Friday 19 November 2010

The Egos Have Landed

It was recently pointed out to me that Kate Silverton looks more like Gok Wan every day.
 She's now on Children in Need dressed up as Catwoman or Lady GaGa or whoever in that bit of the show where someone has fuelled the egos of 'serious' presenters by telling them they are really funny and sexy and talented and that it would do their careers good to do a musical pastiche.
 So we get Fiona Bruce in PVC and Andrew Marr in drag and we're all supposed to give our credit card numbers over to the BBC because we like it.
 Notice you never get Jeremy Paxman all dolled up like Danny La Rue, by the way.
 When it comes to donations, never mind sitting in a bath of beans. I'll stump up a tenner to the first person to tear off Terry Wogan's gently ageing wig on live television (every five years he seems to get a new one with just a little more grey) or happily forward a couple of quid if someone pokes Fearne Cotton in the eye every time she says the word 'amazing'.
 Bet we don't see Jason Manford though. Mind you, having 'internet' sex with 12 women is hardly the stuff of Casanova. It's like a teenager boasting 'I did it with all three of Destiny's Child' when he was in his bedroom with just a sock and she was in a video on his TV.
 But sometimes I feel guilty about being so cynical. Only sometimes mind (say that in a Michael Caine voice, sounds a lot better.)
 CIN raises an awful lot of money for such a good cause and gives the Daily Mail a chance to find a charity that DIDN'T get any money claiming the BBC told them they weren't diverse enough.
 Being cynical does seem to be the current default setting for most of us when it comes to charity.
 As someone who does a lot for charity but doesn't like to talk about it (!) I know how hard it can be to get others to part with cash, no matter how worthy the reason.
 And if it means the BBC give Sainsbury's a bit of a free plug and Jamie earns a few more Nectar card points that he can eventually cash in for a beatification, then is it such a bad thing?
 All those egos battling against each other can be grating and, yes, it can do their careers no harm to appear on the show.
 But on the way to the station this morning I went past a nursery school where they had put up a gazebo and a bath (yes, a bath) in the car park and were preparing some daft stunt that, no doubt, the kids would have a lot of fun taking part in.
 And if it introduces the little Boden-clad toddlers to the concept of charity before their permatanned mums pick them up in giant 4x4s and take them back to gated estates in Essex's 'Golden Triangle' then is it such a bad thing?
 Or am I going soft?
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The Daily Telegraph confirmed to us this week that it pays £35 for stories of up to 300 words. This is less than it used to pay but is not unusual in the agency game any more. Seems we're all treated like charities these days.
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Talking of Terry Wogan's alleged wigs, I used to work and be very good friends with David Yelland at The Sun, long before he became editor of the paper. He wore a wig then and it wasn't a particularly good one.
As I seemed to be his closest colleague - I covered industry and Dave ran the Money Page - Kelvin Mackenzie would keep sidling up to me (never a good sign as it usually meant a bollocking) and saying: "Ask him about his Irish, go on, ask him." Irish jig being slang for wig. Occasionally it would be syrup, as in syrup of figs.
"He does wear a wig, doesn't he Solly?" Kelvin would ask. "Go and ask him yourself," I would venture. "You're his mate, it's your job to find out" he would growl.
Like most young reporters I was generally too scared to argue with Kelvin but usually wriggled out of it by changing the subject to horses or house prices or Millwall (who he used to support in those days though he now says he's a Charlton fan.)
Eventually of course, Dave 'came out'. He was working in New York and having a new set of colleagues gave him the confidence to go bald. He rang to tell me one day, asking 'you may not have realised it but I've been wearing a wig.'
I had to explain that we all realised it and had done for years. But I figured that if he wanted to tell me about it he would and if he didn't, well, I wouldn't ask. That's what mates do.
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Downs lookalike Kelly Osborne has lost loads of weight and is posing in a bikini for some mag or other. Rumour has it she's writing an autobiography and looking for a title. On seeing the latest pictures, how about 'You Can't Polish A Turd.'
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I'm off to Stanmore to reconnect with my Jewish roots before the second holiest day in our calendar (it's covered on Sky Sports 2 at lunchtime tomorrow I believe)...Shabbat Shalom, Solly

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