Anouchka Grose

Anouchka Grose, author of No More Silly Love Songs, spills the beans on her favourite smell.

Anouchka Grose

1. When were you happiest?

Tomorrow.

2. What is your principal defect?

Getting in a flap for absolutely no reason. And trying to reduce everything to a joke.

3. What makes you depressed?

Getting into arguments I can’t seem to get out of.

4. What do you most dislike about your appearance?

I still gets spots, aged forty.

5. What is your favourite word?

I have two: ‘Dot’ and ‘Martin’.

6. What is your most unappealing habit?

I tried asking around but my friends wouldn’t give me a straight answer. Maybe my worst habit is expecting other people to answer questions I ought to be able to answer myself. Or maybe it’s repeating the funny things my daughter says. She gets really cross.

7. What is your favourite smell?

Woolite.

8. What is your guiltiest pleasure?

Watching X Factor — and voting.

9. Who are your favourite writers?

Muriel Spark and Sigmund Freud. And I love reading autobiographies — the more nutty and self-obsessed the better. Isadora Duncan is brilliant. And Christian Dior, Diana Vreeland and Dorothy Dandridge. I’ve heard the Robbie Williams one is great too. Andy Warhol’s Philosophy from A to B and Back is very funny. I think I must like writers who aren’t writers.

10. What is the worst job you've done?

Making lampshades when I was seventeen and had dropped out of school. It was in a basement with no windows. There was a handful of depressed women and a male boss who made constant suggestive comments. It was marginally more interesting than school though.

11. When did you last cry, and why?

About a fortnight ago when I was leaving my boyfriend’s house at seven thirty in the morning and I noticed, again, what a brilliant person he is. It freaked me out a bit.

12. What do you most value in your friends?

I like people who speak eloquently about difficult feelings. And people who ask good questions.

13. What gift would you most like to possess?

I’d like to be more musical.

14. What was your most embarrassing moment?

My whole life. I get embarrassed very easily, but I like it.

15. What is your most treasured possession?

I couldn’t live without a bicycle, but they’re easily replaced. And I have lots of vintage clothes that I’m quite attached to. But I like people much better than things — and you can’t possess them.

16. What is the worst thing anyone's said to you?

They never say it to your face.

17. If you could edit your past, what would you change?

There was a girl at school who had some terrible stuff going on at home and I wish I could have helped her. I’d like to edit her past, but maybe she’s OK with it.

18. If you could go back in time, where would you go?

The Big Bang must have looked spectacular. But where would you watch it from?

19. What is your greatest fear?

Bad things happening to the people I love, and plane crashes.

20. What is the most important lesson life has taught you?

Just to love and be loved in return. Not that I’ve actually got the hang of it yet.