Jilly Coopr character Lockdown competition thread

[BalloonSlayer]

The most successful thread I ever started was about wanting to be a Jilly Cooper character.

Since lockdown, this has started to feel more achievable. See my scores below:

• Cut my own fringe: 3 points (scissors hadn't just been used to cut bacon first, deduct one point)

• car is Absolutely Filthy: 3 points (not a golf, mini or Porsche so as no other cars exist in Jillyworld, deduct one point.)

• "old trousers and a shrunk t shirt made her bum and boobs look huge," yeah whole three points for this one

• anthropomorphising my pets like crazy. No he wasn't showing how much he loves you, he wanted his dinner! 3 points.

• Smell of wild garlic making me miss going out to restaurants : 3 points. (Not sure if that is wild garlic or something else actually, deduct one point.)

So that's 12/15 for me. How is everyone else doing?

Thing is, she tended to poke fun at nouveau characters who had airs and graces. So if you were down to earth and 'common' (tongue in cheek!) you were fine!
Eg: Freddie ended up with the lovely Lizzie and was a good friend of Rupert's. Valerie, his wife, was constantly mocked for everything from ripping out the dark wood and renaming her period property to her vulgar ge-owns!
A PP said and I agree-this is so my Mastermind subject!

Yes but JC also definitely knew that she was being mean and bitchy. Remember when Freddie sticks up for his wife and turns down being on the Corinium board because they had all made fun of her at the shooting party, even though she didn't realise they were being mean to her so she is furious with him. I was a bit when I read that as JC had spent most of the book being mean about Valerie herself!!

Valerie bloody well should have been mocked for ripping out original Elizabethan panelling!

I may be misremembering but I thought the bikini and overcoat line in Imogen was just that it was so hot on the beach that even a bikini felt like an overcoat?

Just checked. I'm wrong! Larry says it...!

There was another line about a t-shirt feeling like a fur coat-I think that was Tracey.

Thanks - that was it!

I've spent the whole afternoon re-reading it - it's just as joyous and hilarious as I remember it.

@AndNoneForGretchenWieners So envious of you with all of them to read for the first time!

Oh I’ve found my people! I think I live in a Jilly novel:

Rambling, beautiful, huge (but draughty) ancient house with roses around the windows
Faithful treasure of a daily
Generally cold Pouilly-Fumé or Muscadet in the fridge
Can usually rustle up a plate of smoked salmon sandwiches from the larder*
Easily distracted from boring chores by gripping novels or salacious front pages
Dh and I sometimes disappear to bed in the middle of the day (carnal beasts as Caitlin calls Declan and Maud)
Never have any money but outwardly glamorous lifestyle
Throw great parties with free flowing booze

*RCB would wolf these with his boots up on the table in my vast kitchen 😂

Oh and we groan every time the school fees invoices arrive
I’m very grateful for any male attention (JC quotes Bas Baddingham as saying “women are always so grateful over 40”)

I often look for houses I think could be Rupert's, I think this one but this is before Helen redecorated

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-83477387.html

Or this one

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-77145664.html

Penscombe is based on her own house - video with her talking about it here: blog.whsmith.co.uk/exclusive-video-jilly-cooper-takes-us-on-a-tour-of-the-house-that-inspired-penscombe-court-in-her-new-book-mount/

ah, thats lovely. She says Rupert's house is much grander than hers and has stables though so I reckon it would be bigger - her actual house doesn’t look massive. And it has Stubbs and Munnings paintings everywhere and a drawing room with huge ceilings as doesn’t Rupert jump a horse over the sofa during a party? Plus he’s “as rich as Croesus” so I reckon he also has an enormous, erm, house 😂

@Beautifulmaudohara I think the first link would be Rannaldini's house and the second Rupert's. I can just imagine Hermione being lunged around the indoor arena.

Ha ha, absolutely @vampirethriller, you’re right. Urgh at that scene though!

Horsey horsey!

I never realised, until Mum bought a very old map of the area to hang on the wall, how many of her characters are named after local villages around her. France Lynch, Haresfield, Bussage, Brimscombe off the top of my head and probably loads more.

Oh those houses, @Beautifulmaudohara ! Dreamy..

Owl, I know, someone once said to me “I live in France-Lynch, you won’t have heard of it” and I said oh I have! Because Jilly. Is Mrs Bodkin named after somewhere local to Jilly too?

Would any of you genuinely want to live the lives of any of the characters? I’d like some of the trappings but I’m not sure I could cope!

No way, faaaaar too much drama! But I’d quite like to be a peripheral character - perhaps Rupert’s ambassador friend in Rivals, with some of the glamour and gossip, but less of the stress!

No, I adore reading about them in my fantasy world, but the women are generally quite submissive and need to be thin, beautiful and good cook (I'm none of the above, lol)
The men can be quite abusive and even the gorgeous ones like Bas and Rupert can come across as a bit 'rapey' if you really think about it.
Nobody seems to be monogamous!
So, best left to glorious fantasy I think!
I would like to live in Penscombe or Angel's Reach or any other gorgeous Cotswolds houses though!

Actually, Amanda Hamilton is a good shout if you HAD to be a character! Beautiful, rich, married to an influential man, assertive and in control. Quietly having blokes on the side for a bit of fun. Although, even she got worried when Rupert went through his alarming fancying schoolgirls phase, which included her own daughter...

God, no - I re-read Imogen yesterday and was shocked by the violence, sexism, bitchiness, classism and racism even in that perfect little morsel of comic escapism. I enjoyed the early books so much (not such a fan of the later ones) but they're very much of their time.