Martel Maxwell2013-05-24T06:14:31-04:00Martel Maxwellhttp://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=martel-maxwellCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Martel MaxwellGood old fashioned elbow grease.50 Shades of Grey: Why Women Are Reading it in Their Horny Drovestag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.15709992012-06-05T19:00:00-04:002012-08-05T05:12:28-04:00Martel Maxwellhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/martel-maxwell/Fifty Shades of Grey?" my friend Aileen was leaning in, her voice lowered conspiratorially.
Her eyeballs moved in their sockets extreme left and right; a strand of hair was in her cappuccino. I wondered if we were being followed.
"No," I breathed.
"Get it. It's basically porn. Huge in the States. Fabulous."
In the weeks that have passed since our conversation, E L James' trilogy, an erotic tale set in America of two lovers, has become a chart-topping phenomenon.
I know - I'm behind the times. Fifty Shades has spread like wildfire, igniting the nether regions of women all over the world.
My excuse? Getting married then honeymooning in Italy for most of May, where I read the classics. Silly me.
My reasoning for buying the first in the series upon return, was manifold. Well it would be. I'm British and female - I can't just gleefully rub my knees and tell you with husky voice that I want to read about sex.
I was also intrigued as to how something that is "basically porn" could achieve this mainstream success, knocking mighty The Hunger Games off the top spot after a 16-week reign in the U.S.
As a novelist who is toiling with the writing of sex scenes in her second book - having already had a few juicy episodes published in my first (Scandalous, published by Penguin) - my interest was piqued.
Completing even a sentence involving sex that is not cringe-worthy is tricky and I wanted to know just how E L James did it; how she had captivated so many people throughout what - my friend promised - was most of the book.
One hundred pages in and there was still no sex. It wasn't even very well written - not badly, but a bit immaturely. The character of the narrator, Ana, may only be 21 but a teenage Katniss manages clarity and wisdom in the sci-fi adventure trilogy The Hunger Games - though the books are obviously wildly different.
But every fifth word could have been Yugoslavian and I would still have kept reading because E L James' ability to build anticipation to the climax - or Ana's - is top drawer.
As I say, from experience I know good sex is very hard to write - more of that in a moment.
And this is precisely why my respect for E L James rocketed, circa page 113, paragraph two. Not that it's etched in my head.
She excels at sex - pages of it. She has you in the palm of her hand, feeling every sensation experienced by Ana at the hands of young billionaire Christian Grey.
It's rude - unafraid to foray into the dark world of sex where one is the dominant, the other the submissive. She gains our respect and attention because the field is incredibly well detailed and researched, leaving the mind boggling with beads, eggs, collars, bondage, flogging, whipping, caning, spanking and so much more.
By reading Fifty Shades, relationships - or some 'me time' - will have benefited, for there are only so many page-turning details you can read about Ana's climb to orgasm before you want one of your own.
On this note, couples looking spice things up on holiday should make Fifty Shades compulsory reading.
When my agent handed me back my first draft of Scandalous, she said: "We have a problem."
Like any self-respectfully insecure writer, I feared she had howled at the moon in agony at reading my words before showing all her friends and belly laughing - and not at the funny bits.
"It's good chick lit', she said.
Unlike some, I embrace the tag - and not in a sniffy "well Jane Austen was chick lit too" kind of way. My debut novel: Man Booker it 'aint. Me, it is.
We laugh at popular women's fiction at our peril, for E L James is proof of its popularity. She is also having the last laugh - all the way to her bank account at Coutts.
"But the sex scenes, Martel," my agent continued, "They're... well, they're awful."
I blushed.
"The rest of the book sounds like you, it sounds current. But 'throbbing manhood'? 'Pulsing member'? - it's like very bad Mills and Boon."
Purple of face, I knew she was right. I had never used any of these phrases to describe a penis and I'm not sure anyone ever has in actual conversation.
Since, I have admired any writer who can convey a love (though 'love' is not always present or necessary) scene that doesn't have the reader squirming.
Writing sex is a bit like having it - if you're awkward and uptight it's not going to be much fun for the guy, or in the case of books, the reader.
Start enjoying it and it feels natural and uncontrived.
Sex sells and of course this is nothing new.
The book I read before Fifty Shades was DH Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover.
The first edition was printed privately in 1928 in Florence - where I started it - because the story of the relationship between an upper class woman and working class man was too sexually explicit, with words then unprintable. Not until 1960 was it published openly in the United Kingdom.
Dios mio, I am not comparing the literary merits of the two books. But they do have similarities, which make for their success, no matter the era.
If either Lady Chatterley or Ana dropped their knickers in the first chapter, it would have been dull.
The sweetness of expectation makes for a thrilling climax, when it finally arrives, by which stage you have a vested interest in the characters.
If a message is to be transferred into real life, it is: don't put out on the first night.
The women are more adored the longer they hold out, though one could argue Lady Chatterley didn't exactly play hard to get. But still, her journey to liking - let alone loving - sex, builds throughout.
Women are not known for boasting about their love of porn but we are reading Fifty Shades in our horny droves - 100,000 of us in the first week to be precise, beating John Grisham, James Patterson and Suzanne Collins to the top of the charts.
After taking a stall to sell Scandalous at an event in Glasgow, I'm not surprised.
"Does it have sex in it?" a grandmother asked (I know she was a grandmother because she introduced me to her 12-year-old granddaughter.)
"Not really," I lied, not wanting to put her off.
"Oh well," she sighed and wandered off.
When asked again, I said: "Sex? Yeah, loads, I hope you've got good foundation - you'll be blushing. A lot."
And whoosh, these women took one, two, three - muttering things like "Oh my pal Eleanor will love it," and one: "that's right up my mum's street."
Our thirst for erotic fiction - or quasi porn - on the page is the key to James' success. She has simply given the market what it wants - and we really, really, really want sex.
Martel Maxwell is the author of romantic comedy Scandalous, £6.99, published by Penguin.
]]>Seal, Russell and the Frogs and Princes of Celebrity Mentag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.12365422012-01-27T19:00:00-05:002012-03-28T05:12:02-04:00Martel Maxwellhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/martel-maxwell/
Now their marriage is over, the couple can take heart - for while they will soon be part of the Divorced Club, they can also join a shinier, exclusive set made up of celebrities who fell prey to the Seven Year Itch.
For stars including Madonna and Guy Ritchie as well as Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony also admitted defeat seven years after a vow to stick it out forever.
Should one more beautiful couple succumb to the itch they could all get together for their very own Darwinian dinner party where the keys are swapped over dessert and a super species is conceived.
On that eugenic note - Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie got together seven years ago, so keep an eye out for trouble in paradise - because they don't get much more beautiful than that.
Not that Angelina would admit to a having started a relationship with Pitt at the time - back in May 2005 (Brad had split with Jennifer Aniston in the January) I plucked up the courage at a press conference for the animated movie Shark Tale at the Cannes Film Festival, to ask if rumours were true she had started an affair on the set of Mr and Mrs Smith.
Those beautiful lips pursed into an angry but sumptuous pink pillow and the producer motioned to a security guard to throw me out.
But suddenly Will Smith saved the day as he said: 'Come on Angelina, the girl wants to know if you shagged Brad Pitt.'
The room relaxed into laughter, before silence fell once more and Jolie said she certainly did not 'shag' (emphasising the word distastefully) Brad Pitt.
No Jolie Roger. Except we all now know there was.
Back to Seal.
Turns out I wasn't alone and friends knew friends who had an entry in his little black book.
There's hardly anything wrong with chatting women up when you're single but Seal oozed fell into the category of testosterone-fuelled flirt I just couldn't see being with one woman for life. Even Heidi Klum.
Take Russell Brand. His romance with Katy Perry was a whirlwind the world watched and heard about ad nauseam - as Brand proclaimed he had never dreamed of being so in love and he was ready to commit for life.
14 months after they wed, it was over.
A radio producer friend once told me that pre-Perry, Brand would walk out of a studio where a crowd of fans would be preening in breathless wait.
It was not uncommon, he said, for Brand to point at a couple, sometimes more, and disappear with them into the night.
I shuddered and said you just wouldn't know where he's been, but I stood corrected - where he has been is well-documented, not least by the actor/presenter/stand-up himself with an honest accounts of all sorts.
Soon after marrying Perry, Brand gave an insight into how things had changed.
The self-confessed sex addict told Piers Morgan during an interview: "I can't believe I used to have sex 20 times a week - especially now I'm married. But I'm a bloody good gardener."
There is no allegation that either Brand or Seal (Heidi's friends say she tired of his 'partying') cheated and no question they loved their wives - perhaps at the point of marital union as much as someone who stays married for life.
But they are audacious flirts; a dangerous mix of sexual and solipsistic that makes lifelong monogamy while they are still attractive to young women unlikely.
Incidentally, when I met Seal he was a revenant - it had certainly been a while since the mid-nineties when songs like Kiss From A Rose had propelled him to fame.
No matter how tight his leather trousers (and they were tight) the man couldn't get arrested. Being linked to Klum made his star shine so much brighter.
I digress - we all know a 'player' who just needed 'the right woman' to settle into married bliss.
But it's different in celebrity land, where temptation is everywhere because beautiful women will do anything to bed famous men.
In their obfuscated heads full of WAG culture and glossy magazines, they legitimise their very existence by being a celebrity and if they cannot achieve that, having sex with one is the next best thing - married or not.
One can become rather cynical when considering who has strayed - Gordon Ramsay, Heston Blementhal, Ashton Kutcher, Vernon Kay (filthy messages still count) and Tiger Woods to name but recent offenders.
As for footballers, it's easier to ask who has been faithful when you look at the list of shame - John Terry, Ryan Giggs, David Beckham (eight years ago with Rebecca Loos not entirely forgotten), Wayne Rooney, Peter Crouch - a motley crew, with a curious set of perma-tanned wives who have all taken them back.
Many stars who keep up the Family Guy image are rumoured to be at it, just adept at keeping their indiscretions secret.
Is nothing sacred? What kind of role model are these cretins to their fans?
Do not fear. I will leave you on a positive note for there is a saviour in the sordid cesspit of celeb land.
Jamie Oliver.
Anyone who knows him says the same thing - he is transfixed by his wife Jules; that the 12-years-married chef still stops, his eyes light up and he smiles whenever she walks into a room.
A television exec friend who has worked with him told me: "You have never seen a man so devoted.
"The most stunning woman in the world could walk on set and he wouldn't even notice.
"For him, there is only one woman, the mother of his children. No other exists."
So you see, celebrity status is not really an excuse for behaving badly. Genes, however, are an entirely different thing and perhaps the bad boys would have been bad anyway, fame or not, but with fewer willing participants.
The Jamies of this world do exist.
It's just that we've got to kiss a few Brands to appreciate him when he arrives.]]>Reflections on Burns Night From a Scot Living in Londontag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.12291272012-01-24T19:00:00-05:002012-03-25T05:12:01-04:00Martel Maxwellhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/martel-maxwell/
"Any Scottish people I've known have always been really arrogant and loud," she said in an East End London accent.
"Yeah. Big drinkers too," her friend nodded, picking up a haggis and eyeing it suspiciously. I thought about saying hello, exaggerating my normally soft Scottish accent but instead left them to it.
Their conversation had turned to independence and the words "Couldn't survive by themselves," hung in the air.
Them and us; a mentality that has long existed in Scotland but is increasingly prevalent here.
I like to think it stems from hurt - that the English were wounded upon realisation there was growing support for independence and reacted with anger.
Phrases bandied about by commentators - Scotland is subsidised, Scots are ungrateful - fuelled venom. But surely you (if you are English and reading this) are a little bewildered as to the seemingly sudden sentiment of Scots to break our ancient union. Why now? Why at all?
Spending my time between Scotland and London, I have gleaned an invaluable insight into the relationship between the two countries and an understanding as to why we have reached today's tense stalemate.
I am Scottish and intensely proud of being so. I also live in London and value the British identity on my passport.
As a weekly columnist for Scotland's biggest-selling daily newspaper for six years, I replaced opinion writers for the London-based version such as Jeremy Clarkson and Kelvin MacKenzie, not least because they were increasingly prone to anti-Scots comments.
Whenever I made mention of the Auld Enemy on my page, my inbox would strain with readers' expletive rage.
This is in not a political analysis of the situation and what has caused it - there are plenty of experts who do that superbly not least here; it is an attempt to explain the Scottish mindset caused by everyday experience.
The sentiment of being hard-done-by by England is hardly new but for a substantial part of the nation it is current, ingrained and passed down by generation. Exacerbated by the drip-feed of English bias through media, it sticks in the collective throat.
For instance, when Scotland plays an international football game, the England match is often shown instead because TV budgets and decisions are made - though the BBC is attempting to regionalise - in London. Can you imagine turning on the box only to see tartan banners in the crowd when you had expected to see England play?
The views of sports presenters are solipsistic towards England - building their players up as word champions in the early rounds before we all see the ugly truth unfold - the latest disgrace of course, the rugby stars' unsavoury behaviour in Australia. Little mention if any is given to Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, three nations fed up since 1967 with comparisons to 1966. The adage that if a competitor wins they are British but should they lose Scottish, is exaggerated for laughs but not wholly an untruth.
We hear Her Majesty referred to as the Queen of England by English people answering questions on quiz shows; politicians lamenting that hundreds of English soldiers have died in Afghanistan. I am sure you can understand for a nation whose soldiers' bravery in fighting for Queen and country is legendary - and not least for the families of Scottish soldiers - this is hugely offensive. We hear such English narcissism ad nauseam and each instance parlays into a final moment where we stop and shout "hold on, this isn't fair. What about us?" That moment has come and the real reason it is now? We had no choice but to support Alex Salmond at the last election.
Hatred towards Margaret Thatcher stems from her treatment of Scotland as her own personal political laboratory decades ago and yet still the word 'Tory' is a dirty one, reflected by the fact we have just one Conservative MP.
While presenting a radio talk show in Edinburgh I once said that "Thatcher wasn't so bad and I would have no qualms voting Conservative given the mess Labour was making" only to see the caller phone lines go into a meltdown of wrath and a cab driver swear on air.
Our mentality - and of course I generalise - is of underdog and we sneer constantly at our southern neighbour's arrogance. I rather suspect we sometimes enjoy doing so.
While the brain-drain to London of able, eloquent and ambitious MPs (whatever you say about Gordon Brown, he still got the top job) was left unchecked, Westminster viewed Holyrood in journalistic terms as a quaint local newspaper to their mighty Financial Times. And Scotland suffered.
Salmond was the best of a bad bunch and while Tony Blair, Brown, then Cameron let him get on with it, devolution flourished into a country so restored it now wants independence (though a recent Sun poll showed just 29% of Scots would vote for it compared to a hefty 41% in England and Wales). Could this mean the unthinkable: that we like you more than you like us?
Along with a terrier of a right hand woman in Nicola Sturgeon, Salmond played a waiting game that has paid off.
The Tories were never an option but neither was Labour. For Scots knew a Brown-led government had left Britain on its knees financially, the fatal decisions had been made in London and wanted revenge. England too was angry at the economic hangover and reacted by voting Cameron into No10. We simply chose Salmond instead.
But we are a long way off breaking away.
It seems one hell of a gamble to find out if we would be financially better off as Salmond says as a result of keeping money from North Sea oil, by breaking up the union to find out. And before you go quoting the Barnett formula, which gives the Scottish taxpayer £1,600 more than in England, please remember the figures were not dreamed up by Scots - they were thought up by esteemed Englishman Lord Barnett who thought that, after much consideration, it was fair.
The threat that is more imminently real than independence is a change in attitude to the way the Scots are perceived by the English. Play the surly lodger for too long, blaming Westminster for our woes, and is it not to be expected you will fall out of fondness with your little cousin?
I believe Scotland is the best country in the world and that to be Scottish, the best nationality.
Come on, don't you envy out pride, identity, belonging, personality, ginger genes, freckles, kilts, tartan, whisky, humour, haggis, lochs and beauty? Wha's like us?
But that's the beauty of being British - we get to be proud of being Scottish, English, Irish or Welsh - and British too. To dissolve the ancient union would dilute the power of all of us four.
Go on, celebrate the Bard tonight, 25 January.
Google your local area for restaurants serving haggis, buy one from the supermarket (vegetarian options are normally available if you don't fancy sheep intestine) or simply raise a glass to the Scots. And remember - a good many of us do not want to part with your esteemed company.
Happy Burns Night.
My Burns Night picks in London:
Scottish food specialists Boisdale offers superb fine dining with divine game dishes and one of the world's biggest whisky bars at its Canary Wharf, Belgravia and Bishopsgate restaurant.
Green's on Cornhill, near Bank and bustling with business minds, is serving its Burns menu until Friday - www.greens.org.uk
Martel is the author of showbiz romantic comedy Scandalous, published by Penguin and available here on Kindle. ]]>The Return of Jodie Marshtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9959992011-10-05T10:32:34-04:002011-12-05T05:12:01-05:00Martel Maxwellhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/martel-maxwell/
As they try to stretch their 15 Minutes, we roll our eyes and turn the page. I often think of Jodie - a woman who made them all look like amateurs. Occasionally over the years I've wondered if she would ever make a comeback. And if so, how?
Today, watching ITV1's This Morning, a respectful smile flickered across my face as I witnessed her triumphant answer - a transformation to professional body builder that has made the collective nation's jaw drop.
Last week, Jodie couldn't have got herself in a tabloid if she'd rung them up and said she'd be looking at engagement rings in a Bond Street jewellers window with a mystery fella (a trick often employed by publicity-hungry stars).
Now, Jodie's mahogany muscles grace pages read by millions and leave Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield speechless on daytime tv. The likes of Amy Childs, the break-away star of The Only Way Is Essex, should take note from the master class that is Marsh.Take the FHM Awards in 2004.
Jodie's star was beginning to fade after a noble attempt to capitalise on her appearance on reality show Essex Wives. If you'd told any editor she would be their front page, instead of the supermodels and various assembled A-listers at the hottest bash in town, they'd have thrown their head back with a villainous laugh.
But when Jodie stepped out of her car in nothing but a couple of belts (worth a watch on youtube) she achieved the unthinkable: ousting every drop-dead gorgeous woman there. A year or two after this red carpet triumph, on the day a tiny comment I'd written in Bizarre was published, Jodie called me in a fit of demented rage. Her objection was being described as a 'Jordan wannabe'. Screaming like a mad woman, wailing and calling me the 'C' word, she said she had "more ****ing talent than Jordan did in her little finger.'I put her on loudspeaker. We were hungover.
We laughed. Increasingly Jodie was finding it hard to be talked about and attempts became desperate - not least the 2007 MTV show Totally Jodie Marsh which saw her marry the winning contestant. The ill-fated union with nemesis Jordan's ex Matt Peacock lasted three months. I seem to remember a flirtation with lesbianism. Though that could have been Abi Titmuss or Rebecca Loos (weird encounters with both are surfacing and making me squirm as I type) who were around at the time. I liked Jodie.
A bit like Jordan, she gave good copy, with the guarantee an interview or random chat at a free bar would deliver a bitchy comment that made the paper. She was a household name through her own making, incredibly smart without the backing of a huge PR machine and learnt quickly what to say to grab headlines. Jordan was like-minded and both seem damaged. But unlike Jordan, I found Jodie inherently likeable. After all, fake tan, tits and questionable sexual morality are no bars to a kind soul which I watched wrestle her ego.
Incidentally, Jordan hated Jodie with a passion, hissing whenever journalists pitted them as rivals. The animosity was, of course, borne from the recognition of Marsh in herself and accompanying fear of her drive.The sweat, pain, time, discipline and determination to achieve today's comeback cannot be underestimated.
Of course she's going to say it had nothing to do with getting back on the telly.No matter the motive, the achievement is huge. Celebrity bookers on TV have their pick. A Tory Conference, Amanda Knox verdict and Liz Hurley engagement jostle for newspaper space. Even the Guardian featured Jodie today, a pondering drop-intro telling us 'female strength is better than feebleness and self-denial'.
And so, Jodie has done it again.She epitomises something that is deeply wrong and sad with our society - a sentiment summed up perfectly by a contestant on last week's show."I'm sick of being a no one. I want to be a someone."Simon Cowell's poster kids for the vacuous belief fame equals success equals happiness.Rosie Ribbons, PJ from Big Brother, Jamie Shaw from Pop Stars: The Rivals anyone? Probably not. And yet, there was a time when I interviewed them and a page of copy followed.
There are more wannabes than ever - spewed from the money-making mouths of TOWIE (which, incidentally Jodie is rumoured to be joining), Made In Chelsea, Big Brother, Geordie Shores and so on.But of them all, Jodie Marsh is Queen. And I for one am glad she's back.
*You can download Martel Maxwell's showbiz novel Scandalous on Kindle and iBook now.]]>