You Had Me at Hello (47 page)

It was the finest ten minutes of telly ever.

‘I love to cook!' says our WWF wrestler host, holding a spatula upside down and waving it vaguely in the direction of a range that still has a fine coating of brick dust from the kitchen fitter's work.

‘Yeah, I do egg white omelettes, and other stuff. Wolfgang Puck gave me a private lesson, it was wild. I can do sauces. All the sauces.'

Ah yes, Puck's saucing masterclass: the red one, the brown one, and the white one. The classic French jus trio for feasts of TURKEY BACON.

There must also be a double-door fridge large enough to store a dead body, holding only neatly stacked cans of Gatorade.

Not strictly relevant: I once proof read an interiors piece containing this phrase from the designer. I now realise I devised this whole feature idea just so I could share this.

I love rom coms.

After being inspired by
Drive
, I even worked up my own treatment for a film called
Human Man,
where Ryan Gosling is a human man. It's a bit sketchy on plot but there are roles for Emma Stone, a longhaired kitten and fleeting willy.

However, too often, myself and fellow genre enthusiasts find ourselves in Cineworld foyer bellowing, what in all that is holy was THAT?

The same misconceptions about ‘what women find fun' crop up continually, and I think it's time to resolve some confusion.

And yes, Sumner Redstone, holding on Line One, I will take your call to talk about
Human Man
further. Right after my nap.

When was the meeting held that agreed ‘professionally efficacious = frigid'? If you're remotely competent, it's a given you'll be seeing no action whatsoever.

Or if you are, it's with a pin-striped Mr Wrong who we see in an early montage where they're both standing up during breakfast and talking on their cell phones, juggling cups of filter coffee and eating croissants, because we all know that's how Hitler got started.

In
The Proposal
, Sandra Bullock is Don DeLillo's literary agent, but has become so power-addled penis-repelling she has to blackmail men to marry her. Obviously, she must stay by a lake with people who wear plaid and be told her values are warped.

(NB: Fragrant lady-jobs, such as florist, pediatrician or curator at MOMA, may not turn your uterus into a stingray, according to latest findings in
The Lancet
.)

When a woman becomes more successful during the film, she must also be told her values have warped. In
The Devil Wears Prada,
Anne Hathaway's magazine internship costs her the relationship with New York chef boyfriend, Adrian Grenier.

Woah, wait – rewind? Yes, those notoriously time-rich, short-order cooks in The City That Never Sleeps. How unfortunate for ambitious Anne that her boyo got a job in The Restaurant That Closes At 8p.m. So You Can Go And Be Pious With Your Partner.

It's Zagat rated. Try the horseballs.

Memo Fox Searchlight, et al: seeing sensationally attractive women heckled about their appearance is not reassuring or enjoyable as schadenfreude. It's depressing and bewildering.

Martine McCutcheon being sent up for phantom lardarsery in
Love Actually
was a noteworthy low.

In
She's All That
, bonsai supermodel Rachael Leigh Cook is rendered the nuclear option in schoolyard games of ‘would you rather' simply because she's arty and wears dungarees.

All of which makes us feel that if we could climb into this universe, we'd have the effect of The Scarecrow in
Batman Begins
, when the psychotropic gas pumps out and all you see is a screaming sack with wormy eyes.

As plot devices go, this is pretty sci-fi. Heroine flies kamikaze mission with her salary and comes out on top, as she is so pure that she sees and speaks truth with a child's innocence.

Trans: it's only OK to get the great job if you win it by default by acting like a bit of a div.

Extra points in busting the bogus-o-meter if the unlikely promotion is awarded by a crumbly Emperor Palpatine of a CEO in a spotty bow-tie, who suddenly magically transforms from a ruthless capitalist into a benign grandpa with his favourite granddaughter.

‘My God, Matilda Perspicacity, you're RIGHT, I AM a massive wanker. I see now how you stole my nephew's heart, by telling him he's a bit of a wanker too. I'm firing all these sycophantic fools and making you Head of Everything.'

Cue Katy Perry's Firework and shareholders doing a conga round the boardroom with Tampax Pearls sticking out of ears

Mentions here for
He's Just Not That Into You and Sex and the City 2.

Obviously, SATC 2 was a human rights atrocity of considerable proportions and I can't say much while all our legal proceedings remain active.

However.

Miranda's husband was scuttling a waitress, and the whole tenor of the storyline was that it was her fault for being too much of a shrew while juggling parenthood and a job that ran the family's lifestyle.

Alfred, fetch me my gun. No, the larger one.

In
Sliding Doors
, Gwyneth Paltrow was footing what looked like a Knightsbridge pied-á-terre and supporting a wastrel novelist boyfriend – by flogging lunchtime sandwiches. What were her price points on those baguettes, and was she selling them to concussed Saudi princes?

In
Confessions of a Shopaholic
, Becky Bloomwood's freakonomics saw a staff journalist amass a designer wardrobe a Kardashian would deem ‘a bit vulgar', then sell it second-hand in an auction and clear her debt with ease.

Who knew that garish Clown Porn rags were a canny investment?

That's why we've seen so little of Su Pollard lately! She's in Cap Ferrat, drinking champagne out of a jewelled conch shell.

Wherein our hero gets enriched, or excused, due to a Secret Pain. Just write us a sympathetic character; there's no need for this Second Act, Get Out Of Jail Free revelation. Or if there is, maybe ask selves why.

For example, in the otherwise-great
Friends with Benefits,
Justin Timberlake's preppy shagger acquires sudden depth because his dad has Hollywood Alzheimer's.

A gentler variant of dementia, Hollywood Alzheimer's does not cause you to take a shit in a shopping centre or shout ‘Are you an Arab?' at the district nurse.

Hollywood Alzheimer's sufferers bark the odd non-sequitur but drift into lucidity long enough to deliver homilies about finding your one true love, and to help their sons nail Mila Kunis.

In
The Ugly Truth
, we discover Gerard Butler had to be a raving chauvinist jebend because a woman once broke up with him first, or something.

Bear in mind, by this point in the running time we really need Gerard to prove he's being used as a skin puppet for the demonic bidding of a dead murderer.

You were
dumped
, broheem? That's all you got?

In case you're not catching enough of a whiff of what I think of
The Ugly Truth
, it's a film that needs to fuck the fuck off while it's fucking off and then come back, purely so it can fuck off again. (‘Roger Ebert Is Away').

However, in terms of muddled redemption, nothing beats batshit reactionary fable
Pretty Woman
, in which Richard Gere's prostitute-boffing asset stripper reaches the denouement of a spiritual journey where he … builds big warships.

HOW IS THERE ROOM IN YOUR BODY FOR THAT HUGE HEART?

It's possible
Pretty Woman
was conceived originally not as a romance, but a portrait of what a Bond villain does in his downtime. Think about it: Edward lives in a hotel penthouse, has his own plane, likes the opera, polo and hot tubbing with call girls.

The man's a nine iron, a can of Halfords metallic paint and a pair of plus fours away from Goldfinger.

 

 

 

Thanks to my brilliant agent Ali Gunn, and the lovely Doug Kean, for making me a proper thing. Huge thanks also to Jo Rees, whose superb critique somehow produced stellar results without destroying my self-esteem, something for which I will always be grateful.

Praise be to my wonderful editor Helen Bolton, who proved her love of the book with her marvellous handling of it, and the whole Avon team at HarperCollins for being so professional and a total pleasure. And so much credit must go to the very talented designer, Emma Rogers, who created such a great cover. It had me at … no, I musn't. But,
thank you
.

My hugest gratitude to my exceptional extended family for all their support and encouragement, I couldn't have done it without you, as you definitely know.

Special mentions to Clive Norman, Chrissy Schwartz and Tom Welch for their early-doors generous help, and my friend Sean Hewitt and my brother Ewan for keeping me going when I had one of my many fits of ‘Wail, I can't do this'. The phrase: ‘What happens next? Send more' is probably the most helpful feedback you ever get.

Cheers to all the great friends/willing readers/advice givers to a ‘I done a book' bore: the lovely de Cozar sisters Tara and Katie, Helster, Tim Lee, Sally, Kristy, Manchester advisor Julia Pride, the frankly inspirational Tree C three, Natalie, Paula, Serry (thanks for the name, Nat!) and my sister Laura.

And many witty people I know – notably Jeremy Lewis, Rob Hyde, David Wood, Stephanie Hale – have had their lines shamelessly lifted: much obliged! I hope there'll be none of that horrid ‘legal action'. But be aware, if there is, I am disavowing this paragraph.

Most of all, thank you dearest Alex – like Bon Jovi, you kept the faith.

And thank you if you bought this. I hope you laughed at least once, and at a bit that was intended to be funny.

Mhairi McFarlane studied English at the University of Manchester and went on to work in journalism, a bit. She lives in Nottingham and this is her first book.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

AVON

A division of HarperCollins
Publishers

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London W6 8JB

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by
HarperCollins
Publishers
2012

Copyright © Mhairi McFarlane 2012

Mhairi McFarlane asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Source ISBN: 9780007488056

Ebook Edition © November 2012 ISBN: 9780007488032

Version 1

FIRST EDITION

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