Precious Williams writes to Donald Trelford ...

Precious Williams has emailed to say the letter below is a hoax, but it does reflect her anger at Trelford's Independent piece. I'll keep this posting up for now; plainly mischief is afoot. Precious has written a substantial letter to me but I shall not put it up until or unless she gives me the go-ahead ...

Yet more astounding comments on the Jon Snow/Precious Williams fandango - some more credible than others it must be said. One in particular appears to be a letter from Precious Williams to Donald Trelford who wrote a plainly misrepresentative piece yesterday in the Indie (not the Guardian). Now, if this letter is a hoax, perhaps Precious could email me privately ...

donald.trelford@independent.co.uk
Subject: Indpendent article
Date: Jun 11, 2007 10:37 AM

Dear Mr Trelford

I was astounded by your piece in today's Guardian [it was in the Independent! - ed]. How ironic that a story purporting to be about the ways in which the Mail on Sunday got a story so wrong could itself be so incredibly wrong!

I spoke to Phil Hall this morning and he is adamant that you have taken everything he said out of context. Phil Hall is not and has never been my agent. How could you possibly write a balanced account without even attempting to contact me and ask for my account of events? You have presented "facts" about me that you have made no effort to confront me with. At best this is shoddy journalism but I think it goes further. I consider it libel and in not bothering to even confront me prior to publishing the piece, you appear to have had a very clear agenda.

Precious Williams

The next comment is plainly a hoax, but Donald Trelford is invited to email me privately if he wishes to say anything ...

Don Trelford said... I'm big enough to admit that I got yesterday's story in the Indy wrong. I was misled by several MoS sources, and Phil Hall kept changing his story.

Yeah, right ... and finally for now, an anon comment: it would be helpful to know where or to whom Hall's comments were made ...

Phil Hall is claiming that he never was Williams's agent and that they have a mutual friend in common and he was giving free advice only to Williams. According to Hall, Trelford has grossly misrepresented him and the embarrassment Hall talks about is embarrassment at how the MoS has acted only. Hall also allegedly commented that he's pissed off because Snow will likely not invite him onto Channel Four news again in the foreseeable future. Hall's claiming he did not broker a deal for Williams and that there in fact was no deal at all and that Williams sounded dangerously un-clued up in her phone conversation with him.....

Precious & Jon: I give up (for now)

Some of you doubtless will be relieved to learn that I have given up on Precious Williams (for now).

Attempts to find any tangible evidence for her claim that she had a relationship with Jon Snow have come to nothing. Emails have passed between us, some of my questions have been ignored, and now she tells me that she can’t trust anyone to report her words accurately. This is a very odd thing to say when one considers that she’s a highly experienced and gifted journalist – one would think she has a voice of her own. And Arcati made itself available to her if actual evidence - as opposed to fervent claims - was furnished.

Recently someone made another claim to me: that Precious Williams and Jon Snow met at a London hotel last week. Some details were outlined, but no tangible evidence was sent. My presumption was (and is) that this was yet another hoax. I emailed Precious with the question: Did you meet with Snow at a London hotel last week? In her reply she ignored the question and simply stated that she had been in London last week and attended a number of meetings before returning to Germany where she currently lives. She did not mention Snow. Why would she reply in this fashion? Why not simply deny it if she had not met him?

I then emailed Jon Snow and asked him: Did you meet with Precious Williams at a London hotel last week? He replied by email: “Madame, so far as I am able to tell, I have never met her and had no awareness of her existence, I think that has been made clear in the reporting thus far and has been accepted by the MOS, best wishes, JS”.

I am probably not alone in thinking this a very oddly worded response, and its meaning lies in an implication. He is not aware of her existence (so presumably he could not have met her in a hotel last week); his formula “so far as I can tell” carries another implication: that his unawareness of her existence is contingent on an ability to tell. I don’t know why he didn’t just say categorically: “I did not meet this woman at a London hotel last week”.

However, his response is in effect a denial and one that must be accepted in the absence of supporting evidence. Jon Snow "does not know a lady called Precious Williams", as his lawyer has asserted.

Now, back to Precious. Yesterday I asked by email again whether she had met Snow at the London hotel. In one of her replies she stated that she did not know what I was talking about and asked me to explain. This in itself was a curious response - could she have forgotten so soon this business of the hotel? So I asked the question again. This time she told me that she could not trust anyone to report her accurately.

I shall not speculate on Precious’ state of mind, her credibility or motives in this bizarre saga except to say that she assured me that she had evidence of this relationship, that a broadsheet was examining it – and I’ve heard nothing since. And that’s where we are.

In the absence of this evidence one must tender sympathy to Jon Snow - and for other reasons, to Precious Williams.

Other Snow/Williams postings - read all about it!

Precious Williams and 'vicious rumours'

Someone called "Simon Kelner's Nemesis" - Kelner is the bunny-eating editor of the Independent [click here] - has sent two items on Precious Williams:

1
There has been some talk here (generated by Nick Pyke no doubt) of the Sindy "declining to renew Williams's contract" back when she worked for them. All bullshit. I worked with Williams in 2000 and I know for a fact that she left the Sindy of her own volition before her contract was even up for renewal. I'm sure a call to Sindy HR would confirm this.

Although I enjoyed working with Williams I actually encouraged her to leave, because she was being treated like shit at the paper. I am one of a handful of ex-Sindy staff (of course the Sindy no longer really has staff, we're all exes) who have recently heard from Williams out of the blue asking precisely what Nick Pyke's problem is and how long he has been spreading stories about her. At first I thought she was being paranoid but now I am seeing where she was coming from with her questions. Williams has always seemed a very nice girl, if slightly wild on the drugs and dress sense front. Have always considered her quite fetching to look at.

2
I've asked around, because I am curious. Williams has (according to cuts and general gossip) written for the FT, the Telegraph, the Times, Sunday Times, the Express, the Mail on Sunday, the Mirror, the Sunday Mirror, the Guardian, the Indie, the Sindy, the Big Issue and "most women's magazines".

I couldn't find a single account of anyone trying to sue any of those publications over features written by Williams. I heard of a complaint where an interview[ee] didn't like what had been written about him and complained that Williams "had seemed such a sweet girl". I heard of another complaint from a celebrity who claimed Williams had embellished his quotes but then promptly withdrew his complaint when he remembered that the interview had been taped. Nothing else concrete. Weird how rumours spread, isn't it?

This reminds me of the vicious, hateful things I've heard said about the black 3Am girl, Eva Simpson. Although there are rumours flowing that Simpson is talentless, an air-head, embellishes stories and so on, in reality she is a hard-working, talented and unassuming lass. So's Williams in my experience.

Jon Snow and Precious Williams: A mystery tale

This is an amended version of the original piece which included statements I am no longer comfortable with.

Most mystifying story of the day is why a writer called Precious Williams would have concocted a story about having a six-year affair with Channel 4 journalist Jon Snow while he lived with barrister Madeleine Colvin.

Over two weeks in May the Mail on Sunday ran a torrid account of his purported relationship with Williams. “The pair smoked marijuana, talked about books and politics and he seduced her with his 'chivalrous charm',” ran one purple sentence, a line that now looks like a crude attempt at Truman Capote’s non-fiction novel approach to journalism. Then yesterday, the paper ran this:

“Over the past two Sundays we published stories claiming that TV news presenter Jon Snow had an affair with a writer called Precious Williams, and that they smoked cannabis together. There is no truth in these allegations. We accept that in fact Mr Snow never had any relationship with Miss Williams, and that the allegation of drug taking was unfounded. We are happy to set the record straight, and we apologise for the embarrassment caused.”

MediaGuardian reports: "In a statement, Mr Snow said: 'The stories about me in the Mail on Sunday ... were entirely fabricated and caused myself, my family and my friends considerable distress. This has been one of the most upsetting and difficult experiences of my life.'"

For sight of Ms Williams see her website. A link takes you to another site wherein her history is briefly told including the information that she now works for the Mail on Sunday – or did. I can’t imagine she’ll be in Derry Street much longer if she hasn't been kicked out already.

For a fuller account of Williams' life, go to her Telegraph piece.

The mystery of this story is ongoing.

Precious Williams and racism in newspapers

Precious Williams on Jon Snow and the Mail on Sunday, click here

More interesting comments from Arcati readers on Precious Williams and racism in newspapers. Anonymous 1 writes:

Entirely tangential, I appreciate, but I was a casual sub on the Sindy news desk in 1999/2000 and worked with/near Precious Williams.

She was the only staffer, in an exceptionally unfriendly, paranoid environment, who
ever deigned to speak.

Being completely honest, the reason I remember her is that she was the only one who included me in the tea run.

But she was also friendly (said hello; talked about work; stories in the paper; the weather; generally behaved as a normal human being should) and unassuming. I also - very occasionally, I should add - subbed her work and it was well-researched, nicely written stuff.

No idea what she's been doing since, but can't see why she would conjure up some Jon Snow fabulation; every reason for him to deny inconvenient truths, though.

NB: I also remember her because she had fabulous Macy Gray hair, but it was just before Macy Gray was hot.

Anonymous 2 writes:

Newspapers like nothing better than to get black/asian faces to stick in byline pictures. But as a black journalist working on the production side of things I feel that newspapers are pretty racist places to work. It's not overt of course, it's things like missed promotions and hearing that another senior journalist who has never worked with you thinks you are 'trouble' - and looking out at a sea of white faces as you do your job ... Look around your newsrooms - most black people working for newspapers are in the canteen or emptying bins...

Precious Williams: A Berlin encounter

A man enters a Berlin bar; he espies a beautiful woman called Precious Williams ... and decides to try his luck, for Queen and Madame Arcati ...

(The author of this piece - Kishan - has now left a comment)

Thought you might be interested to know that I bumped into none other than Precious Williams at the weekend, in a charming little vodka bar [in Berlin] where they claim to serve 42 flavous of vodka.

Of course I grilled her about Jon Snow and her newfound infamy.

Did you make it up? I asked. Did the Mail on Sunday make it all up? Is Jon Snow making stuff up?

Precious rolled her eyes at me and said: "Are you sure you don't have anything a little more interesting to talk about?"

I said: "I'm just curious, that's all. Can I buy you a drink?"

She said: No.

Later she actually bought me a drink. Some sort of Cosmo made with freshly blended imported Russian berries that she raved about.

I talked to her for about three-quarters of an hour. My motivation in hanging around was two-fold: I wanted to find out what really happened (if anything) between her and Snow and to be frank I also wanted to see if I could pull her.

I found her quite hot in real life and quite fancied her: a lot prettier than the pictures of her in the paper. Perhaps most importantly, she was wearing a skirt (or dress) so short that at one point I briefly saw her knickers (they were purple). Two very long caramel brown legs were displayed to their full advantage. I don't know about Jon Snow, but I wouldn't kick that out of bed.

All I could get out of her on the Jon Snow business was the following:

"I fucking despair of the fucking state of British newspapers. Don't they have anything meaningful to write about?"

We talked about all the non-important stories the papers print these days.

She said, "I spent nearly ten years poking my nose in other people's private lives and writing about it. Even when a PR banned me from asking an interviewee questions about his sex life, I'd still ask, because my editors made me. I was involved in a tabloid interview once with Max Beesley where we promised him copy approval and then totally reneged on our contract. What goes around comes around for sure. I'm seeing that."

I asked her if she'd ever had an affair with an A-list celebrity as opposed to the rather C-list Snow.

"Yes," she said. "But my mouth is zipped about it."

I asked: Was it with somebody you interviewed?

"It was. I used to have his poster on my wall when I was a teenager. He's a rapper. That's all you're getting from me."

I asked: Is it true you have a book deal for a memoir about you and Snow?

She quipped, "Were you sent to talk to me by the Mail on Sunday or something?"

I asked: Are you familiar with Madame Arcati?

"Oh my God!" she screamed. "You're not Madame Arcati are you? Prove you're not her!"

She looked genuinely afraid.

"If you are Arcati," she said (she pronounced it Arr-Catty. Is that correct pronunciation?), "please, please stop writing about me. I'm just an ordinary person trying to mind my own business."

Sadly despite our fairly lengthy and at times flirty chat, I couldn't get Precious to fuck me or even give me her phone number. Possibly because she was in the company of a handsome but menacing-looking Russian chap who said very little but made it clear with his facial expressions that he'd break my legs if I didn't back off.

However, Precious did buy me the aforementioned fancy drink which cost 9 euros.

"Even if you are Madame Arcati", she said as she left the bar, "I hope you have a really nice time in Berlin."

Arcati is pronounced "Ah-car-tee

Precious Williams goes to ... Nollywood

Such is Madame Arcati's prescience that I sometimes frighten myself. A little while ago I foresaw for the talented, truthful and beautiful writer Precious Williams a career in movies. Now a spy in Nigeria gets in touch to tell me that Precious is about to make it big in ... Nollywood!

Yes, Nollywood. What do you mean that's a typo? Nollywood is the Nigerian version of Hollywood or Bollywood. She will play the lead role in a Nigerian movie that she's writing at the moment. Precious and her producers can be assured that the moment they have something to show, it will be the star feature on Arcati's new Video Entertainment service which presently can be found in the top left hand corner of this site (I regret putting up Madonna's Hey You - what a load of crap).

I still foresee a Precious Williams biopic. Her horoscopic chart is an essay of life's strange twists and turns, and one that touches celebrity in lots of different ways - perfect for an incident-rich movie. But first, Nigeria!

Independent on Sunday note on Arcati/Williams/Snow

The Independent on Sunday's Spectator column for June 17 records the following on Precious Williams, Jon Snow and Madame Arcati:

"JON SNOW'S lawyers are keeping busy. Fresh from winning an outright retraction from The Mail on Sunday over erroneous claims of a relationship with Precious Williams, Snow has turned to cyberspace. Madame Arcati, self-styled media clairvoyant, has received a letter asking her to remove two "defamatory" articles from her blog. Matters won't have been helped by Ms Williams channelling her side of the story through Mme Arcati. Over at the MoS, more obfuscation over who was to blame. One name conspicuously absent is that of Peter Wright. Even in Monday's Media Guardian feature on Snow, the MoS editor did not make an appearance. MoS Kremlinologists are wondering who spoke to The Guardian."

The story continues ... a report of a meeting last week in a London hotel reaches my ears involving certain individuals not unconnected to the saga ... I refuse to say more for the moment. The truth will out.

Precious Williams' movie ... and a white male lover ...

Madame Arcati has obtained more information on the entrancing Precious Williams' Nollywood movie. I learn it's based on an idea a lot of the Nigerian elders hold - that if a Nigerian woman gives her heart to a white English man he will ultimately disown and disgrace her. I hope that this thought does not resonate too much with a certain news broadcaster ...

Apparently, this is how Precious' elders back in her mother's village in Nigeria feel, sadly. The movie is about a British-born half-Nigerian woman who is very career-minded. The elders in Nigeria summon her back, supposedly to recite a story to her which will enable her to write a best-selling book. When the woman arrives in Nigeria though, she finds her elders have a wholly different agenda: they are disgusted at how Westernised she has become and want to prise her away from her independent lifestyle in Europe and to coax her into an arranged marriage with a 75-year-old local Chief.

I understand everyone becomes very hysterical and the costumes are very loud and fabulous. It sounds a wonderful movie-in-progress - and I suspect it's a touch biopic-cy.

Precious Williams makes a statement

Statement to Madame Arcati by Precious Williams

I can confirm that I am pursuing a defamation claim against the Mail on Sunday.

I can also confirm that the Mail on Sunday approached me regarding this story, and not vice versa. The paper approached me following tip-offs which their news editor claims he received from reliable sources. A reporter from the paper arrived out of the blue at my home in Berlin several days before the first of the articles ran. I did not agree to do an interview. The paper ran a story on me on 20th May regardless. No money exchanged hands.

The Mail on Sunday was forced to issue an apology to Jon Snow because the paper could not prove that Snow "smoked and inhaled" cannabis, as was claimed.

I am not a member of staff at the Mail on Sunday, nor have I ever been. The Mail on Sunday has published around 35 of my articles over the years, mainly lengthy interviews with celebrities. Legal action has never been brought against the paper by any of the subjects I have interviewed and the Mail on Sunday has never had to publish a retraction as a result of anything I have produced for them.

I am neither seeking publicity. While the Mail on Sunday is correct in saying that I have written a memoir, the book is about my childhood, does not feature Jon Snow and is not published until next year.

Jon Snow threatens legal action against Arcati

Jon Snow's legal reps have written to Arcati demanding the removal of two "defamatory" items on this blog which arose from a report in the Mail on Sunday about his relationship with writer Precious Williams. Snow's solicitors claim he had no relationship with her - in fact they say that Snow does not know "any lady called Precious Williams." Snow's principal concern is to "protect his reputation".

As a gesture of good faith I have taken down the contentious articles they complain of but I shall continue to delve into this matter which makes little sense from beginning to end.

Madame Arcati Uncut

Before she went to back to prison, Farah Damji conducted this interview with moi - in 2010!

Just to warm the cockles of your frozen heart this chilly Sunday night, here's a previously unpublished i/v with media blogger and celebrity scourge Madame Arcati. Just last week, Darling MA exposed an X Factor contestant's raunchy granny's porn / escort past in true tabloidese, and the blog which was established in 2006,  peaked at over 40 000 hits in a week. Be warned, you are no longer in Kansas, Dorothy. 

What made you start writing up the trivia and torpedoes of the media / showbiz world's gossip? Was there a shortage of good gossipistes? Did you fill the *ahem* gap? Who is your favorite gossipiste du jour ( I know this is subject to change hourly, double Gemini just take a tabloid and stick a drawing pin on a page. Ouch)

My dear, Madame does not gossip. Gossiping is what you do when you don’t know anything: I’m sure Peter McHackey of the Daily Mail will concur. A more accomplished bottom feeder of others’ droppings I have yet to encounter. Madame shares what she knows with her discerning public (and a few loafers indentured on newspapers seeking a free lunch) and in turn a few of them tell me what they know. 

This exchange is less complicated than sex and no one ends up stalked.

The best supplier of actual information is probably Nicky Haslam - he has the stamina and memory for all the parties. The best gossip (in the sense of not knowing anything) is the above mentioned Peter McKay (aka McHackey)  who daily fills his Mail  Ephraim Hardcastle ‘column’ with the bruised peel of yesterday’s fruit nibblings. 

What was your biggest scoop?

Where do I start, poppet? Certainly my best recent scoop was breaking the news of Sebastian Horsley’s untimely death - his body was still warm when the news went up, and for half the day a great many arts hacks thought I’d made it up. People say I’m tasteless but at least I didn’t put up the photo of Seb fucking that quadruple amputee woman.

The scoop I’m most proud of was my revelations about a London newspaper editor who left his wife and family for the London mayor’s comely PR person - a potentially tricky matter given that the mayor had a say in where the editor’s paper could be sold on London Transport property. Happily there was no conflict of interest; but it’s best to know of these things than not know. The newspapers ignored the story, natch. Editors like to cover each other’s back. 

What was your biggest disappointment?  

So many, my sweet.  So many. I am by nature a trusting person. The writer Precious Williams deeply wounded me. She assured me over and over again (in emails I still possess) that she did indeed have a relationship with the Channel 4 news anchor Jon Snow - which he denied. He even denied knowing her. Precious promised me proof. I am still waiting. My thumbs have been twiddled to limpness. My finger nails have been drummed into the bone. I find it astonishing that Mr Snow then married Precious - another Precious, that is. Such a common name.

What do you wear while you blawg? Do you blawg naked? Do you have an aperitif to get you in the mood?

It depends on the time of day and who’s in the room. Mornings I have been known to face the blog in my lace and poly silk negligee designed by Jane Woolrich while a stranger’s hands search my person fervently for signs of (re-)arousal. Writing about the likes of Kevin Spacey in such a situation adds a frisson to one’s online breakfast. Of an evening I have been known to sip a certain anise-flavoured beverage as I deliberate on the fate of some unfortunate TV host favourite - a few words and it’s all over for them. Power must be exercised responsibly. Top up!

What's the view from your desk? Keep it clean dearie.

Well, I’m most concerned about the Union Jack that used to flap about in my peripheral vision in a neighbour’s garden. It has disappeared. I think a storm the other night brought down the pole, most distressing for the Dame Vera Lynn fans who erected it. You just can’t get the wood nowadays. Otherwise a copy of Lady Colin Campbell’s novel Empress Bianca sits on my desk as a paperweight. Any attempt to read it would lead to much documentary chaos.

Tell me your most perverse fetish. Don't keep it clean.

Cling film aside, I curiously delight in Royal Doulton’s Bunnykins collectables based in the mythical village of Little Twitching. I have only to run a finger along the cool English Translucent China of Reggie Bunnykins’ floppy-stiffy ears and my thigh muscles relax somewhat. God help you if you're in the same room as I should I be caressing a Reggie figurine and his floppy-stiffies. My cleaner gives me a wide berth at such times.

Which Jean Genet character are / were you in your last / next life?

It would have to be the straw in Un Chant d'Amour through which smoke is exhaled in what must be the smallest prison glory hole in 20th Century movie history.
 

Reptilian

What do you have to say to those calumnist columnists who steal your copy and lift your exclusives like peeling skin when the SPF 50 has rubbed off?

Fucking heterosexuals. They’re all the same.

Who are your favorite subjects? Who are the most devoted Arcatistes and why do you think they return for more love / ego-stroking / abuse, for another ride on the carousel of desire in your tunnel of love?

Madame Arcati is the only website conductor in the world who drew in Kevin Spacey’s entire family (almost) and then artfully set them against each other for years. On my blog you will find a textbook-sized amount of info on the clan - it was the blogosphere’s very first reality soap. People come to me to spectate, to observe living slebby drama, to conduct feuds and serve up the Revenge dish. Madame Arcati is indeed a tunnel of love, and one dripping with authentic lubricant.

Steph Mastini

Cock pic by Steph Mastini

How do you bring your alleged psychic powers into your work?

Alleged? How dare you. Madame Arcati casts her horoscopes and sees beyond the rational spin and din. But I am responsible. People must go through certain experiences for karmic reasons, such as public and humiliating exposure on Madame Arcati. It’s not my business to editorialise fate’s design.

Can you tell me (privately of course) who some of your sources are?

I find that death makes people garrulous.

What's your 'scope and how does it effect the vapours and whims of your blogging?

By ’scope you mean horoscope? It’s a little like illegal phone hacking. The trick is to find a trail that disguises the illicit means of discovery. The PM’s spin master Andy Coulson will know what I mean.

Quentin Crisp

What happened to the most requested author of HMP Holloway, Susan Hill and you?

I don’t know about Susan. One minute she was confiding the most extraordinary things in me (my lips are… coated in a Tom Ford Private Blend). And in the next she had swanned off to the Spectator and now writes a very tiresome right-wing blog there about hedgerows and Wellington boots. I don’t know why I thought she was a socialist. But anyway, I have a soft spot for Sue who I think should be made a Dame for her services to ghosts.

What do you think about celebrity bloggers? Tell-all biographies? Boxers or Y Fronts and on the Brighton sea front is it a one piece cozzie or a tankini?

Like gossips (or gossers as I prefer), sleb bloggers know nothing about slebs, except what they’ve read in the weeklies. Perez Hilton now thinks he’s a sleb when in fact he writes his PR sheet from his mum’s house and has to wank a lot cos he can’t find enough living spunk buckets. At this time of year Brighton sea front is scrotally challenging.

What's your philosophy in life? if you could be the gusset in someone's drawers whose would you choose? Just for a day of course. Health and Safety and all that.

Do unto others before they do unto you. I would be most interested to be the scented paper in Kevin Spacey’s chest of drawers. Perhaps I’d find my neighbour’s Union Jack.

Chanel or Adolfo?

I have no time for Hitler.

You're often heavily criticized for your unflailing support of some of your protegees and your long, actually unending engagement to bad girl Molly Parkin is leg-end-ary. Will you ever tie the knot or will you just continue to tempt and tease your many paramours by putting them always in second place.

Madame Arcati is loyal, poppet. Pure and simple. The joy of an engagement is the delayed gratification itself - so why end it? Why spoil it by gratification? I’d make a splendid agony aunt.

That bicycle. Comment please. Do you have the panier for packages and testubes of animal sperm and parcels or did you dump it for aerodynamics and the power of speed?

Animal sperm? Enough about Perez, please. I cycle very fast and as close to pedestrian elbows as possible.

If you could be anyone in history who would it be? And no, you can't be the Child Catcher. That is already taken.

Eva Braun. The mountain views from the Berghof were enchanting, and think of the things that usefully could be dropped from a very great height.

Sometimes the comments on some of the articles look like the mess after a sixth form common room (co-ed) party. How do you decide when to censor and when not to?

I rarely censor - the very idea! People feel relaxed in my drawing room blog, they let go, along with the syntax etc. But accusations of prime ministerial bestiality cannot be encouraged.

Is it true about Duncan Fallowell's cock? Evidence please.

The picture of his cock is on Madame Arcati. I rest my case.

Do you think people are generally good or generally evil?

I think people are generally.

Do you believe in god? Don't give me the Nick Cohen atheist lisp please.

There is no God but we were invented by something recurringly sentient. Even George W Bush was invented by something recurringly sentient.

When you dance naked around the ouija board what is the music piping from your iPod?

Oh Justin Bieber! Isn't he adorable? I wonder if he’s had his first wet dream yet? Plus I love Cliff Richard dance remixes on YouTube.

Blackberry / iPhone?

NEiTHER.

Jordan / Katie Price?

Jordan is a safer place to holiday.

Christmas / Hanukkah / Eid?

Winterval darling with touches of Dickensian reinvention.

and anything else you wanna add......or leave out of course.

Thank you for your wonderful questions, Farah. 
And to think we’ve unleashed Piers Morgan on a blameless America. 
Love, MA xxx

Precious & Jon Part Deux: Use your brains, people

Arising from the febrile and many comments from the first Precious & Jon:

Interesting how people don't read carefully ... poor saps.

At no stage have I claimed that Precious Williams has made up her relationship with Jon Snow.

What I said is that she has to date failed to prove it. Whether she proves it is another question. Anyone can claim to be an "MoS insider" - welcome to Hoaxers' Paradise.

And as for Mr Curious ... read Mr Spurious.

Now, carry on with the show ...

Independent on Sunday: Arcati plots

From The Spectator in the Independent on Sunday for today:

"When the 'Mail on Sunday' ran an erroneous story alleging an affair between Channel 4 News's Jon Snow and writer Precious Williams, Madame Arcati, the mysterious media and celebrity blog, became a hotbed for gossip. Until, that is, Snow's lawyers called time on the allegations. Now comes news that somebody has been trying to unmask Mme Arcati. She writes: "I know one newspaper at least which paid an intermediary to obtain a blogger's identity by illegal means, and I know that this person is probing Arcati."She also reports that AOL told her of attempts to access her email with the wrong password. We accept the denial by the 'MoS' of any involvement. So speculation must turn to other media groups."

Time Out: 'Madame Arcati is our website of the week'

An anonymous person informs me that Time Out magazine has paid tribute to Madame Arcati with its "website of the week" accolade, in terms that meet with my approval ... I reprint on trust ...

"Madame Arcati (named after the eccentric medium in Noel Coward's 'Blithe Spirit') calls herself a 'showbiz and media clairvoyante'. The tone of her notably - some might say revealingly - witty and well-written blog recalls pop gossip newsletter Popbitch, but the thrust of her revelations is generally literary. She was first with the news of the sobbing and wine-throwing that ensued when Indie hack John Walsh made the fatal error of inviting both his long-term partner and his mistress to the launch of his first novel.

"An attentive observer of the baffling Jon Snow/Precious Williams non-affair, she currently has her knife stuck into Diana's latest biographer, Tina Brown: 'She has a reputation for a modish, magpie use of shiny word-finds, as if the employment of the latest now-word or phrase shifts her into the symphonic moment ... ' Me-oww!"

Madame Arcati: A year old today

Today is Madame Arcati's official birthday, I am a year old - like the modern US, I was born on the 4th of July. I am sure you will all rush to congratulate me on my self-discipline and rigour - don't you think the world of blogging is better for my presence?

My thanks I extend to a cast of characters I could not have invented starting with Kevin Spacey, his brother Randy, his ravishing ex-wife Stephanie Mastini (a gifted artist) and her peculiar sister Francine and boyfriend Thom. Frenemies such as the acclaimed novelist Susan Hill, the delightful and learned Duncan Fallowell, Duralex, Lorenzo, the late Dinu, Lavinia, Daughter-of-a-bitch and the subtle Ms Baroque have maintained a running narrative that continues to fascinate as many of them try in vain to get the better of me. I sometimes think that Arcati is a blog-o-soap.

Arcati has brought to your attention a number of stories that would not have seen the light of day if left to the dead tree media - such as the Independent's diamond supplement, Stefano Hatfield's infidelity with Ken Livingstone's PR and the baffling complexities behind the Jon Snow/Precious Williams saga (ongoing).

As it says at the top, I write about whatever I like in the way I like. No editor in the free world ever granted me that freedom.

Madame Arcati gets on her bike. Bye bye

This is my 1005th post and my last for now. I am sure there is a counselling service somewhere for those bereaved by the resting of a blog, but take heart: like a silent volcano, Madame Arcati is not necessarily dead but could be dormant. Just think Krakatoa or Vesuvius: you never know when either may erupt again. An innocent goatherd loitering about this site may yet find him/herself blown into the sky as Mt Arcati suddenly spews out her magma-poison in response to another hypocrite editor or dodgy showbiz dahling ...

Of course the site remains here, her cinder cone a monstrous phallic silhouette at dusk. Think of all those posts to read or re-read! Kevin Spacey, Duncan Fallowell, Molly Parkin, Stephanie Mastini, Jonathan King, Susan Hill, Ms Baroque, Rupert Murdoch, Fish and Nicky Haslam, Robert Tewdwr Moss, Allison Pearson, Rupert Everett, Precious Williams and Jon Snow, celebrity cocks ... so many more - frenemies and all - topics and contributors. And thousands of glorious comments from the likes of the mysterious Duralex and other masked smarties -fresh comments will go up indefinitely, and you can write to me privately if you wish or need to.

In the two-plus years of my existence, from July 4, 2006 to now, this site had 1,033,081 pageviews and 468,079 visits, with most callers from the US and then the UK, followed by Canada, Australia, Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Ireland and Spain. People from 197 countries visited the site - though I assume the one visit from Vatican City was a papal accident. I think I can safely say that Madame Arcati has proven to be more popular than certain mainstream publications and their websites.

And on that happy note, bye bye. For now.

(And as if to sum up Madame Arcati's cock-cocking, cunt-cunting preoccupations, I am indebted to Stella Polari for bringing to my attention The Maccabees' delightful Toothpaste Kisses - a polysexual frolic)

And my thanks to the incomparable Margaret Rutherford whose Madame Arcati in Coward's Blithe Spirit (1945) changed my life. Why wasn't she made a dame? (Where's Christopher Lee's knighthood btw?) Rutherford was all the things I love - deeply gifted, ugly, always old and one of the avatars of the peculiar. Even as a teen I had a fetish for creped skin. If you don't know her, here's an intro ....

Madame Arcati's mini-mes: Part 2

Dear Madame,

Madame, there are at least two Madame Arcatis on Facebook. One of them has the likes of Fish Inton, Jon Snow, Precious Williams, Victoria Aitken and Nirpal Dhaliwal as Friends. The other one has Mark McGowan and Katy Evans-Bush as Friends. I'd imagine one of these Facebook personas is the real you. Which one?

Anonymous

Dear Anonymous,

The former Madame Arcati is simply going through my blog and then approaching featured names - Snow et al - to join their Facebook - she/he/it is a fraud. I don't know about the other one - sounds like me, but Facebook is such a joke I can't be bothered to think about it.

The tragic Fire Island relic on My Space does the same - except he lifts my music ideas and other things then features them as videos. I am the new Judy Garland/Dorothy Squires to this cliche queen.

MA x