Matthew Bell tries to hang out with Mrs Clooney... 

Rex Features

Amal, Amas, Amat. She came, she saw, she conquered. Sorry if the Latin's a bit muddled, but that's what happens when you take too much amal nitrate - your head starts spinning. The world has gone gaga for Amal Clooney, née Alamuddin, the 37-year-old barrister who specialises in international criminal law and human rights - and who did what no man or woman had previously thought possible: married George Clooney. She's brainy, she's beautiful and she's everywhere, from Ibiza to the International Criminal Court. 

But Amal has adopted a Kate Moss strategy on interviews. In other words, they don't happen. Not even a hand-delivered letter to her legal practice in Bloomsbury is enough to winkle her out of her shell. You can't fault her manners though - a charming assistant writes straight back with a polite thanks-but-no and wishes us well with our endeavours. Fact is, she's busy fighting human-rights abuses, or having lunch with David Miliband in Los Angeles. She's preparing briefs for Kofi Annan and Julian Assange. This is a woman who can end George Clooney's bachelor days, don't forget. Achieving global peace is a picnic. 

So what does the world of a modern superwoman look like? For one thing, it's not all about George. Since that wedding in Venice, Amal has not given in to a new life in the A-list über- sphere, but has gone backto work. She has, however, made two small but extremely important adjustments. She has given up smoking - and she has given up lateness. Not that she's become in any way square. She was always an enthusiastic presence at college bops in her Oxford days. And she still loves nothing better than to strut from a courtroom wearing this season's Dolce & Gabbana or a £3,000 Burberry Prorsum leather-trimmed suede trench. She likes fashion AND fairness. It's a winning combination.

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'Amal always had a sense of maturity beyond her years,' sighs the writer Ticky Hedley-Dent, who was at St Hugh's College, Oxford, at the same time. 'She was tall, glamorous and had a sense of poise.' 'I remember her as humane and brainy,' adds Ghil'ad Zuckermann, now a professor of linguistics at the University of Adelaide, Australia, who was also at St Hugh's with Amal. 'Students were talking about Amal even then, especially those from Middle Eastern backgrounds. I remember being told around 1997 about her famous journalist mother [Baria Alamuddin]. It was very clear already, however, that Amal would leave her own mark in the world, which she did long before meeting Clooney. It is great that Clooney is accompanied by a woman who is not only beautiful but also remarkably intelligent.' 

By day, Amal is a junior counsel at Geoffrey Robertson's Doughty Street Chambers, two doors down from where Boris Johnson used to hold drunken lunches at The Spectator's old offices (the late celebrity chef Jennifer Paterson once threw a pudding out of the window there). By night, her London nexus takes in Notting Hill, where she used to live off the Portobello Road and belonged to a local netball team. She can still often be found at the Electric, sipping cocktails with friends or catching up with Clooney and Cindy Crawford and her partner, nightclub impresario Rande Gerber, over dinner. Her work takes her around the world, from The Hague to the Maldives, where she represents the jailed former president Mohamed Nasheed. Life with George takes her to Italy, Los Angeles and Mexico, where he has homes, and to New York, where she lived for nine years.

It's enough to make a lesser being feel giddy, but not A-dog. When George created Casamigos, his tequila brand, with Gerber, Amal flew in for the launch party in Ibiza. But there's only so much papping and partying she can take, and by the time the London launch came round, Amal was nowhere to be seen. Instead, she chose to appear a few days later at London's Frontline Club - a hub for journalists who risk their lives - where she spent a long sweaty evening discussing human rights alongside the journalist Mohamed Fahmy, whose release from an Egyptian prison she helped to secure. 

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Very soon, Amal's world will revolve around a small village called Sonning. This is where the Clooneys have bought their UK power base - Aberlash House, a nine-bedroom Georgian (no, really) mansion on its own four-acre island in the middle of the Thames, right on the Oxfordshire-Berkshire border. Jerome K Jerome described Sonning as 'more like a stage village than one built of bricks and mortar' in Three Men in a Boat, and to this day it is like a Hollywood director's vision of England. There's a ludicrously quaint church and a heavily beamed old pub, the Bull Inn, where George has been for a pint of Pride. And surprisingly, for a village only half an hour out of London, everyone is incredibly friendly.

You can ring Mike Oldfield's bell, or borrow a cup of sugar from Theresa May, or, directly opposite, debate the Arts and Crafts Movement with Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, whose house is a prized example of William Morris's vision. Next door, in a futuristic glass box, is computing entrepreneur Max McNeill. Uri Geller has been here for 35 years, in an enormous mansion modelled on the White House, where Michael Jackson used to stay (though Geller has moved back to Israel and has put his home up for sale - Brad Pitt and Taylor Swift are said to be interested).

The countryside is not Amal's natural habitat. She grew up in a Buckinghamshire suburb and, after Oxford, spent nine years in New York, where she attended
the NYU School of Law, and then worked at the International Court of Justice. But then, this isn't exactly Exmoor. There are pavements, and rail connections, and an astonishing number of gastro places. She and George have already been seen taking romantic walks along the Thames towpath, on one occasion introducing themselves to the resident lock-keeper, Keith Burnage. 'They've been down a few times,' he says. 'They're both lovely people. Very friendly, with no airs or graces. They're not the type to look down on you.'

Some busybody Nimbies have lodged complaints about the building work at the house, and it's true you can hear the banging and drilling from over the river. 'This is a quiet day,' grumbles one dog-walker as we gaze across the Thames. 'Apparently, they've had 200 workmen in there.'

When the leaves fall from the trees, the house becomes very visible from the towpath, so an eight-foot wattle fence has been erected. And every winter the island floods, but, according to Mr Burnage, 'George is fully aware of that.' And despite initial objections, George and Amal have been given permission to install 18 CCTV cameras on poles up to 16 feet high all round the property. In defence of the Clooneys' renovation, pictures of the house when they bought it show it was pretty hideous. And why shouldn't they add a cinema, swimming pool, staff wing and tennis court if they want to? Nick Jones's Soho House group has been drafted in to design it all, and the plans look pretty spiffy.

Indeed, there's been sprucing all over Sonning since the Clooneys came into view. Right next door is the Mill, a family-owned private theatre and bar where stage one of a major refurb has just been completed. They share a drive, so rubberneckers can catch a glimpse of chez Clooney en route to an Alan Ayckbourn matinee.

Then there's the Great House hotel over the road, which has had a total revamp since news of the Clooneys' arrival broke. The ground floor is now called the Coppa Club, and looks more like a London hotel than a country pub, with enough free wi-fi and soya lattes to host an army of international media.

And descend they will. Because the Clooneys are the planet's most fascinating power couple right now. Come summer, everyone will want an invitation to an Aberlash barbecue. Just think what heady worlds will collide on that Thames lawn - and what plans for global domination will be born.

Because, in Amal's world, anything is possible. As the tired drunk boys once whispered at Oxford parties: 'Amal amamus' - we love Amal.