1 UP Michael Barrymore
Over the past ten years, the British press has chronicled the ups and downs of
Michael Barrymore’s life with an exhaustive prurience — the kind usually
reserved by the French for women in the village who’d slept with the Nazis.
And why? Because in 2001, someone attending a party at Barrymore’s house was
found dead beside the swimming pool, with horrific anal injuries.
Oh, actually, now CW’s written it down, that does sound quite bad. But then,
it’s not like Barrymore killed him. That’s never been the accusation. He
just threw a party that got tragically out of hand. And we’ve all thrown
parties that have got tragically out of hand — at a party CW held in 2005,
its friend Stephen leant on the control-panel of CW’s oven so forcefully,
the “auto-timer” facility has been defunct ever since. Although, now CW’s
written it down, that really doesn’t sound quite as bad as finding someone
dead beside the swimming pool.
But still! The key thing here is that Barrymore isn’t actually a bad man.
There have been two investigations into the accident and Barrymore has been
declared innocent after each. Surely, by this point, we should be cutting
the man some slack? Well, no — not if you work for the pointy end of the
British media. This week, it took great delight in running stories on the
latest development in Barrymore’s life: he is apparently working, “as a
lowly garage hand”, at the local garage “where he once had his £100,000
limousine serviced”. Accompanying pap shots showed him in a tatty old
jumper, sweeping up leaves and putting them in a skip.
The subsequent coverage has been what any carer for small children would
identify as “spiteful and tease-y”. Under the headline “Strike It Mucky”, The
Sun taunted that this was a far cry from his career peak “ten years ago,
when he posed [at the National Television Awards] with soap stars Barbara
Windsor and Denise Welch”. “The fallen telly star shows how low he has
sunk,” The Sun sneered.
But CW doesn’t see it that way. When Barrymore was “at the height of his
career”, indulging in the unimaginable wonder of having his picture taken
with Denise Welch, he was a depressive alcoholic closeted gay man. By
contrast, he is now out, sober, and, in the words of The Sun,
“wheeling his barrow around the forecourt, chucking junk in the skip and
breaking up cardboard boxes, with a smile on his face”. Frankly, CW thinks
more celebrities should be sweeping up leaves, and putting them in a skip.
It’s a quietly admirable path to sanity. Imagine if he’d turned to kabbalah,
instead.
2 DOWN Chris Moyles
Rumours stalk the streets that Chris Moyles — self-styled “Saviour of Radio 1”
— is to be “let go” from the Breakfast Show next
spring, after his recent haemorrhaging of 700,000 listeners. And really, who
can blame the station? 700,000 people — gone? Phew-eee. That’s like Moyles
bombed Leicester, then dropped anthrax in the reservoirs that feed Hull —
but just by saying things that he thinks. Amazing.
But! Wait! What is this? With whom do the corporation plan to replace Moyles?
Apparently, it is the 900ft buffoon Vernon Kay — a man about as much use to
broadcasting as someone whistling aimlessly, while looking in a drawer for a
particular pair of trousers. For Britain, the substitution of Moyles with
Kay is like escaping from a ferociously burning building — only to be run
over by a fire-engine.
3 DOWN Kelly Brook
Brook — a below-average TV presenter attached to an above-average pair of
breasts — has finally commented on how she was fired as a judge, on last
year’s Britain’s Got Talent, after a mere week on the job. She believes that
its presenters Ant & Dec sabotaged her gig, after she unwittingly asked:
“What do you do?” The headline on the revelation read: “Two-faced Ant &
Dec wrecked my TV career.”
Yes — of course they have two faces. [Patient voice.] That’s because there’s
two of them.
4 DOWN Nicole Kidman
As is now industry standard policy, the actress Nicole Kidman has given an
interview to a magazine in which she poses on the cover in basque and
suspenders, and goes on to talk about “kinky sex”. Yes. CW feels the same.
It misses the days of Katharine Hepburn wearing a trouser-suit and talking
about glaucoma, too. Much has subsequently been made of Kidman’s quote —
“I’ve tried some strange fetish-stuff in the bedroom” — with nearly every
news source in the world regarding this as a gigantic and novel revelation.
But CW says, “We know, Nicole! YOU WERE MARRIED TO TOM CRUISE! YOU SLEPT WITH
MAVERICK FROM TOP GUN! That’s the most specific sexual fetish OF ALL
TIME! YOU WERE HIS SEX-GOOSE!”
5 DOWN James Nesbitt
Disheartening news for all those who had generally planned not to tear off
their ears and smash at their cochlea with a tiny hammer: the Cold Feet
star James Nesbitt has been approached to sing on an album of Rat Pack
covers! That's according to reports in the Daily Mirror, anyway,
which claims “since Nesbitt opened an award ceremony doing That’s
Why the Lady is a Tramp, [the record label] Warners [has become]
interested”.
While CW is well aware that this is just the kind of egregious bullshit these
columns get filled with, and there’s probably about as much truth in it as
there is, say, mayonnaise, it can only mourn the continuing degradation of
the Rat Pack legacy. Once Dean, Sammy, Frank and The Other One were the
alpha males of the pre-feminism, pre-LSD, pre-seatbelts world. T Rexes in
tuxes. The men who put the “cock” into “cocktail hour”.
These days, however, A&R men regard their oeuvre in much the same way
harassed mothers consider pasta‘n’Dolmio. Everyone likes it! It’s really
quick! And it’s impossible to screw up — even when you’re slurring Fly
Me to the Moon as “Fla ma ta tha maaa” it just sounds authentically
half-cut. You don’t even have to do up your bow-tie!
6 DOWN Micro pigs
You may recall that, some weeks ago, CW drew your attention to a modish new
animal invention: the micro pig. These are teacup-sized pigs bred to remain
small — and, therefore, appeal to the kind of consumer who isn’t really
interested in pigs unless she can fit them in her handbag, put them in a
doll’shouse, or lose them in the average-sized front room.
This week, we learnt that Victoria Beckham has purchased two of these
creatures — essentially a pair of walking sausages — as David Beckham’s
Christmas present. Yeah. In the first week of November. Good luck with
keeping them on top of the wardrobe — behind the broken Teasmaid, the
deflated inflatable mattress and that pile of old NMEs — until
December 24, “Posh”!
7 DOWN Peter Andre
Andre — now playing the role of “noble ex-husband” in the ongoing pantomime of
Jordan’s life — has come out with a novel quote. In an eight-page interview
with OK! — now playing the role of “official programme” in the
ongoing pantomime of Jordan’s life — Andre says of his ex-wife: “Who knows
what she’s thinking?” This is one of the most easily- answered questions of
the 21st century — given that 12 pages later, in the same magazine, Jordan
has her weekly column! “I think Pete should get help from a counsellor and
look at getting medication,” she says. There you go, Pete! It’s usually page
128! Try to find it yourself next week.
8 DOWN Liz Hurley
Hurley, a woman whose CV makes the mermaids of the Weeki Wachee Springs
Mermaid Show look like the founder members of United Artists, has been in
Hello!, discussing her move from London to the countryside. “Have you found
it easy to make friends?” it asks.
“I really like doing things in the community,” Hurley says. “I’ve opened the
village fetes, judged gardens, turned on Christmas lights and given prizes
at the farmers’ market.” Because nothing binds a community
closer together than having its turnips judged by Hugh Grant’s
ex-girlfriend, up from “that big London”.
9 Loose Women
Have you recently taken a day off work with a stomach upset, or a conglomeration
of “flu-like” symptoms? Then you will probably have caught Loose
Women — ITV1’s raucous, daytime, female-multihost “chat show”. Imagine
if the Wife of Bath went on a hen night, and the gang mounted a coup —
possibly armed — on Pebble Mill At One and locked Alan Towers
in a cupboard. That’s Loose Women.
This week, it was announced that Loose Women had bagged Robbie
Williams’s exclusive comeback TV interview — beating Jonathan Ross, Graham
Norton and other shows that broadcast in the hours of darkness.
After Liam Gallagher’s unexpected confession of Loose Women
fandom, earlier in the year — “Those Loose Women are having it, man!” — it
seems that Loose Women is the Studio 54 of the modern age. This is
where it’s all going off. Adjust your rock records accordingly.
10 Tony Hadley
CW’s current sideline — Tony Hadley From Spandau Ballet’s Cuddly Tum-Tum Watch
— has just received these, important images: Hadley’s elevenses during the
band’s appearance on The Paul O’Grady Show. Not pictured:
the Kemp brothers, off-camera, hissing: “You’ve gotta keep your energy up,
Tone. Hit them high notes on True. Keep it classy.”
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