UP Prince William's beard
Many of us, by a sad quirk of birth, were not around when John F. Kennedy was
assassinated on that fateful day in Dallas, so have never experienced what
is it to be part of a nation - indeed, a world - caught up in a high-stakes
murder mystery. Until, that is, the unfolding affair of Prince William's
beard - the first big celebrity story of 2009.
On Christmas Day the Royal Family walked, as is their habit, to church at
Sandringham. All members of the royal crocodile were clean-shaven,
pink-cheeked and proper. Except for Prince William - notably higher in the
ranks of succession than nearly everyone else - who had a small, dead ginger
cat incongruously stapled to his face. Coupled with his usual air of posh
destiny, he looked like the harbinger of a new, hairy royal dawn. Like a man
who had looked into the future, and seen that it needed beards. But
fast-forward two weeks, and in his first outing of the new year -flying back
into Heathrow from Scotland - the beard is gone. Gone! Without a press
release to explain gigantic, yawning absence, or anything.
Who, then, assassinated William's beard - and why? You would imagine that the
Duke of Edinburgh probably had a few motivationally brisk words to say on
his grandson's facial bum-fluff farm. Something along the lines of : “Only
hippies, gays and Arabs have facial hair - shave it off, boy, before I get
you to stand at the bottom of the garden, and take pot-shots at it.”
I reckon, however, that the Queen and Prince of Wales - who are, after all,
more important than the Duke - quite liked it. Its shape was quite “old
school royal”, the kind of beard royals wore when a British monarch could
ring up a whole continent and say: “Hello, terribly sorry, but I'm about to
totally become your emperor. Have you got any rubies the size of my face?
They're my favourites.”
Most people have blamed Kate Middleton - the Prince's girlfriend - but that's
just the patriarchy talking. Celebrity Watch suspects that, as is always,
sadly, the case, the truth is far more prosaic. The beard was killed off not
by a combination of the CIA, William's grandfather and the illuminati; it
was just getting a bit itchy.
UP Katie Holmes
In a week of incredible celebrity spending statistics - Coleen and Wayne
Rooney spending more than £350,000 on each other's Christmas presents, Paris
Hilton buying herself a pink $200,000 Bentley - Katie Holmes, otherwise
trading as Mrs Tom Cruise, comes out as the clear winner of the game “Pin
The Cash On The Economy”. Since temporarily relocating to New York in June
to do a spell on Broadway, Holmes has gone through £10 million in six
months. This works out at roughly £2,400 an hour, 24/7. CW is thrilled to
learn that celebrities appear to have finally developed the ability to spend
money even when asleep.
UP Björk
What are the usual pastimes of the rich and fêted? Shoes? Bulimia?
Ill-thought- out and subsequently regretted “love sessions” with Calum Best?
Not for the world's favourite Icelandic multioctave-
chanteuse-who-dresses-like-a-swan-for-
the-Oscars-then-lays-an-egg-on-the-red-carpet Björk! Since the credit crunch
rendered Iceland's economy little more than two puffins, a harp and a
herring, Björk has pumped her pixie fortune into venture fund schemes for
ecologically and ethically run start-ups, to try to rebuild the country.
Isn't Iceland lucky to have her? Let's face it: if the UK went up in flames,
Amy Winehouse wouldn't even spit on us on her way to the pub.
DOWN Sharon Osbourne
CW has almost infinite stomach for celebrities, but demurs at Sharon
Osbourne, who sold her family out to a reality show in which her teenage
kids and incoherent husband became international laughing stocks - but which
“Mrs O” herself, interestingly, used as the springboard for her subsequent
career. This week, on her American TV show, Osbourne got into an argument
with a contestant, then allegedly leapt on her, pulling her hair. F
everyone's I: Sharon and Ozzy Osbourne's combined wealth is estimated at
£110 million. CW would caution noblesse oblige - but suspects that Osbourne
thinks noblesse oblige is a yappy-type lapdog, such as a pomeranian or a
shih-tzu.
UP Prince
All through the long days of 2008, a recurrent complaint on the lips of all
ball-busting feminists: “Women will never gain equality while there is no
male equivalent to the stripper. Sure, you've got the Chippendales, and the
Dream Boys. But there's nowhere in this world where you can go at 6pm and
see a half-dozen manky male smack addicts in Speedos sliding up and down an
unhygienic-looking pole, in the middle of an industrial estate, while a room
full of beefy, feckless women in stone-washed denim watch with
spirit-snuffingly deadened eyes. And drink beer.” Hurrah, then, for Eighties
funk-pop half-measure Prince! In the first of a thousand steps towards men
finally being just as objectified as women, Prince has premiered the first
Perspex-heeled shoe for men - breaking the stranglehold on the see-through
shoe that kept it, previously, the exclusive sartorial province of the
“dancer”/prostitute! Thanks, Prince.
UP Beyoncé
Some say that, in the coming recession, excess will become unacceptable, and
that everyone who is currently fabulous will have to put on fake “poor
clothes”, and pretend to shop at Aldi. But look - here is Beyoncé. And she
is, without a shadow of a doubt, riding on a jet ski in a chiffon tea dress.
Do we really want this kind of behaviour to cease? In the words of Amy
Winehouse: “I ain't gonna spit on ya - I'm on the way to the pub.” Erm, we
mean, “No! No! No!”, of course. CW is only saddened that Beyoncé isn't
pruning a hedge in a marabou halterneck and gold-plated Y-fronts.
UP Cate Blanchett
Bemusing yet intriguing news from the world of Cate Blanchett, the pale
Oscar-winner and part-time elf. “I'm not a trophy,” she says, talking about
her marriage to the screenwriter Andrew Upton in this month's Vanity Fair.
“He likes the vessel - but he also wants to make sure the vessel is full.”
CW has decided, for the sake of its nerves, that the substance Upton is
using to fill Blanchett's vessel is soup. She just likes a lot of soup.
They're a very soup-based couple. Yes, that's it.
DOWN Verne Troyer
As one of the contestants in this year's Celebrity Big Brother, Verne Troyer,
the 2ft, 8in star of two of the Austin Powers films, has been all over the
papers - not least in this recently rediscovered picture, published in
yesterday's Mirror, of his schooldays. We don't really need the gigantic
Pulsing Red Circle of Identification, do we? It's a little like drawing a
big golden arrow to point out what the answer is to E = mc2.
DOWN Heather Mills
It never rains but it pours in the world of Heather Mills. It seems like only
“yesterday” that Mills was in a courtroom with Sir Paul McCartney, divorcing
him, throwing water on his solicitor and cheering the very soul of Britain
with her unique “chippy sesquipedalian Scheherazade” thing. Less than a year
later, however, Mills could be in the courts again - this time appearing
before an employment tribunal. A former nanny alleges that she had to start
work at 7.30am to blow-dry Heather's hair, and was often made to stay until
midnight. Midnight? Just how much hair has Mills got? Even styling Joan
Collins's in the Eighties didn't take that long.
DOWN Mutated fish with a beak
In the swampily polluted rivers of China, the wildlife encounters such
chemical toxicity that its DNA eventually becomes corrupted, and produces
freaks of nature such as this fish with a beak - which was paraded around
the world's media outlets this week. Or, to put it another way, China is so
filthy that it's now producing creatures that look like the Top Gear
presenter Richard Hammond. It's like a warning straight from God. Soon
Jeremy Clarkson-faced calves will be born, and mice wearing helmets like The
Stig's. When will mankind finally learn to care for this fragile planet?
