Nanny McPhee

We took the children to a preview of Nanny McPhee And The Big |Bang and they loved it. I really admire Emma Thompson who stars at the wart-strewn nanny, and wrote the script. It was as English as a film could be, and sunny and set during the 2nd World War, when children took pleasure in picnics with ginger beer, and watching pigs fly (there is an amazing scene in the movie when pigs fly and dance and swim). It made me nostalgic for that era, when children didn’t have the need for computers and Wii’s and top end gadgets. I know I could choose not to let my son play on things like this, but he would be a freak amongst his peers so we give him limited periods of time when he can. He’s nearly nine and it is quite depressing, but at least he really enjoyed the film, more than Alice in Wonderland but less than Avatar. It was strange seeing Maggie Gyllenhaal as the harassed but rather beautiful mother in a gloriously innocent children’s movie, as the last time I saw her, she was playing a secretary who was having a sadomasochistic sexual relationship with her boss. He whipped her on the bum as she leant over his desk and that was the least of it.

I have started writing a column in the Times called Marriage, which let’s face it is based on my own with a few little twists and turns. It comes out on a Tuesday in the Body and Soul section. My husband is very cool about it, as I passed it with him several times and of course its exaggerated and things are taken out of context and manipulated but still its quite strange writing candidly about our life. I felt the need to do it after talking over the years to my girlfriends who are either married or in long term relationships and are comforted to know that not everyone has a perfect relationship. I used to write a single girls column and it was entirely fictional, the girl was maddening, mad, wild and weird, but people still used to think it was me!