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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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'.

Riverwalk

Thank you for the book - lots of laugh out loud moments when I was reading it on the tube.

I'm irritated by celebrities and national treasures who swear that they've not had cosmetic surgery, but would consider should it ever be needed (who are they kidding!)

India, what sort of grandma is your own mother?

Riverwalk - ha, good question. She is very much not the kind of grandma you ring up and ask to babysit, because she's always out (quite rightly). She's brilliant with my kids, and became especially brilliant when they became teenagers, not least because she put herself in charge of their cultural life and started dragging them round exhibitions and so on - worked brilliantly (they'd say 'I'm asleep' to me but wouldn't dare say it to her). These days she takes them to restaurants and discusses poetry and tattoos with them. She's great, but she's not what you'd call a traditional granny.

nannye

Are you as cool a mother as the ones in your books?

Nannye - I don't really know the answer to that. I'm relatively young in relation to my sons (18 and 21) and pretty old in relation to my daughter (9). I'm just myself, really. Seems to work out ok.

ElenaT

Hello India, I wondered what your writing routine is and where you write-if in public did you end up burssting out laughing at what you were writing? Think I would have. Oh, and what are you reading at the moment

Hi ElenaT - I don't really have one. As was saying earlier, I tend to write at the kitchen table, and occasionally in my local cafe. Embarrassingly yes, I do make myself laugh, which is really the pits. It's why I don't do readings in public - I get nervous, and the nervousness makes me laugh at anything, in this case my own work, so I look like I'm howling with laughter at my own brilliance, which is just the pits.

I'm reading detective stories by Louise Penny - set in Quebec, sort of quiet and domestic with lots of food in them. They're great.

ticktock

Hi India. What was all the hoo-hah about with MK Hajdin?

Ticktock - not a clue. I love social media, but it does throw up some peculiar people.

I've just seen an email saying 'could you cut and paste the question' before replying - sorry!

fidget

What are you working on now?

Hi Fidget. I'm working on a sort of real version of Mutton - a manual to getting older, which hopefully will cover everything from fashion to stepfamilies to Botox to putting your parents in a home. I think "ageing" is so not what "ageing" used to be in our mums' generation, let alone our grandmas, that it would be useful to have a kind of guide.

Tap

Do you think some of your tweets in the lead up to #twittersilence were anti-woman and anti-feminist?

Tap: no.

ticktock

'Not a clue'? You sent her a letter and it was pretty big in the media...

Ticktock: What would you like me to say? It was an extremely bizarre situation, to put it mildly. I responded. She responded. I lost interest after that. Have a nice day!

Oh crap, sorry, there are more questions that for some reason I can't see. Hang on..

limpet

ha! did you do the puking bit too? I did

Limpet - Yes. AND HOW.

SwishySwoshy

Hey India. I have a friend who religiously followed your high-protein, low-carb diet books. But what do you think of the 5:2 Diet? It's a bit of a fad recently...

SwishySwoshy Yes, I know lots of people on it - haven't tried it personally. The thing about diets is that they all work, pretty much, and I'm sure that applies to 5:2. It's a question of what fits best into your life, really, and for me what fits best is not being starving.

mrscake

Hello India - I really enjoyed the book too. From the title I was expecting more on the whole ageing thing and less on the family relationships. This is absolutely not a criticism - just curious about how you came up with the title (do you choose them or does your publisher?)

MrsCake - I'm like Clara in the book: I prefer cheese to cake and red wine to chocolate. It would probably be one of those very dense, not too sweet flourless chocolate ones, followed by a giant wheel of brie.

applepie

Hello! You're prolific on Twitter - do you think it can sometimes get you into trouble though?

Applepie - Twitter's a godsend if you work from home but yes, the odd unguarded tweet does get through. It's kind of the point, though - it's an impossible place to be unguarded on.