Mutton: live webchat with India Knight Tues 24 Sept 12-1pm

janice37

Sorry this isn't actually about the book but I saw your photo on the home page and was very taken with your hair. How do you get it like that?

Janice37 - I haven't seen the pic on the home page, but I suspect the answer is John Frieda, unless they've stuck up a horrible picture, in which case the answer is 'sleeping on it wet'.

bookmad

Hi India I enjoyed the book too. I especially liked Bernard. Are you into all that fantasy stuff or was this just a mickey take of people who are?

Bookmad - no no, absolutely the opposite of a mickey take - I LOVE that stuff, and I especially love George RR Martin. Those bits were meant as a loving tribute and I hope they read that way. I have such admiration for people (like GRRM) who create entire universes - I can't even keep track of the colours of my characters' kitchens.

redamanthas

Thanks GN for my copy. India I really laughed aloud at or with the characters and I wondered did they develop a "life" of their own as you got more familiar with them. Did you have to rein them in at all? At sixty five I must admit to being too scared to go down the filler and teeth route when I see some of the terrifying results but it was so entertaining to read your characters encounters. Thanks for a great holiday read

Thank you redamanthas, so pleased you liked it. Yes, I do have to rein them in slightly, on the basis that they could so easily run away and just become MAD.

Oldgreymare

Thanks for the book Gransnet, I took it on holiday and enjoyed it. It afforded several 'laugh out loud moments', perfect holiday reading.
Anyone contemplating botox needs to read your novel, India. I remember someone describing a ball, held at the White House in Nancy Regan's day,
as a masked ball (so many over-lifted faces!).
What would you advise for a cottage -loaf tummy, crinkly thighs and sparse eyebrows? Or should I wear loose clothes and large sunglasses?

Oldgraymare - red lipstick and attitude. The stomach is just evidence of children and food (I presume), which means it's evidence of a life well-lived. If the eyebrows are a bother then there are very good tattooists (I know, it sounds hideous, but it's not). Find me on Twitter and I'll send you a link - am scared to navigate away from this page at the moment.

BAnanas

India Knight, sorry haven't read your book, but in one of your recent articles, I think in the Sunday Times, you sang the praises of a product called Colour Wow, root touch up kit. I bought one of these recently from Space NK and can honestly say it's brilliant. Thank you for that! Wouldn't be without it now super easy to apply for those missed bits when I do my roots. Great for taking away it looks like block mascara and fits in a make up bag without any difficulty. Will look out for your book.

Hi BAnanas. Yes, genius product.

limpet

Thanks GN for the book. I liked it very much especially the bit set in Scotland (Muck?)
India please tell me you actually did this journey to research it? It made me laugh out loud (I have been in a similar situation so the laughing was part empathy part hilarity)

Limpet - yes, it's Muck, and yes. I went to several, in fact, so it's an amalgalm. You can't even begin to imagine the hilarity. Lovely, though - very keen on the old Isles. But there may have been an element of crying with laughter at the absurdity of me transported there.

mumtotwins

I loved the book. I haven't read any of your others yet but now I definitely will. Are there any more about these characters or do you always write about different people?

Hello Mumtotwins, and thank you - there are two other novels feat. Clara Hutt, of which the first is called My Life On A Plate and the second Comfort and Joy.

zipwire

Have you had botox? And if not would you?

Zipwire Yes. I wrote about it recently in the Sunday Times - I'd link to the page but I'm scared of not being able to get back into here. It can be brilliant, it can be awful (I've had both sorts). It's absolutely essential to go to someone who really, really knows what they're doing. waggles eyebrows

hummingbird

A good, light-hearted and thought- provoking read! Some bits made me laugh out loud - India, you are definitely writing about dome of my acquaintances!

Hummingbird - ha, lots of people have said that. Just shows what a unifying experience ageing is.

NannyPam

Thanks for the book GN - it is a good light read and very enjoyable.

India - did you base the any of the characters in the book on how you feel in your forties?

NannyPam - I did, although it's the least autobiographical of my books. But I wanted to explore that feeling you suddenly get of 'Bloody hell, what happened? How am I this age?'

penguinpaperback

Hi India and GNHQ, thank you for the book, I really enjoyed it.
I live in a bourgeois-bohemian neighbourhood, so I recognised the huge jewellery with the ethnic spin. :-)
Hi India, I would love to know how you go about your writing. Is there a strict timetable? (I'm thinking of those accounts you read in the Sunday mags, I wake at 5, write until noon, have a small dish of watercress salad and then write until midnight.) Thanks..x

Penguinpaperback - Yes, I'm always getting up at dawn, doing a special dance with the animals and then sitting down to a wholesome algae juice.

No - I sort of work upside down, often late at night (house quiet, can hear myself think), but also in the daytime at the kitchen table (wrong height, have carpal tunnel as a result), constantly interrupted, with the radio on, which is a disaster as I have a pathetic attention span. But I think that since I write about domestic things, it wouldn't make much sense to remove myself from domestic things while I write.

Also, kitchen = snacks.

gardener

Thanks very much for the book...it came just as I was leaving for the airport...a great holiday read !
I'm looking forward to reading more of India's books.
My question for India is :-
When you were talking to women who have had Botox and other "work" on their face, did you find that they were pleased with the result..or have they any regrets ?

Gardener - it entirely depends on the person and on who they went to. Actually that's not true - it also entirely depends on their frame of mind. As I never get bored of saying, none of this stuff is magic - it can't change the way you feel like on the inside. If you're feeling pretty cheery and contented with your lot but don't like your big frown line, you're going to be delighted with the results (PROVIDED YOU GO TO SOMEBODY PROPER, v important). But if you're pissed off with your life or circumstances and/or with yourself, nothing cosmetic you have done has the power to change that. You know - the frown line's gone but your life is still there.

pamelaJEAN

How lovely to have a book that makes me laugh out loud... going through some problems at the moment ...so a blessed release , thank you so much, although get some strange looks from hubby , when I am sat there smiling ... book in hand. Thank you India very enjoyable.... also a big thankyou to Gransnet x

Pamelajean - how nice, so pleased you like.

coolio

I don't understand the "American" teeth reference in the OP... What's the story behind that India?

Coolio - 'American teeth' = big, so white they're almost blue, massively veneered.

(Thanks to the people saying they've got their copy and are looking forward to reading it)

nonnasusie

My copy of "Mutton" was waiting for me when I arrived home from England last night. I wondered what the parcel was as I had forgotten entering the draw in the excitement of going to see my grandchildren and celebrating my 65th birthday with all the family!! I haven't looked at it yet as I am reading something else but look forward to doing so!

Nonnasusie - hope you enjoy it!

Brahaspatinda

Looking forward to reading 'Mutton'; meanwhile re-reading 'Idiot-Proof Diet' for the nth time as an inspiring nudge... It's just as engaging every time, thank you - and Nerys - so much. Did you manage to keep the weight off? Reckon this is still a Q related to how we dress (and behave!)

Brahaspatinda - I'm still (as is Neris) so proud of that book and I'm delighted you like it. Weight - it varies. I like to pad out a bit for winter, which is why I am eating a healthful slice of Battenburg as I type. But I try and abide by the principles of it as much as I can, and if there's a terrible fatness emergency then I go back into it. I do think one's relationship with weight changes with age, though - it kind of seems to matter less.

katesheilaskate

Very light reading, but funny - especially some of the historic references eg. you hardly seem old enough to remember Hamble, India! Do you spend all your time scribbling down ideas from what you hear around you? It seems like you must, to keep it coming at such a pace. Thanks for the book Gransnet.

Katesheilakate - glad you enjoyed. It's funny with "light" writing - I always think about that brilliant Dolly Parton line, "it takes a lot of money to look this cheap", in that it also takes quite a lot of effort to make it look breezy.

Yes, I make notes all the time, using ingenious abbreviations, and then in the morning I have no idea of what I meant. I tried speaking the notes into my phone at one point, but then I felt like an arse. The notes thing is a work in progress.