Jilly Cooper fans...

[MrsJohnCusack]

well, it's culture to ME alright

Have just read this on her website (yes, pretty sad, but life is dull for some of us)

"One thrilling bit of news is that ITV have bought my romantic novel Octavia. Written in the late seventies, and subtitled The Taming of a Shrew, it follows the fortunes of a very glamorous rich bitch, who sets out to pinch her friend?s boyfriend.

I?m really excited about this because it is being made by a wonderful and enterprising television company called Touchpaper, part of the RDF Media Group. and the script writer is Jonathan Harvey who wrote Gimme, Gimme, Gimme so I think we?re all going to have huge fun. If Octavia works, with any luck the rest of my romantic novels might be made into films too, which would be lovely. I?ll keep you posted".

I think this would be pretty cool, especially if they keep them all still set in 70s. My favourite is Prudence, would LOVE to see a film of that

oh yes
nanny to Cory Erskine. Glamorous wife was Noel.

baby was William; drops out of Oxford after run in with actor type (Simon I think)

goes to the hunt ball. wearing an orange dress or something

goes on blind date thing with lcoal mum 'Sammy' (obv v.common)

you know my total recall for these books is beginning to worry me now...

and again harriet moves from being a bit fat doing being nervy and thin. only when she is thin does she get her man

Yes, very unPC.

I remembered about Emily this morning. Went up to a remote Scottish island having married a man she hardly knew (name anyone?). He was also very remote so she came back down to party life in London. But really he's tortured and loves her actually.

The one name I remember is the alternative love interest: Finn. I'd never heard of name, now there are two Finns in ds's nursery class of 12!

Rory Balniel !

'Before I realised it, Gareth had me across his knee. I've never known what living daylight were, but he was certainly beating them out of me now.'

Of course after that Octavia realises he is The One. Well, you would, wouldn't you?

Wonder if that crucial plot element will be retained?

have just been revisting Octavia's penthouse overlooking Green Park. It does sound rather gorgeous. 'Huge fleshy potted palms... thick white carpet... blond fur counterpane'

yes I was wondering that too MyEye...

Look at this from Wikipedia

Octavia will be set in the 70s, but we didn't get any of the stars right. Anyone know who they are?

OMG - the Gareth bloke is young and skinny and weedy! So so wrong.

This thread actually made me go and dig out an old Jilly (Emily, as most annoyingly the 2 I wanted to read most, Rivals or Prudence, have disappeared) last night. It is really, really crap though!

why do I NEVER think of looking on Wikipedia?

Patrick Baladi was in the Office. Don't know the others

picture of the woman playing Octavia

Havng read lads of her collected articles as wel, I think the wieght obsession is more abot her own weight obsesson than anything else (sheseems t have spendmost of her life agonizing about her own weight).

oh totally
can remember reading in her diary book about living in Putney something about 'must do something about my disgusting weight'

turned out this meant she was pushing 10 stone, the heifer

gah !

Richard Coyle was in Coupling - he was hilarious in that, but not sure he's quite, um, chunky enough for Gareth.

oh goodness yes, he is going to have to work hard to be a convincing Gareth.
And contend with the picture that loads of 40 something women have had in their head since they were teenagers lol

Last line of the novel:

'We never made it to the bedroom but the kitchen floor proved perfectly satisfactory.'

I just don't see Richard Coyle in that role. Wouldn't he complain about sore knees?