Just starting Rivals. I had no idea!

[SadSaq]

I didn't know it was set in the 80s.

Looks promising.

I'm disappointed but not surprised that the money grabbers at Disney + are releasing it in batches. Think I'll wait until all twelve eps are on there.

Wish I had that patience & discipline..

I did but after ten mins or so I found everyone quite annoying! Do they all get more likeable?
and where are you all watching jt now?

I decided to reread rivals before I watched it and then I thought I might as well read Riders first. Then I just might as well read Polo while I was at it and my favourite is The man who Made Husbands Jealous so I read that and now I’m on Apassionata because it’s the last one. So I still haven’t watched it.

Danny Dyer is surprisingly good in this! Rupert is completely miscast

There’s one more after Appassionata…it’s nothing short of bizarre though

More like six

Who would you have had as Rupert?

Riders
Rivals
Polo
The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous
Appassionata
Score!
Pandora
Wicked!
Jump!
Mount!
Tackle!

In my opinion they go significantly downhill after Appassionata.

Good question, Marcus Gilbert was believable as Rupert in the original Riders from the 90s.

I read that the character was based on Andrew Parker Bowles, which shattered my mental image of him beyond repair

Wicked in particular was quite sordid, I didn’t enjoy the explicit details of underage kids in that book or the descriptions of people becoming aroused at a stud farm…..!

Yes, me too. Apassionata is the end as far as I’m concerned. The rest are pretty bad. I got halfway through Wicked and I didn’t even try the rest.

I did like score as a murder mystery but after that they trailed off. Though pandora brought us Dora who becomes a lead in the rest.
wicked was nasty with it’s ubdersge sex. Jump or mount had the droopy Edna who was apparently also very sexy (I couldn’t picture her in my head at all)
Mount I struggled through and hated Rupert for what he did.
tackle I got from library and shall scrub from my mind -football is dull anyway and writing about it even worse)

I have to admit that in all the books, I tend to skim through the sporting bits. I can't really get excited about detailed descriptions of matches/equestrian events. It's possibly why Rivals is my favourite as it's light on sport.

I gave up on Score! Appassionata was OK but not a patch on the first 4.

What did he do in Mount? 👀

I have zero interest in sports but became surprisingly invested in Polo while reading the book.

I agree that Jilly's writing went downhill, I persevered in hope the quality of the earlier books would return. All the books were 99p on kindle yesterday so I've bought them because I can't comfortably read the print on my old tatty paperback copies.

I stumbled (back) into Disney+ because I have an UBER sub (gives me 10% cashback on train fares for some reason). I don’t really buy takeaways, but those seem cheaper too.

Jilly Cooper summed up the mid-80’s “Big Bang” era for many.

I have just watched 2 episodes, it's OK if you can ignore the terrible casting of Rupert. The character is good but he just looks wrong. Not keen on Taggie either. Maude and Declan are great.
It took me a while to realise it was Rivals, not Riders. I kept wondering where Helen and Jake, etc were
I'm there now 🤣

Was it Mount where he called Gala “buttercunt” as though it was a compliment?

yep that’s Mount!
the 99p jilly cooper books are still on Amazon today. I got rivals polo and score!

I disagree. I get his looks are hopelessly wrong, but I do think he captures Rupert’s personality well.

the full Jilly quote is:

1st of May, 1st May, outdoor fucking starts today. But if as usual it do rain, we fucks off indoors again.'

can’t remember which book it was though.

I think Rupert said it to Cameron in Rivals, happy to be corrected if wrong!

Yes, it's from Rivals

I re-read Pandora recently and thought it was good (and much better than Score which was written before it).

He's pretty much one of only a few likeable characters in it. I was so pleased that he finally got what he'd been yearning for. His character is so lovely