Is it a game, then, or is it war? “I’d say it’s somewhere between the two,” he says, smiling reluctantly. “It’s certainly sport, but a vigorous contact one.” Injuries are sustained? “Yeah It’s not always comfortable Reading her stuff made me very cross Cross inside But then in a way, it also freed me up in my own writing It taught me not to worry about people’s opinions of me. And Puppy has an uptight, skeletal girlfriend who keeps him in luxury, writes for women’s mags and has a Matthew Hilton sofa. Ring any bells?”She’s not a direct portrait of Liz,” he says, stirring his coffee vigorously “She’s an inversion or a subversion Anyway, it’s fiction so no one can pin me down on it.” Hm. The protagonist is called Puppy: Liz has referred to Nirpal in her columns as a young “pup”. Full of unpalatable views on race and sex, it’s clearly modelled on Michel Houellebecq. The cover features a thrusting female nipple, in case you were in any doubt that it’s bad-lad lit.Like most first novels, it’s faintly autobiographical.
No longer Mr Liz Jones but a literary sensation in his own right.For years, Liz put up with him moping at home “writing a novel”. This was not in fact a euphemism for napping: Dhaliwal has produced a book that has become one of the most controversial, hotly tipped reads this year. Then Jones immortalised it all in a book (with some extra details thrown in, such as the fact that her husband brushes his tongue).
But there has now been “a power shift”, as Dhaliwal put it when I met him for breakfast at Zetter, a bistro in Clerkenwell, London The shit husband has become the shit-hot novelist. The same could be said of the marriage of Liz Jones, confessional columnist extraordinaire, and Nirpal Singh Dhaliwal, bad-boy novelist.
First she sustained a weekly column with his marital failings. These were so comprehensive – he binge eats, he nearly squashes the cats in bed, he lies around all day, he spends all her money, he emits cabbagey smells, he spent their wedding night with his mates – that even strangers at his yoga class would tell him what a terrible husband he was. It was fortunate that Thomas and Jane Carlyle married one another, said Lord Tennyson, since any other arrangement would have made four people unhappy, not just two. He travels light, be it in his silver Dolphin helicopter, his red Ferrari, his cruiser the Marlin (once owned by his hero, President Kennedy) or the company’s Falcon 2000 jet “I like a simple life,” he insists without irony.. Then there are the various prime office and shop properties, the Roger Vivier shoe business in Paris and the Italian football club Fiorentina And, he prompts with an impish grin, he has had three wives. But when you are with her she is absolutely lovely.”Pussycat, princess or piranha, the woman whom Camille Paglia dubbed “The Brooklyn Nefertiti” remains “just her, on her own terms”..
Diego Della Valle, the billionaire Tod’s shoe baron, owns four homes, three boats (“unfortunately, usually moored where I am not”) and a valuable modern art collection. Make-up and wardrobe may find her a bit strict and demanding but I really enjoyed working with her. She is quite shy, and being in the public eye is quite painful for her. She was excited, like a little kid, about her first foray into film, and asked numerous questions about make-up, camera angles, lighting and direction, all of which she put to great use in the years following as she became a seasoned director herself.”I don’t think I ever met a more dedicated professional.”Margolyes too has nothing but praise for her as a director: “She was wonderful with actors. It was always just me, on my own terms.”Many of her fellow actors adore her, however. Hollywood actress Anne Francis, star of Forbidden Planet and Bad Day at Black Rock, recalls working with her on Funny Girl: “Barbra started soon after giving birth to her son so she had the added task of getting her body back in shape for all the musical numbers.
