I love Nigella Lawson's mother

Regular readers will be aware that I hate the Daily Mail with every essence of my being (I find it vulgar, prejudiced, narrow-minded, incendiary, judgmental, mean-minded, suburban, ghastly, etc); and yet I am horribly addicted to their ghastly 'web-site' which I have (unwittingly) set to the womens' pages.

It has a terrible effect: every day I read about someone who is too fat or too thin, and look at photographs of that plump lady from EastEnders in lycra outfits; I look at pictures of the Queen Mother's ghastly teeth (and we wonder why people laugh at English teeth?) and scream at that awful crematorium-head Liz woman and her endless whingeing articles about her weight and her ex-husband.

And yet - what is this gem amongst the ca-ca? It is an interview with Charles Saatchi! I like him for lots of reasons (his advertising agencies and his art-fancying), but I particularly like him for marrying the chocolate-slurping hair-tossing ham-in-coke baking foxy Foxington, Nigella Lawson.

And in it, what do I find? I find this:


What advice do you and your wife give your children?

"Nigella's mum gave her an invaluable insight into nice behaviour. According to Nigella, her advice went something like this: 'It is better to be charmed than to charm'.

By this she meant that what makes people feel good about themselves is feeling as if they have been charming, interesting; in short, that you have been listened to.

For her, the notion that one should be riveting, or aim to be quite the most fascinating person in the room, was a vulgarity, and just sheer, misplaced vanity. Trying to be charming is selfindulgent; allowing oneself to be charmed is simply good manners."

Regular readers will also be aware that I am (to put it mildly) obsessed with the whole 'listening is good manners' thing, so you can imagine my glee!! If only 10% of the people I come across in my every work-type waking moment were aware of this simple fact, the world would be considerably more pleasant.

Pip pip!