charity that I have begun setting up. At the moment ACCESS ALL AREAS is just a mass of meetings, forms, brick walls, indifference and endless chats with branding experts but it’s heading in a generally forward-ish direction. The point it my suicide note could really be the lift my children’s charity needs. If only my charity had actually been launched. As it is my death will achieve nothing except to raise the spirits of my agent. I suddenly find a will to live. Ironically this will to live comes from my suicide note which just seems to write itself - unlike my book which remains a jumble of chapter headings and some bad syntax.

Then I remember that I am due to have dinner at the Wolseley with Gillian in an hour, followed by drinks at the Arts club on Dover Street with Claire, Gillian and Man of Bronze as Husband Number 3 likes to be referred to and then we are all of to a burlesque show at the Met bar on Park Lane. I find some coins and one of those vintage £5 notes you see so rarely around London these days. Cab drivers love them.

I find this cheering and life affirming after all my doldrums and rouse myself out of bed.

WANTED: ONE LUXURY LIFESTYLE SOUGHT BY REFINED GIRL HIT BY DISTRESSED CIRCUMSTANCES – all assistance welcome. Please respond

A Greek chorus have followed me around all my life. They give me commentary on my life, my dreams, my thoughts and my actions. I am never free of them. My Greek chorus is currently wailing – “you are poor, in debt, twice divorced – and yours were not the successful divorces you jealously read about.” They cry out in a gloatey sort of wail, “ She is no gay divorcee living off lorry loads of alimony!” They nag, “You have no viable means of support apart from writing books which you make a quarter of a cent on. And since you took a tangent from writing moderately successful novels to writing the screenplay you’ve earned NO money.” And finally they broadcast, “Tyne O’Connell is broke.”I shush them! The guy in the antique jewellery shop who was already a bit miffed by me looks askance.My Greek chorus never have a kind or encouraging word. The nuns who brought me up told me my Greek chorus was my conscious. People have a lot to say about mean nuns but mine were darlings with strong Irish brogues or incomprehensible Flemish accents. And honestly there is nothing more edifying than watching little nuns in full length habit playing tennis or kicking a football. If I’d been brought up by New York psychiatrists they might have put me on heavy meds for admitting to these voices in my head. My gran used to tell me that inside every little old lady there lives an antique little girl and inside every little girl there lives a little gran, who’s always on your side. I was quite thrilled by the idea of having an Inner Gran as a little girl. My Inner Gran was always on my side. But now my son has married I have accepted that one day not too far away I will be an actual granny. But for now I rely on my Inner Gran. A sweet old dear who reassures me that I will write many more successful books.

The Greek Chorus start up again, “Or Not! There is every chance you will never sell another book again! You’re children who are now all older than you were when you started having them age 18, all earn more than you. You live in a flat smaller than your youngest son’s travelling trunk. Your days of wealth, health and freedom to splurge on luxury items are over are over. You will never see forty again and your bank manager has threatened to unleash the dark dogs of hell onto you. Now is not the time to splash out on a large diamond ring.”

“Will you be quiet for one minute and let me think!” I blurt. Huffy shop guy flounces off.

I try and listen to the little encouraging voice of Inner Gran as she reminds me I am refined glamorous mother of three wonderfully educated healthy successful children. My Inner Gran says supportively, “if anyone deserves a little treat its you dear. You’ve been a marvellous mother. A faultless wife and if you ask me, your next blockbuster book is just about to be sold to a major studio for development with a big star attached.’

The Greek Chorus starts up. “What blockbuster? She hasn’t written a book in a year!”

Inner Gran comes the rescue. “She’s had a lot on her plate. She needs inspiration”

And then it comes to me. Inspiration. This where the diamond is so crucial because while money can’t buy a girl love or indeed credit is inspirational. Offering as it does the sort of commitment neither man nor agent can offer. That sparkler will stick with me through thick and thin. It won’t leave me like men and children and agents. In hard times I will look at it winking at me on my finger reminding me, “it’s alright darling, the good times are just around the corner for you and me.”

That was when it all began to take shape this idea that my blockbuster book that was soon to be a blockbuster film with major star attached would only get written once I had the security of this diamond snugly nestled on my finger.

“I’ll take it!” I declare to the Huffy Shop Guy in the tones of those imperious women wrapped in fur in forties films. These voices just come jerking out of me. I don’t know why. I’d love to add “send it to my hotel and bill it to my husband’s account.” But apart from the attitude of the guy behind the counter who would no doubt sneer and roll his eyes, I do not live in a hotel, I do not have a husband and even when I did he never had an account I could charge anything to.

I slip him my platinum American express and pray that that diamond does its work before Amex attempts to take the money from my account next month. I say a Hail Mary and make a pledge to get Ex-husband number 1 onto saying a novena for my next book deal. Its not that I can’t pray for myself but he is Italian and his grandmother was bbf with Saint Pia and left millions to the Vatican so I figure god will sit up and take notice when he hears the Santospirito plea. As ex-husbands go SP is as good as they get. He is the best kept secret in the ex-husband fraternity. We lived together for over 12 years after we were divorced he was such a good ex-husband. We even stayed together during my marriage. When he eventually left so did my husband. Maybe that was the magic formula to those halcyon years. If you really want a marriage to work keep your husband close and your ex-husband even closer.

Ex-husband 2 has his good points too. He’s just a bit of a hysteric. He’s one of life’s flouncers, a man who probably should have been an opera singer. Our marriage would have been so much more successful if he could have sung all his histrionic tantrums to me.

But it will all be fine. I’m back at home the ring is on my middle finger and now it’s teamed with a pair incredible ballet pink Louboutin’s which I couldn’t abandon once I’d spotted them gazing at me with puppy dog eyes from the window of the Louboutin boutique on Mount Street. Louboutins being the Aston Martin of Girl World they were a snip at £670 odd pounds. What man would walk past a pristine Aston Martin at that price? Not a one that’s how many and yet they have the temerity to raise an eyebrow when we behave in perfectly sensible equivalent ways. The world is full of hypocrisy but so what, I am drunk on inner beauty. I look amazing. All my flaws compensated for by my ring and shoes. I want to show the world. Me and my ring and my shoes. The invincible team. We rock. I sit down at my laptop and focus on the three weeks before Amex starts to demand the £7,900 payment from my woefully overdrawn account. Plenty of time to get down the bones of my blockbuster. These little purchases really were all the lift I needed. Why could my Ex-husbands (not to mention The Greek Chorus) never understand this about me? My creative juices are really flowing now. Maybe just a nice cup of tea to get me started…Five hours later. I have typed a mere seven words of the book that will save me from life on the street.“Oh my giddy aunt what have I done?”

Call Me Mummy

One son has left Oxford and soon Cordelia will go up. Now that all my children are of drinking age (18) I can go back to bed and have a well earned nap. I have passed on all my skills: how to read, perform most household tasks without getting out of bed, shop, charm, follow the etiquette rules of centuries past.

They in turn taught me how to cyber stalk, cross busy streets by attaching myself to responsible looking men clutching umbrellas and briefcases and pretend to speak foreign languages by dramatic shrugging, and heavily accented expressions of exasperation.

I shall pass my parenting skills down to them one day. From what I recall almost everything to do with parenting involves sleepless nights, chipped nail varnish and annoying The In-Laws. Pretending to be foreign only goes so far with ones own children and in-laws.

return from LA

Ah to be writing in my own bed again. Is there anything more nifty(word of the day)? I feel all ruminat-ish somehow under my own lovely duvet surrounded by my favourite books. This evening (2.05am - still jet lagged) I am ruminating about the glorious lunch I had at the Polo lounge with Cami Taylor from Crossroads Films and how out of the ether my beloved Nicole Clemens appeared and in my feverish excitement I spilt my water all over our table. It was all beautifully baptisimal and sacred. I do so love the sacred. From now on I shall baptise all my favourite tables. It set a mood of unforgetable momements in LA: the Getty Museum & Villa, finally meeting my idol Marguerite. Michele who's writing the script for Pulling Princes, complicated cocktails with Alicia, Giles & Dash at Trader Vics. Shopping on Rodeo Drive for a mystifying array of products that now make absolutely no sense. LA is all rather mystifying actually and I drowned in it - in a lovely, attractive way I hope.
And then of course there was poker night at Nicole's house. But best of all I know that Cordelia will be home on Friday and I shall be complete.

poker for life

When we were teens the nuns taught us to play poker. We adored it as much as they did. Whether we won or whether we lost wasn't the deal because all the pot went to charity. What mattered was the surprising things we learned about ourselves and one another. I became a fanatic. The nuns told us that the way you play your cards reveals the person you really are to yourself and to others. You expose yourself through "tells". But another thing about poker is that you come face to face with what you really want and what you've really got. Poker's about measuring outcomes and managing luck.
The stakes we played for weren't fantastically high, but the conversation - usually about what makes boys tick (the nuns had a great deal to say about boys and their "zone of need" but that's for anther blog). We soon saw that poker strategy could easily help us in that jous de jous; love. Cosmo had nothing on Texas Hold'Em. So we started off a set of poker rules for measuring outcomes with boys:
1)No more pathetic hoping we could change a boy (the cards). We'd fold on losers and wait for better cards (boys). 2) No more pining away helplessly for lack of a boy who refused to acknowledge we even existed. The modern equivalent would be to know when to txt a boy, and know when to press REFUSE as his name cames up on the mobile screen.
So anyway, this was our summer of strategy: the summer of reading naked bluffs, making muscle bluffs and analysing predictive tells of the heart. We would know when to go “all in” and know when to fold.
Sometimes I got it wrong and sometimes I got it right. Overall I still think my poker strategy to love helped me fare better in affaires de coeur than the girls who simply followed their heart. My biggest strength was being really honest about what it was my heart really wanted and what my chances of getting it were. My biggest prob was I could never bring myself to fold before the flop. Which is probably why I landed myself in so much emotional debt. But then when you're young there's always another game, another boy, life is full of possible outcomes. While other girls would spot a madly fit boy and say, "he's mine!" - or "ooh-la-la" for us our battle cry was "shuffle up and deal!"
My belief in poker strategy as a guide to living has held strong. Good poker players have to study more than their cards - they have to be honest about how they feel about their cards. Knowing why you play the way you play, is both revealing and empowering. And then there's the play of others. Unless we're in a showdown we rarely get to understand why people played their cards the way they did and life's like that.

Playing your cards close to your chest remains a good adage for life. Let them think you're a fool, the nuns would say. Better a boy underestimates you and he comes undone than you underestimate life's possibilities and you come undone.

I do miss The Wisdom of Nuns - and they were sooo right about boys and their zone of need! Enter it at your peril!

My PA has a life

I have had to let my PA go. So I'm back at the wheel of my own life - at least my personal life. So for the first time in a long while I've anwering my own emails and phone calls. It's come as a rude awakening as now I have to muck in and deal with my own life, which I was getting rather used to avaoiding. In fact I have become so reliant on my PA "doing" my life I've had to ask him for advice on where I'm at with my relationships: what I've said to this person and that person etc. In effect, my PA has been acting as me which in real terms means he's been more me than me. This was why I decided to employ a PA in the first place to free me up to write. But while I've been interacting with my fictional characters I've lost touch with my so called real life. The question is do I actually want my life back?