Summer Summer Summertime

The lavender is in full bloom, the grass is turning yellow and the pool is warm enough to swim in which can only mean one thing. After the soggiest and most unpredictable spring in recent years, summer has finally arrived. This was heralded by the Fete de St Jean last weekend, celebrating the summer solstice, when hundreds of locals and visitors congregated in Place de la Tour in the centre of the village to watch a spectacular fireworks display which took place against the backdrop of the gorge and would have given Ally Pally a run for its money. Just a few carafes of wine were drunk at the Donjon and the mood was convivial until our friendly village policeman arrived in the early hours of Sunday morning to politely persuade us that it was time to go home. I wear this as a badge of honour rather than disgrace.

The partying had started in earnest last Thursday with the Ogilvy Mather event at the Martinez beach club, one of the highlights of the Cannes Lions advertising festival. Franz Ferdinand played and much to the girls' delight, Sarah, chief fixer, party planner and PR extraordinaire, arranged for them to go backstage and meet the band while the more mature girls amongst us (me, Milly, Karin and Mel) were content to boogie on down to Rob Da Bank's brilliant DJ set.

The glamour is in stark contrast to this week, as I make lists about lists to ensure that everything is shipshape and sorted in time for us to head off like extras from My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding next week with cases and dogs jammed into the car on our seven week European road trip. The girls are already planning how many bags/pairs of shoes/bikinis they can fit into the boot (where did they get that gene from I wonder), which leaves me and Handyman on course to share one small holdall between us. Now that the house is finally finished after a marathon five year renovation project, we have to transform it from a comfortable chaotic family home into a chic boutique pad as the holidaymakers arrive and we head west to Biarritz, arriving just in time for the Roxy Pro Surf championships. Let's just say with two teenagers, certain bedrooms like mine and the spare room are an easier task than others, naming no names.

With that in mind, Uncle Gaz arrives on Sunday, the only member of my extended family who is possibly more OCD than I am, to clean the oven (last year he threatened to post 'before' pics of it on Facebook, but life is too short to clean an oven or stuff a mushroom, isn't it?) help me pack up and generally pull everything together in organised (military boot camp) fashion. I'm not sure whether it bodes well that straight after I pick him up from Nice we are off to brunch, a monthly Sunday event that a few of us have recently started which usually ends quite jovially with no riotous behaviour whatsoever around supper time. Last year, UG, as he is known, provided many hours of entertainment in the car en route to Spain following some rather cheeky vodka jelly shots but in his defence, that was after he had finished the cleaning, not before he started.

I am planning to blog on the best bits of our road trip, so for any of you lucky readers heading to Biarritz, Puglia and Antibes, watch this space. I am signing off with a picture of the Fete de St Jean...is it just me or is that a giant cockerel being burned in the middle of the boules court?

Cockerel on fire

The Real Deal at Cannes

I was going to write about the joys of post Film Festival life this week, notwithstanding being stung by a huge jellyfish in Saint Tropez at the weekend (I am now sporting a third boob…attractive.) But as the most asked question of the last month has been ‘Go on Kazza, give us all the goss on Film Festival,’ here is the real deal (and if I wasn’t fussed about being accredited for next year, there would be a lot more juice.)

A scantily clad waitress is holding aloft a huge chocolate birthday cake ablaze with candles as she’s carried cross legged on a silver platter by six fit waiters high above the crowd at Nikki Beach to the sounds of Stevie Wonder's Happy Birthday to mark the birthday of one of Eva Longoria's VIP party. Girls who look suspiciously like they have been paid to look like party animals are dancing on tables alongside which rest magnums of Moet & Chandon in huge ice buckets.

It can only be Cannes, the craziest, most excessive film festival in the world, to which Hollywood’s A list decamp from Los Angeles for two weeks every May to party like mad on the Côte d’Azur. So what is it really like to have access all areas at the most talked about event in the celebrity social calendar?

I’ve been covering the festival for six years and while it’s been suggested that Cannes is losing its glam factor, you only had to be at Calvin Klein’s chic beach party watching a black leather clad Nicole Kidman make a show stopping entrance to realise that definitely isn't the case. With a table at amfAR costing €120,000 for ten guests and red carpet premiere tickets changing hands for €3,000 a seat, you need deep pockets or a certain degree of fame - or infamy - to come here.

It’s not all glamour, however, and behind the scenes competition to get a few measly quotes from the red carpet is fierce. At Swiss watch brand IWC Shaffhausen, manners are in short supply as journalists, film crews and photographers jostle for the best position as guests arrive for a gala dinner at the exclusive Hotel du Cap Eden-Roc, where the most lavish parties of the festival, including de Grisogono and the amfAR AIDS Benefit, take place. It’s also where Leonardo DiCaprio promoted Cannes opener The Great Gatsby, giving five minute interviews to the world's press. (The deal was they had to return the following day to interview the rest of the cast in order to get their tapes of Leo’s interview.)

Back to the red carpet, and I get elbowed in the face by one desperate French TV reporter eager to get to the front in the hope of a few words with the A list arrivals. It almost seems worth it as we have been promised Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro and Cate Blanchett in a tip sheet from the PR a few days earlier. The reality is not quite the same league - Jamiroquai’s Jay Kay, model Karolina Kurkova and Grey’s Anatomy actor Eric Dane, who was flown in specially, naturally sporting one of the company’s watches, before being flown back to America a day later.

It's not just about celebrities either. Drinks brands Ciroc, Moet & Chandon and Belvedere spend hundreds of thousands of pounds sponsoring parties and hiring superyachts – jury president Steven Spielberg’s Seven Seas was the ultimate this year, with its own private screening theatre - to throw lavish cocktail parties to raise their profile. The Johnnie Walker Blue Label yacht hosted Martin Scorsese and Leo DiCaprio, his father George and stepmother Peggy, creating column inches that money alone just can't buy.

Belvedere threw one of the most talked about parties of the fortnight at VIP Room, flying in Run DMC's Reverend Run to DJ to a crowd including a flirty and reportedly newly single Liam Hemsworth and Solange Knowles. Important note: the drinks were only on the house for celebrities - so while Liam got a free ice bucket of cold beer, everyone else had to pay, (and at €45 for a glass of champagne and a vodka and Red Bull, you learn to drink slowly.) The naked fire-eater, dancing dwarves and trapeze artists hanging from the ceiling made up for it I guess.

I took my 18-year-old daughter Livvy along, after she begged, pleaded and cajoled to be allowed to come to a proper film festival party. I called it a day at two rounds (yep, €90) only for us to be invited into the VVIP area by a 31-year-old New York magazine publisher with the immortal words: ‘Why wait at the bar when you can drink for free with us?’ We joined him and his friends who were ‘something big in Bollywood.’ They were knocking back magnums of Belvedere vodka and Dom Perignon and while they were very generous, it soon became clear that there was another agenda. As we went to leave at 4am after what I can’t deny turned out to be a great night, he tried to persuade me to leave Livvy behind, telling me: ‘Your daughter is HOT.’ Like that was going to work.

With dozens of parties every night and each one vying to attract the classiest calibre of guests, the longer celebs stay at your bash, the more successful it is deemed. Many make a brief appearance for the cameras before quietly slipping away in their search for the coolest party of the night.

The borrowed jewels lent to A listers come with their own bodyguards although this didn't stop thieves making off with a reported €1m heist of Chopard gems from a Cannes hotel safe on the same night as the company’s Trophée party at the Martinez. Clearly, there were plenty more baubles to go round as Cara Delevingne was spotted shaking a priceless 18 carat white gold and diamond Chopard necklace and squealing: ‘Look at this, look at this!’ as she showed it off to fellow guests. She was unable to head off to another party with fellow supermodel Laura Bailey as she was required to stay at the party as an ambassador for the brand, although she later appeared at the Calvin Klein soiree a couple of miles further down the Croisette.

You know you have made it if you are invited to the Chopard Lounge on the seventh floor of the celebs base of choice, the Martinez. Their rooftop spa was transformed into a luxurious private club, with oversized sofas, fresh roses and jasmine and chill-out music playing. Waiters deliver glasses of pink Champagne, platters of fresh fruit and canapés (sushi is the A list favourite as it’s low cal) to celebrity and VIP guests. There is an eyebrow and lash tinting room run by Paris’s queen of brows Sabrina of Un Jour Un Regard, who was flown in from the French capital to tend to Nicole Kidman, Cara Delevingne and Marion Cotillard. The Mavala manicurist from London offers manis and pedis and just along the corridor is the L'Oreal hair lounge where you can have a pre-red carpet blow-dry and makeover. No money changes hands, these are free services to a1nyone lucky enough to boast a coveted pink Chopard access badge around their necks.

The press pass is also colour co-ordinated but doesn’t bring such high end delights. White and rose are the most highly regarded, giving VIP access to press screenings, increased likelihood of a red carpet premiere ticket and preferred access to the press conferences, while blue and yellow mean a scrabble for everything as you are last in line for screenings and press conferences, even if you have spent an hour in the queue (guess which colour mine was? Yep, yellow!) There are around 4,000 accredited journalists at the Film Festival, but the largest screening theatre holds less than 1,000 people and the press conference room a mere couple of hundred. Do the maths and you can see why tempers start to fray.

There is also a sliding scale of talent with Nicole, Leo, jury president Steven Spielberg, Carey Mulligan, Justin Timberlake and his wife Jessica Biel topping the invitation lists for the hottest parties while Sid Owen, Spencer Matthews and Nancy Dell’Olio were left to make their own entertainment.

However good the parties are, sometimes stars just want to go under the radar. The Great Gatsby’s Carey Mulligan – spotted enjoying a cosy lunch with Justin Timberlake at the Michelin pop up Electrolux Agora Pavilion following their press screening of Inside Llewyn Davis – went with Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire to the family-run Michelangelo Italian restaurant in Antibes, a favourite of Brad and Angelina's, for a cosy and low key supper party on the second night of the festival.

Most moving moment was when Michael Douglas – who is phenomenal as Liberace in Behind The Candelabra – broke down in tears at the film’s press conference as he spoke of his joy at being back at work after his throat cancer battle, earning heartfelt applause from the usually hardened critics and writers.

But no matter how famous you are, sometimes it cuts no ice with French security, as Harvey Weinstein, producer of The Kings Speech and The Artist, discovered when they failed to recognise him at the Calvin Klein door and told him to wait (he stayed in his car until they let him in). And Lady Victoria Hervey suffered the ultimate celebrity humiliation when she was blasted by an irate security guard for hogging the red carpet after repeatedly being told to ‘move on’ at the Blood Ties premiere (which she wasn’t in.) That’s showbiz honey!

Cannes

So there I was at the Martinez pool bar in the sunshine with glass of Taittinger in hand, a pre amfAR apero. I was made up, coiffed and party prepped for the red carpet by the L'Oreal team of professional stylists and make up artists, which is just as well as I was sitting with a table of supermodels, including Milla Jovavich, Isabeli Fontana and Bianca Balti. Kylie was lounging around in the bar with her boyfriend in jeans, a T shirt and not a scrap of make up....and still she looked amazing!

Leaving the Martinez in a fleet of festival cars to head to the Eden-Roc and THE party of the festival, the amfAR Cinema Against Aids gala, with a police escort and roads closed to let us through, was a little surreal. The night itself lived up to expectations, not least because it finally stopped raining. You can read all the goss, including how Leo DiCaprio raised €4million at the auction with a trip to space, in this week's Hello magazine....buy it NOW!

My highlights.....Behind The Candelabra, an excellent biopic for HBO about Liberace in which Michael Douglas and Matt Damon are totally believable as gay men with a soundtrack straight out of Studio 54 circa 1977. It has it all, glitz, glamour and great acting from M&M. Just a shame that Michael won't be eligible for an Oscar as it is one of the finest performances of his career.

Also, The Great Gatsby, which is attracting mixed reviews but which I loved. See it for the costumes and party scenes alone but LDC also makes a great Jay Gatsby. At his private party here two years ago, Leo put in a brief appearance surrounded by his entourage who were watching his back while the beautiful people ate, drank and danced on the terrace of his rented super villa in Cannes Californie. Watching him on screen brought back memories of that night. Gatsby is big, brash and just what you would expect of Baz Luhrmann, which is not a criticism.

And the parties, oh the parties.....Calvin Klein, on the beach at L'Ecrin, as torrents of rain lashed down on us, rendering the beautiful stretch of sand there utterly surplus to requirements. Chopard Trophee, where all the celebrity guests dripped in borrowed diamonds (Cara Delevingne was particularly excited about her enormous diamond pendant), Belevdere, with the dancing dwarves, naked tattooed fire-eaters and magnums of Dom Perignon and last but definitely not least, amfAR, where Sharon Stone proved that at 55, she can still rock it in white Cavalli, as you can see from the picture above, and turn every head in the room.

The Chopard suite on the rooftop of the Martinez was pretty special. A waiter handed me a glass of pink champagne on arrival and the best lash lady in Paris, Sabrina from Un Jour Un Regard, did my eyebrows and lashes (I didn't say it was all work.)

And so was the Michelin pop up at the Palais, where two star chef Bruno Oger, who cooked for Steven Spielberg, Nicole Kidman and Leonardo DiCap after the opening of Gatsby, rustled up a stunning six course lunch for me and a few other lucky journos at the chef's table in his amazing kitchen at the Electrolux Agora Pavilion.

The lowlights? Lack of sleep for two weeks and the bloody rain. Forget the goodie bags, nice as they were, it was an umbrella you needed at all times for Cannes 2013.

La vie en Rose

As Cannes Film Festival approaches, my dilemma is what to wear. The last few hot sunny days have kidded us all that summer has finally arrived and bikinis and kaftans have been de rigeur chez Kershaw with jumpers and jeans stuffed to the back of the wardrobe to make room for silk T shirts, floaty shifts and shorts. Now the forecast is predicting torrential downpours over the next three days, making the prospect of cocktails at Nikki Beach not quite as appealing as they should be.

Attending glam soirees all done up like a dogs dinner is one thing but being rained on as you leg it and skid along the Croisette in ridiculous heels looking like a drowned ferret while the great and the good emerge from their dry chauffeur driven limos is another. Are you feeling sorry for me yet?

 The Great Gatsby opens the festival tomorrow, with the press screening ahead of the starry premiere tomorrow evening. Leo DiCap (I feel I can abbreviate now that we are virtually old buddies having rubbed shoulders at his private villa party two years ago), Carey Mulligan (who would be my choice to play me in a film of my life, I'm sure she would jump at the chance), Tobey Maguire and Baz Luhrmann will be posing on the steps of the Palais des Festivals while us mere mortals bask in their dazzling reflected glory.

Then there are the party invites which are currently piling into my inbox.....Calvin Klein, Chopard, Belvedere, Eva Longoria's gala dinner, to mention  few not forgetting Judy's friend's birthday supper, which will be every bit as good as the celeby bashes, if not better....it will take more than a few showers to dampen the party atmosphere this year.

Before the rain arrives, I snapped the picture above as whatever the weather, the garden is in full blossom...the orange trees, jasmine, climbing roses, grapefruit trees and even the viney weedy thing that usually really annoys me growing up our terrace are all blooming and their heady scents fill the air.

The perfume is the first thing I notice every morning when I get up to check on Earl/Steve McQueen. He hops around the olive trees every morning looking in rude health. I saw my neighbour Rosine last week and she asked, vous avez un lapin qui vit dans votre jardin? I explained that he had escaped from his two storey townhouse hutch and she told me that in the past few weeks he has eaten all of her blette and courgettes and has just started on the leeks. Eek.

I have been taking Special K, spinach, rocket, apples and carrots down for breakfast and dinner to feed him up so that he doesn't feel the need to raid her vegetable patch. He is now so confident when he sees me arrive with his organic picnic box that he races towards me like a demented puppy eager to tuck in. After his feast, he has taken to lying by the hammock (not in it) snoozing in the sunshine with his back legs stretched out. I'm still deciding whether the next picture I post should be Leo DiCap in his tux tomorrow night or Steve McQueen relishing his great escape.

Gastronomy in Bar

When we bought a house in Bar sur Loup almost five years ago, it was a sleepy little mountain village with a few shops, popular mainly with walkers and summer sports enthusiasts and despite the name, no bar. Today it is fast turning into a mini centre of gastronomic excellence. This usually happens to places just as we leave. Docklands was a vast expanse of yuppie (remember them?) housing developments surrounded by wasteland when we bought our first flat there in the late 1980s. Crouch End was starting to buzz in the early 1990s and Totteridge waited until we moved out before allowing a string of very decent eateries (not forgetting M&S) along the high street. When le Donjon opened last week, I thought it was cute to name it after the owner Donald and his better half Jonathan, but it derives from the building's first purpose as a 14th century village jail. There is nothing prison-like about the food however, with a blackboard of local seasonal specials, in much the same way as Ecole des Filles do things, but for half the price (€30 a head for two courses and wine, I kid you not.) Added to which the owner and chef, a charming man called Thomas, used to cook at EdF with their chef extraordinaire Stephane. The atmosphere is cosy and intimate, the setting is a wine cave-like space and service is prompt and friendly so it deserves to do brilliantly. Handyman is especially pleased as it also serves as the village bar. Thomas and his wife Christine have a daughter called Norah who is obsessed with dogs - mine had three extra walks each with her during dinner after which they ambled home and promptly crashed out. As did we after a delicious meal of fresh asparagus in a cream reduction, arrancini (little fried balls of rice with a ragu sauce), prawn risotto and the best home made cheeseburger Issy has had in France. Along with Ecole des Filles, which I have waxed lyrical about many times before as it is my favourite restaurant in the world where you can play a game of boules before or after dinner, Le Jarerrie, Michelangelo pizzeria, run by the delightful Eric and Corinne, and the stunningly situated Michelin starred Hostellerie du Chateau next door to Le Donjon, Bar sur Loup is making a name for itself as the place to eat, whether it's fine or casual dining you are looking for. People now drive from Nice and beyond to have dinner here, giving nearby Mougins a run for its money where quality and innovation are concerned. And best of all, there is not one tourist shop, it is a real, working village in the heart of a valley (see above) famed for its oranges with a brilliant community spirit. Now if we could just get someone to take over Boulangerie Maia and open a butcher and greengrocers, we would be laughing. Coming back from Barbados last week was always going to be a comedown but with Cannes Film Festival around the corner and the promise of great films, a glittering A list in attendance and some seriously amazing parties, I can't feel too down. While I was away, Earl, our visiting rabbit on hiatus from Tony and Shan's, managed to tunnel out of his hutch on the terrace below the house and scarper. We have changed his name to Steve McQueen and first thing most mornings, he can be spotted hopping about among the olive trees enjoying his new found freedom, as long as he avoids the kestrels and eagles which fly overhead. He can already outrun the dogs much to their frustration, which is encouraging.

Whoo I'm going to Barbados

Actually I'm already here. I'm sitting by an infinity pool on a hill above the west coast during a shoot.....I know, I know, it's a bum deal but that's work for you. Sometimes you just have to take a deep breath and get on with it. At least I'm able to share it with you in today's photo. We have hung out with Dannii and Cilla watching Bajan drag queens in Holetown, belted out My Way and Sweet Caroline at top volume with Cilla at Lexy's piano bar and yesterday it was a chatty lunch with Elle Macpherson about the new season of Britain and Ireland's Next Top Model. So far, so gorgeous. Bumped into Bradley Walsh at breakfast, who is taking a well earned break after finishing the most recent series of Law and Order. You can easily see why Barbados is such a popular destination. The laidback manana vibe makes you relax instantly, the friendliness is legendary and the background noise is the chatter of parrots, cicadas and gently lapping waves. There is also a pretty amazing choice when it comes to restaurants....Lone Star offers a tasty menu on the site of an old garage with an open verandah for dining that looks straight onto the beach. It's chi chi and cool and rare that you don't spot a celeb at some point during lunch or dinner. Daphne's, the sister to the London outpost, serves spectacular Italian food with a Caribbean twist. Then there is Ragamuffins in Holetown, a Bajan institution which offers simple West Indian fare, including blow your socks off curries and spicy stir fries as well as the aforementioned drag act on a Sunday night. The queens were at least 6ft 5 in their heels and blasted out Madonna, Shirley Bassey and numerous other disco anthems including Kylie's Love at First Sight, much to Dannii's delight. Other delights include sundowner pina coladas on the beach, a pod of whales including a mother and baby visible just off the shore and barefoot beach runs in the morning. Mmmmmm. The trip came hot on the heels of a fun few days in London mixing work with pleasure and Livvy's 18th birthday weekend, which went with a bang. Highlights included cooking an Indian banquet for a dozen of her best friends, which started with a bang as Handyman joined them for tequila shots before we were forced to leave them to it, a blistering performance at Cody Chestnutt's Nice gig and a birthday lunch at my favourite Italian in Cannes, da Laura. Thank goodness for Cannes Film Festival next month as there just isn't enough glamour going on right now!

Spike

This is the story of Spike. As a naughty cheeky kitten, he used to run up the sides of my dressing gown while I made breakfast looking for trouble (him, not me.) Half Abyssinian, he grew into a beautiful sleek grey feline who liked to chat all day long. If you said 'Spike', no matter what your tone of voice, he would answer with a 'yes?' type of miaow. Spike's greatest passion was hunting. The times I arrived home to find all manner of dead wildlife be it mouse, vole, rat, once even a rabbit on the doorstep are too numerous to mention. He also liked to bring me a present when I was least expecting it, like the time I was lying on the floor of my office doing a phone interview with a supermodel in Paris and a little grey dormouse popped its head up inches from mine, leading to a mid interview meltdown and me leaping on my desk screaming while Spike tried in vain to catch it. I like to think we saved as many small creatures as he killed, so inept was he at keeping them as soon as he brought them through the catflap. I would get Handyman to set a humane trap, catch the little blighter and let him go in the paddock at the end of our garden, while Spike looked on to see if he could make a better effort second time around. When we made the hot interminable journey from the UK to the South of France with Spike and his sister Lottie, who is as quiet and calm as he was crazy, he spent the entire journey howling in his cage in the back of the car. He hated being cooped up or trapped and was in and out of the house dozens of times a day. On sunny days, he would come and sit by the pool, perched on the end of my sun lounger, stretched out lapping up the rays. When it got too hot for him, he had a den in the bushes by the palm tree where he would curl up in the dust for a siesta. He even loved rain, as the myriad of muddy footprints from our back door testified. Last night, as we laid by his side waiting for the vet to come - he had recently developed chronic arthritis, an unfortunate result of his very active 11 years, which had moved into his spinal cord and was having trouble walking so the time had come to do the right thing - we recalled our favourite memories of him. Mine was the fact that whenever we went on holiday, no matter how long we were away for, when we arrived home and drove up the drive, Spike would always be sitting there waiting to greet us effusively. The girls loved the memory of him being regularly tucked up in Issy's doll's pushchair when she was a toddler, wrapped in baby blankets with just his head visible, and wheeled around the house. Bizarrely, he loved this and never tried to escape, lying there like a swaddled newborn, until one day he decided he'd had enough and leapt out of the parked buggy and landed on Issy's head while she ate breakfast. Handyman remembers him shinning up the bamboo last summer like a very fit squirrel. When the dogs arrived five years ago, Spike still ruled the roost, and took to lounging on the top step of the staircase, superior in the knowledge that Tallullah, our mini schnauzer, wouldn't dare to try and come past for fear of a swipe. Oscar, on the other hand, had plenty of spats with him but never managed to get the upper hand and grudgingly conceded defeat on being top dog. Top dog was always Spike and he knew it. He is already much missed, so much so that I can't bring myself to mop away the last of his muddy footprints. The house feels quieter and emptier without him. We are going to bury him today under the olive tree that he used to love climbing, while he explores whatever new turf he is now king of.