I loved reading and I thought it would be rather nice to write one's own book she said When you read it's an

I loved reading and I thought it would be rather nice to write one's own book," she said "When you read, it's an escape and you get really involved. I wondered if you got more lost in this world you were creating yourself - and I found that you did."Only minutes after learning of her victory, she had not yet decided what she would spend the £10,000 prize on "But I don't want to fritter it away on boring things. "I'd got used to being the bridesmaid and never the bride."When she was sitting writing in her study, she never considered what genre she was writing in - although early reviewers had labelled her work "romantic comedies" her recent work had been anything but."I just write stories about relationships," she said.James began writing as a hobby to see whether she could succeed 14 years ago "I was a stay-at-home mother with two young children. She is the author of 10 previous novels."It's extraordinary," she said after her win.

Gardens of Delight entices you into a consistent, well-drawn world with credible characters from all walks of life and every age group It is outstandingly well written and also very moving. And at £6.99 in paperback, it's a cheap way to get to Italy!"James, who is single, grew up in Hampshire and has since lived in Oxford, Yorkshire and Belgium, before settling in Cheshire with her two sons. In a statement they said: "We were looking for a romantic novel of high quality and were unanimous about our winner. But the trip turns out to be more than horticultural, with three romances springing up and running riot.Announcing the result at a lunch at the Savoy Hotel, London, yesterday, Jenny Haddon, chair of the Romantic Novelists' Association, said: "It is particularly pleasing that this year's award goes to Gardens of Delight, by Erica James, who has been shortlisted four times before."She beat 210 other entries chosen for consideration by a panel of more than 100 members of the public, including reading groups.But the choice of winner was unanimous, according to the judges, Dr Susan Horsewood-Lee; Sue Baker from Publishing News, and Matt Bates, fiction buyer at WH Smith Travel. The 46-year-old writer beat a shortlist including previous winners, Jojo Moyes and Audrey Howard, and a rare male contender, Nicholas Sparks, to take the annual prize with her novel, Gardens of Delight. It follows the members of a village garden club on a tour to Lake Como in Italy to visit the more celebrated gardens of the area. She has been nominated four times before but Erica James finally overcame the opposition to clinch the £10,000 award for Romantic Novel of the Year. A version of this review has already appeared in some editions.

Mind you, the last time I heard that piece of wishful thinking from the mouth of a politician, I wasn't entirely convinced.Touring to 29 July ( www.theambassadors ). While Mayall tried valiantly to hold his own, the star of the evening was Marsha Fitzalan, successfully reprising her role as B'Stards tarty, underhand wife, so much so that you feel she hits the same register that she did in the television series.It's very early days in this mammoth 86-date tour, so surely things can only get better. Tonight, Mayall's older B'Stard is no wiser but lacks that trademark devilish twinkle, the appetite for the fray perhaps like the very man he is meant to be mocking.Plots and subplots fly hither and thither, but like the 2001 general election, it doesn't seem to matter. However, at the height of his powers B'Stard was also enjoyed at face value; his 1980s excess was attractive almost in the same way that Harry Enfield's Loadsamoney was.

When they come, the gags are often old news: "I'm not responsible for John Prescott's travel arrangements," says B'Stard when another character feeds him the line "pigs might fly".Inevitably, with such an experienced writing and performing team there are some nice one-liners, mainly on the subject of B'Stard's sexual appetite (on the issue of unmarried mothers: "You can't blame them all on me") or his actual under-par performance in the bedroom.Mayall relishes playing B'Stard and says that he likes that this unwholesome character is laughed at and not laughed with. But while his TV persona allows for B'Stard to scheme and schmooze, on stage he is restricted to an office set.Overall the rhythm of the show is a, well, laboured round of set-up, pause, joke. Sadly their attempt to transfer The New Statesman from the small screen is a case of New Labour, No Laughter. In the show, B'Stard resides at No 9 Downing Street, pulling the strings like an unholy mix of Peter Mandelson and Alistair Campbell; it was he who engineered the demise of Clause 4 and he who attempted to plant WMD in Iraq to pave the way for invasion, and so on. Twenty years on, the 48-year-old comedian and his writers, Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran, would no doubt like to imagine that having their character defect to New Labour would make for similarly effective barbs against Blairism.