to be bored with myself and to want to become a Jilly Cooper character for the winter?

[BalloonSlayer]

I want to sit in front of a fire of apple logs, wearing only a Dark Blue towel.

I want a rosy-cheeked face which I have to tone down with green foundation, instead of looking like a corpse unless I put on loads of blusher.

I want to drink three quarters of a bottle of Moet before doing ANYTHING. (Including: getting up in the morning or taking an important exam.)

I want an Absolutely Filthy Mini instead of a people carrier.

I want DH to do thumb exercises so that the ball of his thumb becomes pudgy because apparently that's sexy or something .

I want to lose loads and loads of weight every time I am a bit sad about something, so that everyone who thought I was a minger before is suddenly struck by my beauty, instead of eating cakes to cheer myself up and getting fatter.

AIBU?

love this thread. how you all remember all the characters are is beyond me!
looks bootfaced

taggie was so so wet but she got rcb and looked the way i want to look masses of cloudy dark hair silver grey eyes bitten lips

i've a worry that i am more like Freddy's wife Mousey

Getorf - Colonel Carter was Mollies (Tory's mother) fraightful boyfriend, and later step father. Was he the one who sold Revenge to RCB?

James Benson would be smelling of Gold Spot when he visited your sick bed on the way home from a dinner party.

When I had a hangover, I will knock back a Fernet Branca (I saw it in a bar once and persuaded the barman to let me try it as I had read about it in a Jilly Cooper book. It was VILE)

Haha - Freddie's awful wife Valerie "the silly mid on" (whatever that means).

Yes CC sold Revenge to RCB. I'm not sure which heroine I'd like to be, Taggie is awfully tempting but I like men with dark hair, not blond. Not Maud, I never warmed to her, definitely not Cameron Cook, maybe Daisy

Something to do with cricket InThis, she was wearing a cricket sweater wasn't she?

Ha, I never knew what silly mid on was either. Is it something to do with cricket?

I want to be Bibi - smart, sexy, red hair, gets to marry Angel the gorgeous Argentinian polo player and have his babies...best bit, Angel rescuing Bibi from getting a nose job and banging on the door of the impotency group and yelling keep it up one two three!

commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cricket_positions.png

She clearly didn't take to the cricket puns though as there are other great ones she could have worked in.

Perhaps when she wrote that pun she had 'the curse' and wasn't feeling up to it... seriously does anyone use that expression apart from in JC books?

...or maybe she had dirty hair, you can't do a thing when you have dirty hair...

And when you have The Curse, you must use Super Tampax

But, you can make yourself feel better by cooking up some Bantam's eggs. These also make a good gift, along with a bottle of Moet, when visiting someone's home.

Not just Super Tampax but take Buscopan as well. Not sure I'd be up to cooking the Bantam's eggs, think I'd probably just pop round to the local gastro-pub and pick up some delicious steaming boef bourguignon and take it home...

So long as it's in an earthenware pot

So happy to have found this friend! Excellent knowledge of JCs finest texts being displayed, has made me 'shudder with barely suppressed giggles'

YesYouOldJordan - Lady Valerie Of Vulgaria, is my favourite of the 'awful' characters. The ginger knickerbocker suit with matching deerstalker, "Naughty, Monica, call me Mousie" whilst 'wagging a ginger suede finger', deciding it's Upper Class to be interested in gardening: the clashing petunias, the plastic Venus de Milo. The powder blue strapless ball dress with gauzy top layer, covering throat and arms, finished with a 'pussy cat bow' at the neck. Wanting to sew up the bottom of her red flannel nightie so she doesn't have to perform her 'wifely duties' for poor, sweet Freddie.

Gah! Happy to have found this THREAD of Jilly friends. Too 'wildly over excited' to type properly.

Must add - if you haven't alreayd then do try the early Jilly's e.g Bella, Emily, Prudence etc. Utterly fantastic. My favourite is Prudence, who goes to a country house sherry and fireworks party wearing a green culotte dress with 'enormous cut outs back and front' which has to be removed and laid on the bathroom floor so she can use the loo.

If we could have read Riders and Rivals for English Lit I would have sailed through, and possibly have passed.

That's how I got through my A Levels, including Eng. Lit. Nothing like a chapter or two of Rivals before bed to get the more depressing bits of Thomas Hardy out of your head. In fact, in times of stress I always turn to Jilly, so comforting and familiar in a way that Jackie Collins just isn't.

Who died after being impaled on a statue? Was it a ghastly journalist or something?
Lordy, I need to re-read them all!

Splendid, splendid thread of splendidness. My absolute all-time favourite ever Jilly moment comes in Rivals, when awful James Vereker (Corinium's oil-slick-smooth anchorman) is having breakfast with his daughter. His wife, the wonderful, long-suffering, slightly plump Lizzie (regularly a victim of the Curse of the Dirty Hair), is having a very jolly affair with common-but-twinkly electro-whizz Freddie Jones.

"I saw Freddie bare," says child, ("dreamily" as I recall). "Who's Freddie Bear?" asks James. "No, I saw Freddie, bare!" repeats the little urchin. "He was on the bed with mummy, struggling."

Then it comes, the line-to-end-all-lines: "She was wearing long socks with her bottom hanging out."

Nobody beats a spot of Jilly Alouiseg I shall look out for you on Mastermind - specialist subject 'Rivals' by Jilly Cooper.

He was on the dining room table struggling with mummy I think

can't believe you lot are droolin all over my husband! he is rather gorgeous thopugh, although somewhat jealous and obsessed with horses.

There was someone posting on here a couple of weeks ago saying she did her final English essay on the role of the hero in JC books - wonderful! And she got an A.

I never got why Prudence was so hooked on Pendle, though. He starts off by nearly raping her and then goes all icy cold and distant, but she still really fancies him (until she meets Ace, of course). Masochist.

twirlymum, I believe that would be "ghastly journalist" Beattie Johnson, in Jilly's one venture into murder-mysteries, the late but underrated Score! (her exclamation mark)

Discosquish, it shames me to confess that I am planning a trip via the bookshelves to check up on the location of the "struggling" on my way to bed!

No, it's a young Tabitha C-B who interrupts her father shagging Cameron on '25 feet of polished mahogany' (some dining table!)
"What are you doing to my daddy?" demands Tab "Just keeping him warm" replies Cameron through clenched teeth.