Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Tim Walker: Nat not on your yacht: Ephraim in frame: Tim sings hymn: And a Dickie Nickie

Did the Telegraph's gorgeous Mandrake gosser Tim Walker really scoop the nationals by revealing that George Osborne and Lord Mandy Hello Sailored with Nat Rothschild on rich bastard Deripaska's yacht off Corfu? Tim told Madame Arcati that he did (but he didn't say Nat was on board), the Sunday Times' Martin Ivens seemed to claim that he did, or did he? A noted observer writes in ...

No, no: Ivens claimed the scoop about the fact that Mandy had been "dripping poison". Ephraim Hardcastle in the Mail placed Mandy and Osborne at lunch together in Corfu; then Ivens got briefed about "poison" (this to be fair is what he claims, though he did do it rather painfully, agreed); then Tim Walker did the yacht minus Nat; then Nat put himself there (in the Times).

God, this is now getting dull but we do need it to be right if we are going to start boasting, don't we Tim?

Dear Noted Observer,
Thank you for your clarification. Or is it?
MAx

Oh, and now Tim has written in. May as well bung it here ...

From The Office of Tim Walker, The Telegraph

Dear Madame,
It all gets a bit confusing, but the fact is we said in Mandrake that Mandelson and Osborne had been on Deripaska’s yacht. One week later the Sunday Times reported that Mandelson and Osborne had been on Deripaska’s yacht. We have had a lot of other exclusives on Mandrake though and certainly a lot more than any of our so-called rivals: Mark Thatcher’s secret wedding, Dame Maggie Smith's fight with breast cancer, Joanna Trollope quitting her publisher Bloomsbury and Hello!'s £500,000 deal with Peter Phillips for coverage of his wedding… I could go on but I am a) too modest and b) have to write up more big scoops for tomorrow’s column. Best of luck with your entertaining website.
Best, Tim

Dear Tim,
Darling, it appears you have conceded that Nat appeared on the yacht a bit after your first entirely authentic scoop. Now that we've got that out of the way, we can celebrate your many and several story devirginalisations. Nesta sends her love.

Oh, and did you see gosser Richard Kay's story today in the Mail about Britt Ekland's Christmas plans? Lifted word for word from Teletext's Showbiz Spy, a source whispers to me. Nice to see tabloid environmentalism in action.
MA x

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why is Madame obsessing over this sub-story? Why do you always seek to irritate in those grey areas that wise souls rightly fear to tread. get back to Bing you whore-lover.

Anonymous said...

May I point out to anon that "comprised" cannot be "of" since the word comprise means loosely "made up of". So the "of" is redundant. You could say however "composed of".

Anonymous said...

Tim Walker is a darling - the kindest, sweetest, most polite gossip writer imaginable.

Anonymous said...

I happen to know Tim has a huge willy.

Anonymous said...

Can he do a nudie for Madame like Dunc and Rupe and Daniel? I noticed Horsley funked the cock-pic test.

Madame Arcati said...

I don't think the grown-ups at the Telegraph would appreciate Tim Walker parading his tackle on Arcati, but that shouldn't stop some enterprising scamp Photo-Shopping a whanger onto Tim's image a la Daniel Radcliffe. I had thought that a super-abundance of star cock might lower the tone of Arcati - certainly the Mary Poppins-types among my acquaintanceship shudder at the very prospect of gazing at Arcati's blog - but on the whole cock has widened the perspective of my army of readers and allowed us all the pleasure of helping to demystifying this highly political and faintly ludicrous organ.

Anonymous said...

i think this might be a good moment for a roundup of which national hacks read arcati on company time, don't you?

Madame Arcati said...

Google Analytics reveals that all the major media regularly read Arcati - I may put up a report the way Guido Fawkes does. If I don't mention any hacks for a while, interest drops off. I understand that certain media have nannied off Arcati, but refuseniks get through.

Anonymous said...

I hear they're sacking people at the Telegraph. Hope Tim's not one of them.

Anonymous said...

proof anyway that tim reads you, isnt it

Madame Arcati said...

Yes, and he isn't alone. I'm sure I am part of certain hacks' research.