Toffs And "Talkings To"

I’ve never actually met my partner’s cousin (who shall remain nameless). He lives on the other side of the world and I have only ever communicated with him via Skype and, more recently, Facetime. That is to say, I usually poke my head into shot, wave to him and say a few words over my partner’s shoulder. I did, however, (having imbibed quite a few glasses of Pinot one night) “encourage” him to download Trouble At Toff Towers; he very kindly obliged and we haven’t spoken to him since…

…but he has spoken to me. Oh yes. He left me a Skype video message. And, credit where credit is due, he made every effort to look nice for the occasion. During the first few minutes of the message he made a great show of flattening down his hair and making sure it was tidy. In fact he carefully examined it from every conceivable angle. And then he began to talk about the book. “That book!” he said. He shook his head. He tutted. “Yes, that book! It is a book, isn’t it”! This wasn’t a question. It was a statement. A statement expressed with a mixture of outrage, horror, bewilderment, disbelief and yes – anger!

I was completely stunned at this point and started to laugh in a sort of hysterical way. He went on. “That woman. The woman in the book. She’s not…”, he was struggling now, unable to get the words out. There followed more tutting and head shaking before he managed to splutter, “She’s not…she’s not…she’s not YOU is she”?

I thought I would never stop laughing. As the book is written in diary format I suppose I can forgive him for thinking it might have been autobiographical. Imagine thinking you’d found out your cousin was living with Louisa Toff - it must have come as quite a shock!

I did remark on Twitter recently that having created her sometimes makes me feel like Dr Frankenstein. But is she really such a monster?