Joanne the Coach

Book review: The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer

Thanks to the help of my bloggy friends, and particularly Deb of Carrots and Kids, I ended up choosing The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks as our book group book for this month. So far I'm 37% of the way through (thank you Kindle for that information) and it's terrific, I'm really glad I chose it.

Another book I enjoyed but couldn't face selling to book group is The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer, which was sent to me recently for review. This is a re-issue of a spin off book from the Twin Peaks TV series. I was a huge fan of the series when it first aired, and have been watching it again recently, so was looking forward to revisiting the book too.

It's very odd and unsettling returning to a book like this many years after having originally read it - though that's appropriate, since odd and unsettling was Twin Peaks' USP.

I don't remember much about reading it first time round, other than that I galloped through it pretty quickly. This time, it felt like a much tougher read.

The story starts with 12 year old Laura, whose life very quickly takes a tumble into sex, drugs and violence. And this time round, reading it as the mother of a 12 year old, it's kind of hard to take. The book is more violent and more sexually explicit than I remember, but then maybe I am just more sensitive to that kind of thing nowadays.

Twenty years after it first aired, the cult of Twin Peaks still has a loyal following. The yearly US Twin Peaks convention still takes place, and there's now a Twin Peaks UK festival which has just had its second gathering.

I went to the first UK festival and met the legendary Log Lady (seen here with teeny tiny log, and me with cherry pie). It was interesting to see how many people there were too young to have seen the show when it started.

So for the new generation of Peakies, this book is a must read. Written by David Lynch's daughter Jennifer, it's a prequel of Laura Palmer's life before the events depicted in the TV show. I don't think it's over-spoiling to reveal that she dies in the end, and inevitably this casts a shadow over the whole book.

The new edition features separate forewords from Twin Peaks creators Mark Frost and David Lynch. Frost's is the more illuminating, whilst the enigmatic Lynch doesn't give much away.

The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer (Simon & Schuster) is available now in paperback and Kindle formats.

My 2011 vital statistics

• 57 - Number of films I watched in 2011. Looking back on the list, a lot of them were quite duff. The Smurf Movie I can chalk up to the kids, but I only have myself to blame for Sex and the City 2.
• 21 - Number of books I read. Some of these were quite long, so if you count those ones twice then it bumps up the total to at least 30. This is how statistics work.
• 2 - Number of Jedwards I met. I mean, there were two of them, but perhaps this only counts as one. I'm confused. I'm too old for Jedwards.
• 150 - Number of times I went to the gym. Yet still I have a blogger's paunch. One of life's great mysteries.
• 1 2/3 - Number of books I wrote. Tried to write two and it didn't quite happen. But at least I have a project to take into 2012
• 4 - Number of hours I spent on the Doctor Who location walking tour. And still it went by in a flash.
• 1 - Number of babies I saw being born. That's plenty, really.

I think, as the numbers stack up, it's been a good year.

So, 2011, how was it for you?

 

That speedboat/Mumsnet mashup in full

As it turned out, my fashion fretting was unfounded, as I was given a delightful jacket to wear on the speedboat, which had the added bonus of making me look the size of a small house.

And I wore my lucky clogs, which I was also wearing when I met Take That, so they are the very epitome of good fortune. I wasn't taking any chances.

 

This gives you a phone's eye flavour of the trip:

 

Just after this was filmed, the speedboat revved up considerably and lurched about in the water in that Am I going to tip you out?...Maybe...Maybe not kind of way that rollercoasters do. Couldn't film that as I was too busy squealing like a piglet on piglet's pay day.

After that we retired to a posh hotel for lunch, during which TV sports and travel presenter Craig Doyle popped in to say hello. Nice bloke, doesn't mind posing for app-pics (as you can see here) and I was very taken by his justification for having 4 kids under 8: "Ach, sure, what else is there to do in life?". Quite.

Now although a bunch of bloggers had been invited on this outing, none of us really knew exactly why we were there. Turned out it was all about the launch of a cool-sounding new activity holiday website called iExplore. It's for people who like to have exciting new experiences on holiday. Like speedboating, for example. Ah, I see. It all makes sense now.

And continuing in the theme of I'm Not Sure Why I'm Here But I'll Give it a Go, later that night I tootled along to the Mumsnet Family Friendly Awards.

I briefly considered making a badge that said I look shit because I've been on a speedboat, what's your excuse? but decided against that on the grounds that it was incredibly aggressive and insulting. See, I do have a few social skills. Not many, but one or two.

However, I must admit that I was feeling rather deranged at this point in the day.

So when I arrived at the Mumsnet Awards and was greeted by a receiving line of Boden-clad Mumsnet ladies, I instantly hollered:

I'VE BEEN ON A SPEEDBOAT TODAY!

To which they graciously replied

You're joking

And I hollered back

I WISH I WAS!

Which was not true at all, I was very happy about having been on a speedboat. I don't know why I said that. Put it down to the derangement.

It gets worse.

My Twitter buddy @MmeLindor demanded news of the event, so I twitpic-ed her the important bits - the bar and the food.

Then it was in to the main hall for the awards ceremony and a very interesting discussion about family friendly working, led by Emily Maitlis from Newsnight.

This being a modern sort of event, tweets about it were also scrolling on a big screen. In general these tweets were rather bumlicky: @bigbrand Off to fab #Mumsnetawards, @megaPR So excited about amazing #Mumsnetawards sort of thing.

Until my tweets started popping up on screen

 

 

@joannemallon - The bar! #Mumsnetawards

 

@joannemallon  - The canapes! #Mumsnetawards

 

For shame! We were supposed to be bigging up the family friendly vibe, and all I was doing was bigging up the wine and crisps. And the tweetshow was on a loop, so I had the pleasure of  cringeing everytime they came round and got broadcast to 120 VIPs. Trust me to bring down the tone. I don't think I'll be invited back.

 Still, I survived the speedboat, that's the main thing.

Sharks, celebrities and a near death experience - just another typical day at Legoland

 

Well, I never expected this I thought, as I complimented Cherie Blair on her choice of kagool.

Nor this either as an hour later, thanks to Keeley Hawes, I narrowly avoided being eaten by sharks.

*rewind*

So on Sunday we pitched up to Legoland in Windsor for the launch of their new Atlantis Submarine Voyage ride. Like BlogCamp, I had once again dressed all wrong for the occasion, in sandals and a light cardie. It was a gawdawful day, with rain tipping tipping down ceaselessly. But I truly believed the sun would shine. I was wrong.

Cherie, stood behind us in the queue for wristbands, had opted much more wisely for a windcheater, and smirked at my open-toed sandals.

On the ride itself we shared a submarine with actors Keeley Hawes, Matthew Macfadyen and family. A yellow submarine. Somebody should write a song about that.

Jedward = the new Lady Gaga?

My mum got very excited when I told her I was interviewing Jedward. Turns out they're one of her favourites ("So charming!"). The last time she got this enthusiastic for a pop act was when she wanted a Lady Gaga CD for her 66th birthday.

Having recently met Take That and The Log Lady from Twin Peaks, I thought I could handle a strange celebrity encounter.

But could I handle Jedward? As it turns out, almost not.

When I arrived at the interview venue, the pavement was lined with girls waiting for them to arrive. One mum told me she'd come on the 5.30am coach from Birmingham that morning purely so her teenage daughter could follow Jedward around London.

And then - a tuft of hair and there he was:

Who needs fiction when real life is so strange?

It's been a funny old weekend. On Friday I was in Malta, riding a life-sized plastic Playmobil pig:

 
 

And on Saturday I was in London meeting Jedward:

 

It's Sunday today. I'm resting.

Celebrity Top Trumps

You may have noticed that I haven't posted since I met Take That. I did think about it, but they're a hard act to follow.

And then on Saturday night I met Catherine Coulson, AKA The Log Lady from Twin Peaks

 

Yes that is a little log she is holding. Yes that is some cherry pie I am holding. Take that, Take That. It's all about the Log Lady now.

Take That And That And That

It's funny how the world turns.

If it hadn't been for the unvitation, I would have been in France yesterday, and not in a hotel room with Take That.

What happened was this - I'd been invited by a PR to check out their new range of designer children's clothes, which they were previewing at the Savoy Hotel in London. And with some unexpected time on my hands, off I trotted.

So at lunchtime yesterday I was in the PR's room at the Savoy making polite noises about all the pruck on display. And then the door opens, in comes a tall, well-dressed man who holds out his hand and says "Hello, I'm Howard". And as I was shaking his hand, I noticed that Howard had some friends with him - Gary and Mark. At this point my jaw hit the floor, as I wondered which rabbit hole I'd fallen down to end up wedged into a small room with three fifths of Take That.

It turned out that they were there because the PR was offering them free designer clobber for their children. And all credit to them, they held back at first and didn't exactly fill their boots. There was lots of "Are you sure? Are you sure? This is fantastic, thanks so much". In a lot of ways they were like normal dads for whom picking out their kids' clothes isn't a natural skill set, even when it's free.

Now, as it happens Gary Barlow had been on my mind lately, as I had promised to tell English Mum all about my GB/Rice Krispie Situation. This dates back about 10 years to when I used to work on ITV's This Morning. Gary was appearing to plug his solo album, but before he went on he wanted some Rice Krispies for breakfast. There was a teeny delay in the delivery, and all of a sudden all his people were discussing "the Rice Krispie situation" in very serious tones on headset mics. It struck me that this was a prime example of the surreal life of a star - when people are treating your cereal needs like it's a planet-changing event.

So when I saw him yesterday I did mention that we'd met before, and it was on the tip of my tongue to add "...and I got you your Rice Krispies!", but luckily I held it in. And I declined to mention to Mark Owen that we'd also met at This Morning, when I'd shown him the way to the loo. Somehow there wasn't an opening in the conversation for that one. Good thing too.

Now, as a journalist, what's the etiquette in a situation like this? I think they assumed that I was with the PR people. It would have seemed a bit churlish to say "I'm a journalist, but not that sort of journalist". So mostly I lurked in the corner and tried to pick my jaw up off the floor.

But as an undercover spy, I have to say that the Take That dads could not have been more gracious and grateful for what they were given. For people who've had staff to tend to their every whim for years, and for whom getting free stuff is a regular occurrence, they were completely down to earth and appreciative. There was none of that graspy sense of entitlement that you get from people who've had one freebie too many.

As they left, as a thank you they offered the team tickets for their tour next year. Apparently they will perform as a foursome, then there'll be a bit of solo Robbie, then all five. Sounds amazing. But not as amazing as yesterday.