What I Like About You...
Sun 28 Jul 2002
written by Erin McElhinney

THE first time I met Louise, I just remember being aware of this impish presence in the corner of the room. I vaguely recognised her, and I thought at first that perhaps I knew her from school - and me an ex-arts journalist! I had never heard any of Louise’s music though, and I think she found it quite refreshing to become friends with someone who didn’t see her as ‘that woman from Sleeper’. I’ve seen grown men genuflect at her feet, but she takes it all in her stride. Louise is just hoping they buy her book.

We bonded over a shared adolescent trauma of repeatedly failing at the WH Smith ‘win a pony’ competition, and I have never met anyone else who had done so. As soon as I saw Louise, I knew she was someone I wanted to be friends with. She has a sense of humour that I share; quite male and grubby. Together we’ve developed a cocktail habit. We sit on bar stools and drink until we fall off laughing, whilst the sales reps in their suits all look at us as if we’re mad.

On paper, we really shouldn’t get on at all, especially as Louise was burned by journalists during her Sleeper days, but also because we have very different lifestyles. She leads the kind of urban life that I would have ended up with had I not had children. I think we look at each other’s lives rather like a zoo, where you take a walk through and admire, but don’t stay. I often say to Louise that I act as a contraceptive device for her, with my stories of puke and early rising.

She was portrayed as a bit of a lad, very brash, by music journalists, but really she is very quietly spoken, doesn’t shoot her mouth off, very intelligent and - she’ll hate me for saying this - just very nice. A great deal of female authors are actually very bitchy about each other, but I feel I can say anything to Louise and I know that it will not go any further. She is terrific, loyal, I trust her implicitly. She is a perfectionist and we have exchanged hundreds of e-mails filled with anxiety - we provide a pressure valve for each other. And because we’re so different it’s good to have her opinion, which I respect enormously, as I feel she does with mine. Just recently she asked me what I thought of a title she had chosen for her second book and I had to tell her I didn’t like it. I then spent the whole day feeling wretched before ringing her later that night to apologise, but Louise just said, "No, you were right, don’t be silly."

A good friend of mine says you can separate the world into drains and radiators; those who drain you and those who warm you up. Louise is always fun, she’s my radiator.

LOUISE WENER 35, author