Down. Liz McClarnon
In idle moments, CW sometimes likes to consider all the things that haven’t,
so far, been invented — but yet are so sorely needed. Peel-off eyeliner.
Vitamin-fags. Babies with a “standby” mode. Broken heart medicine.
Glow-in-the-dark spectacles. Spare mums.
But of all the uninvented things we await, who could say that the item they
were really holding out for was “emollient toilet paper”? A toilet tissue
that cleanses and moisturises, against all expectations and, indeed, logic, simultaneously?
Well, whether you wanted it or not, Andrex has now launched “the most
luxurious toilet tissue ever — Andrex Shea Butter”. Yes. “Kimberly Clark
announces the most important new toilet tissue variant ever: Andrex Shea
Butter TM. With its luxurious dark brown packaging, shea butter-enriched
sheets and scented core, [it] breaks the boundaries of the category.”
And so it has come to pass. For anyone worried that their Harris was becoming
prematurely wrinkled, Andrex has come sailing to your rescue with what can
only be described as “greasy loo-roll”. Amazing. Imagine explaining this to
your legendary “starving child in Africa”.
“I know you haven’t eaten for a week — but in England, we are busy with the
Era of Humectant Loo Roll. Laters, yeah?”
However! Andrex hasn’t left its new concept of “making inappropriate things
oily” simply at toilet paper. Of course it hasn’t! For Andrex Shea Butter
toilet tissue has a retail partner: Andrex Shea Butter Knickers: “Made of
the finest silk — with a panel of shea butter-enriched fabric on the back”!
Yes! Pants soaked in butter! How has it taken so long? For with shea butter
tissue plus shea butter knickers, if you haven’t basted yourself
sufficiently while in the toilet, with the subsequent application of greasy
pants, you can top up the oiliness of your bottom on the move! And
that's got to be a result.
Oil. Toilets. Wiping. Greasiness. They are, let’s be honest, unhappy mental
images — how would you feel if, during a marketing brain-storm, Andrex
decided that YOU were the perfect personality to front such an item? CW
doesn’t mind telling you that it thinks it would probably throw itself down
a well.
Pity, then, poor Liz McClarnon — former member of the pop group Atomic Kitten,
and winner of last year’s Hell’s Kitchen. For while she
now has a third thing to add to her CV, that third thing is “being the face
of moisturising oil-pants, and pinguid loo-roll”.
“The knickers are really soft and luxurious — just like Andrex Shea Butter!”
McClarnon says. But while thinking, surely, “I am going to give up this
celebrity lark, and get a job in a bakery, sweeping up yeast.”
Down. Michael Jackson
This week, Michael Jackson’s left ear was sighted in public for the first time
in a decade. A rolling retinue of hair, masks, hats, carefully-dangled
babies and Uri Gellar have kept it from public gaze — until now, when a
paparazzi shot revealed, once more, one of only ten extant ears belonging to
the Jackson Five. Many observers have concluded that the ear appears to have
. . . diminished slightly; as if parts of it had been carefully removed and
used to, say, build a small nose, a cheekbone; maybe even a child. CW is no
surgery expert, and so couldn’t possibly comment. But it has noticed an
uncanny resemblance to what is left of Michael Jackson’s ear and Edvard
Munch’s The Scream.
Up. Myleene Klass
Sometimes, things have a way of working out fortuitously. Take, for instance,
the ravishing TV presenter Myleene Klass. This week, tabloids reported that
Klass suffered a mishap in a hotel in Costa Rica, resulting in Klass being
“glued to her bed”, and having to be “slowly peeled off” by hotel staff.
What good fortune to have a Sexy Accident! All five-star hotels, double beds
and evocative “slow peeling”! Of course, on learning the details of the
accident — Klass had sprayed on an insect repellent, that reacted with the
varnish on the bed-frame — it all gets ruined a bit. But, still. Myleene
Klass! Glued to a bed in her nightie! Covered in dozens of dead mosquitoes!
Phwoargh!
Down. Cristiano Ronaldo
It was announced yesterday that Cristiano Ronaldo — the Manchester United
player with amusingly high levels of self-confidence and personal grooming —
is to be sold to Real Madrid for a record £80 million. “United’s problem is
that they will have to replace Ronaldo with not one, but two players,” The
Times reported, “A brilliant winger, and a prolific scorer.” Do they,
though? Do they have to do that? For yesterday it was also, perhaps
fortuitously, announced that BBC stars would have to take swingeing pay
cuts, as the broadcaster seeks to save £1 billion. Getting out its
calculator, CW suggests that, for that £80 million, United could buy
Jonathan Ross (new predicted annual salary £3 million), Jeremy Clarkson (£1
million), Terry Wogan (£500,000), Jeremy Paxman (£650,000) and Kate
Silverton (£200,000) — and still have change over for Julia Roberts (£20
million a movie) and Tom Cruise (£25 million a movie) in novel, “glamorous
guest-striker” roles. It’s not like Julia Roberts spends any more time
fiddling with her hair than Ronaldo did.
Up. Clive James
Here’s something that CW never thought it would tap into Google: “Clive +James
+sexual +technique”. And yet, in the wake of this week’s scorching
revelations, typing “Clive James sexual technique” into Google is very much
what CW has been doing. Anne Howells, “one of Britain’s leading
mezzo-sopranos”, has been detailing her “romantic romps” with a man she
cunningly refers to as “Clyde”. Clyde is an Australian wit she met at
Oxbridge, who “finds fame and fortune” as a critic, and appears on panel
shows called Do I Ever Have News That Is Actually New? Given that
James is one of the most well-read men of his generation, one might assume
that this would give him the edge when it came to wooing. After all, a man
who can quote Francesco Petrarch in the original Italian has some serious
love-chops to dish out. Alas, Ms Howells reports that he said: “I’ve been
eating shortbread, so you can start by sucking the crumbs out from between
my teeth.” Shortbread? No one’s ever that desperate for shortbread. It’s not
even a sexy biscuit — like pink wafers, or M&S Double Chocolate
Cookies. It’s a grandma biscuit. What else did “Clyde” do? Put a Rich Tea on
each nipple? Present his genitalia in a tartan tin? CW is reeling.
Down. Tom Jones
Hold on to your minds, people — CW is about to blow them. Bellowing Welsh
cabaret legend-cum-knicker-collector Tom Jones is English! Well,
half-English. The 1911 Welsh census reveals that two of his grandparents are
English. From Gloucestershire, in fact. On reading this, CW could hear, in
its mind’s, erm, ear, Jones’s voice on a chatshow, booming, “Well I know
WHICH half is Welsh!!!!!!!!” followed by screaming from the audience. We
can’t work out if this vision means that CW is either a) blessed with “The
Gift” or, b) is so unutterable jaded by the Tamagotchi-like predictability
of Tom Jones’s persona, that it could just lie down and die.
Down. OK! magazine
Continuing its decline into a truly startling moral abyss, this week OK!
magazine interviews Jack Tweed, the grieving widower of the late Jade Goody.
Tweed is freshly released from prison, after serving a 12-week sentence for
common assault. Uppermost on OK!’s mind is: is Tweed dating yet? Goody has,
after all, now been dead for all of 13 weeks. “I’m not interested,” Tweed
says, understandably. “I don’t want a girlfriend.”
“But what about those manly needs?” OK! asks. “Yeah, you
get them, but you can sort out manly needs on your own,” Tweed replies —
thus supplying OK! with the exclusive “masturbating widower of Jade
Goody” quote they are presumably now in this game to win.
Down. Gordons
Celebrity Watch doesn’t know why everyone else isn't panicking about this, for
there appears to be some manner of name-predicated virus going around, that
is driving anyone called “Gordon” stark, raving mad. First,
Gordon Brown hires the risible Sir Alan Sugar as an “Innovations Tsar” — an
appellation that would be accurate only if it were in reference to the the
Innovations catalogue. Then, Gordon Ramsay compares the Australian TV
presenter Tracy Grimshaw to a picture of a woman, on all fours, with a pig's
face. The Prime Minister of Australia had to admonish Ramsay as “a new form
of low-life,” and Ramsay subsequently apologised for his, frankly demented,
behaviour. Or should that be “symptoms”?
CW thinks we should quarantine John Gordon Sinclair and Hannah Gordon NOW —
just to be safe.
Up. Peaches Geldof
Bob Geldof’s inexplicably feted child, Peaches, is the subject of some
controversy this week. Having got married in Las Vegas to the drummer in a
band she had only known for two months, Peaches subsequently divorced the
gangly youth — named, amusingly, Max Drummey — a mere six months later. This
week, Drummey “revealed” that the marriage was “100 per cent publicity
stunt. I have Peaches on a retainer. She’s my friend for money. She also
orchestrates publicity stunts for me. I’ve garnered so much amazing
publicity from awesome people.” Is this the truth? Or is it clanging,
clodding sarcasm? CW wants you to know that you are 100 per cent correct in
simply not caring either way.
Up. God
Look! Here is a picture of God — and he’s holding all of Angelina Jolie’s
family in his giant, loving hand! Yes! God exists — and he’s Brangelina’s au
pair. We none of us can be surprised about this. None of us at all.
