We Love Romance Valentine's Event - Favourite Romance Day

 

 

Today’s the day to discuss our favourite romances - whether on paper or on the big screen. Before I start, remember you can win a Grand Prize of 10 e-books during the We Love Romance Valentine's event and also I am offering a £5 Amazon voucher and 5 individual e-copies of Sign of the Times to the lucky winners on my personal competition. Each of the 10 authors has a competition you can enter, so get clicking on the links above! Now, back to my post!

I didn’t really watch all the old black and white movies, and I’ve still not seen or read Gone With the Wind, hard to believe, isn’t it? No, my tastes are far more recent, or rather, in the past twenty years. There are loads of romantic comedies I adore, but for me Bridget Jones’s Diary is my absolute favourite, followed very closely afterwards by Love Actually, then Notting Hill. Bridget wins hands down because it’s both my favourite book and film of a romantic comedy. And to top it all, I am currently reading Mad About the Boy, better known as Bridget Jones 3.

So what makes Bridget Jones’s Diary special for me? I think it’s that she is normal. I can see many non-Brits eyes practically popping out of their eye sockets right now, but really we all know a Bridget. In fact, many of us have or have had facets of Bridget. I, myself, was nicknamed Bridget for a long time by work colleagues, as I am really quite ditzy. I was also being told how intelligent I was, but with absolutely no common sense. This has changed - marginally.

So what can I relate to in Bridget? It’s not wearing the bunny costume, that’s for sure, although I have been dressed as both a Dalmatian dog and the golden snitch from Harry Potter, with mixed results. I think the characteristic I relate to the most is the blue soup incident. Until my mid-twenties I could barely make beans on toast. Now I am ‘bonafide culinary goddess’ - well, not quite, but you can see how I slip easily into Bridget’s parlance!

I was also a little obsessive about my weight and used to weigh myself every day - and back then I was skinny. 10 months post-baby, I can no longer say that. So I can relate to Bridget’s diary entries, most notably ‘must lose 20 lbs!’

I , too, can relate to Bridget’s taxi escapade, when Bridget falls out of the taxi and Tom says ‘Drive on, she’s fine.’ I’ve also been known to ‘pour’ friends into the back of taxis - this is just the culture in Scotland, although I hasten to add this hasn’t happened for many years now!

And what about the romance in it? Well, who doesn’t love the moments where Daniel Cleaver emails Bridget ‘You seem to have forgotten your skirt. Is skirt off sick?’ And so commences a wonderfully funny game of flirting between the two.

My best picks featuring Daniel Cleaver are in no particular order -  

- the boating trip where he spouts Keats’ To Autumn, then straddles the two boats and falls in the water.

- when Bridget and Daniel pitch up at the hotel and Mark Darcy and Rebecca are in reception. Bridget, excited about her mini-break, has lost her head-scarf en route and has completely crazy hair.

- when Bridget and Daniel have just had sex and Bridget asks him what they will say to people in the office. Daniel says their ‘thing’ started on Tuesday and now it’s Thursday, and basically he gets around the whole issue by threatening to do something playful to Bridget, who then says ‘that’s actually illegal in some countries’ to which Daniel replies ‘ that’s why I am so thrilled to be living in Britain today.’

- Bridget on cloud nine post-coitus walking through the streets with a smile like a Cheshire cat, whilst billboards pronounce the status of her sex life in diary entry form.

- oh and let’s not forget the big knickers episode - come to Mumma!

But for me, it’s Mark Darcy or rather, Colin Firth who is why BJD is my favourite rom com movie. He’s such a stiff, upper lip, cold fish, but then all of a sudden he isn’t. I liked the cheeky chappie who made out of character remarks about Bridget playing in his paddling pool naked, to which the stuck-up, Rebecca said ‘Really, how odd.’

Second runner up in the favourite Mark Darcy moments has to be when he helps Bridget to cook for the dinner party, after she answers the door to him covered in food, after her attempts to cook don’t pan out (pun intended)

And my second favourite Mark Darcy moment has to be when he rushes down the stairs after Bridget at the appalling dinner party and says ‘I like you,’ and she says ‘yes, right, apart from the vulgar mother, the smoking, etc’  And he says, ‘No, I like you, JUST THE WAY YOU ARE’. Bridget, at a loss for words, finally says, ‘Right’ and Mark Darcy disappears back upstairs, leaving Bridget flabbergasted, but happy.

And my all-time favourite moment has to be as I am sure it is for most other people, when Mark reads Bridget’s diary and reads the entry about himself, ‘No wonder his wife left him. I hate him, I hate him, I hate him,’ then he hotfoots it to buy her another diary. When she chases after him and he envelops her in his jacket - well, for me that was enough in itself, quite frankly! But more was to come in the form of their kiss and Bridget saying ‘Nice boys don’t kiss like that’ and Mark saying ‘Oh yes they f***ing do.’  Polite, sophisticated, tall, gorgeou,s and with a little bit of a rebel to him - perfect man.

So, you see, choosing Bridget Jones’s Diary was easy for me. There really is no other movie that to my mind can measure up, or whose lines and scenes I know so well. It’s also the first movie I saw with my other half, so is particularly significant. Not sure he was so delighted about my drooling over Hugh Grant and Colin Firth, mind you!

So, what are your favourite rom com scenes and why? Would love to hear all about them

To enter the giveaways, please click here and scroll down to the 2 separate Rafflecopter forms, for more chances to win.
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Tune in tomorrow for Fiction Friday
 

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