TUESDAY
13 MARCH 2007 thelon
1969 The year The Sun was
relaunched as a tabloid
SOURCE: WWW.EUROCOSM.COM
BOOK OF THE WEEK I TABLOID LOVE
30s, single,
pen in hand CIRCE HAMILTON
Bridget Harrison is
now the deputy editor of
thelondonpaper. Tabloid
Love is a memoir of her
previous life as New York’s
real-life Carrie Bradshaw
The book is very honest about the
toughness of single life for modern
women. How hard was it to write a
book that was about you and not based
on a fictional character?
It’s a total nightmare being a single woman in
your thirties. On one side you’re having a wild,
independent time; on the other you’re quietly
panicking about whether you should be
settling down and whether you’ve fried your
ovaries. I wanted to write about all those hellish
things single women go through when they’re
dating, but for people to read it and know it
all really happened. Being brutally
honest in print is definitely nerve-
wracking but I wrote a column about
my dating life for the New York Post for
four years so I got used to it. From day
one, I was adamant that I should be truth-
ful with the readers – otherwise why should
they bother to read it? I wasn’t famous, I was SINGLE I Sex and the City UK style
like an“everygirl”, there to joke about all the
dire love situations that we all go through. feel intimidated! But that’s New York for you –
Sum up what you learned about dating appearance is everything and men are used to
in New York. well-groomed women, who are all perfectly
It’s a shark tank in which you have to be incred- coiffed and manicured. Scruffy British girls
ibly thick-skinned and force yourself to remain freak them out.
optimistic despite the morons you end up If you had to choose, would it be New
going on dates with. Much like London, then! York men or London lads?
What are New York men like to date? London lads, every time. They have a sense of
Here’s an example. There was one guy who, as I humour, are a lot less judgmental on the whole
nervously went to kiss him hello at our rendez- grooming thing, and, in general, don’t think it’s
vous outside a coffee shop, stepped back totally fine to be dating eight women at the
appalled and said: “You’re wearing that? Didn’t same time.
I say I was taking you somewhere classy?” That Did anyone you write about in the book
happened to be a sheer vintage shirt, skinny take it badly?
jeans and high heels. He proceeded to justify One ex-boyfriend is totally petrified that the
himself by saying the bar we were going to was book will be made into a film and he’ll be
full of “model types” and he didn’t want me to played by Colin Firth.
our review a boyfriend in a city when there are half a
million more women than men. She went
on dozens of dates with hilarious results.
TABLOID One told her that she could look good if only
LOVE she would make the effort. Another told her
BY BRIDGET he only dated women who smoked pot and
HARRISON liked dogs. One handed her a breath mint.
Bantam, £6.99 On top of her reporting duties, Harrison
began to write a column about her love life
FEW would have Then she fell for her boss, Jack, and they be-
the guts to give up a gan an affair which she relayed in detail in
good job and the her column. But although she changed his
boy they hoped to name, the subterfuge fooled no one at work
marry to move to with disastrous results.
the other side of Although there are tabloid tales, includ-
the Atlantic. ing a restaurateur who had his head
Bridget Harrison did just that. She was 29 chopped off by one of his waiters Tabloid Love
when she decided to pursue her dream to is at its best and at its funniest when
be a reporter on the New York Post, despite Harrison recalls her (many) dating disasters
knowing no one in the city and having and complete inability to understand
never actually worked as a reporter before. American men – or should that be men in
Soon she found herself alone, trying to snag general? PAUL DONNELLEY