Dictator's wife Asma al-Assad - thin, as approved by US Vogue's Anna Wintour

Asma al-Assad

A faint sneery rustle of controversy over US Vogue's embarrassingly timed profile of Syria's first lady, Asma al-Assad, 35. As Middle Eastern and north African regimes topple all about its borders and beyond, and Syria itself beats down rioters and restricts internet access, here comes a piece of scented puffery which lauds the wife of President Bashar al-Assad, who won 97% of the vote in the 2000 election.

You can't buy that kind of charisma. Or may be you can.

Apparently, the first lady is the nation's Mother Theresa. Wisely, she leaves the jewels at home while ministering to the dirt poor. She's a strange kind of saintly figure, however. The Vogue piece recounts how she cruelly tells a bunch of children that their school is to be closed down. As infantile blubs start up she reveals she's only joking - 'I just wanted to see how much you care about Massar,' she says of her charity.

It's a very telling anecdote. Living saints should not be overly conscious of the favours they do unto others. Note to the first lady's PRs.

As for Vogue, oh dearie dear. Yet another cock up. Why they ran the interview is revealed in the opening lines. She is 'glamorous, young, and very chic... a thin, long-limbed beauty with a trained analytic mind who dresses with cunning understatement.' Yes, she is thin: this will have endeared the first lady to editor Anna Wintour who most certainly would not have commissioned the profile had the subject resembled the late Golda Meir or some other aged gargoyle. We all know about Anna's obsession with thin.

If only she had read the astrological Old Moore's Almanack, which from the vantage point of January 2010 foresaw the current revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and elsewhere, while secular seers had their antennae up their arses. If only.

Read the profile while it's up, here

X Factor granny Sheila Vogel-Coupe nominated for SHAFTA porn award!

Sheila poses with a co-star

Madame Arcati is almost wet with joy. Her Woman of the Year, Sheila Vogel-Coupe, 82, has been nominated for a porn award hosted by Television X. Result announced on March 9. The press release reads:

"Television X Soft and Hard Adult Film and Television Awards aka The SHAFTAs, adult film awards ceremony hosted by Viv The Spiv and Linsey Dawn McKenzie. 'The X Factor' contestant Katie Waissel's 81-year-old [sic] grandmother Sheila Vogel-Coupe is nominated for Most Outrageous Scene for her role in 'Freddie's Great British Granny Bang'. Other categories incl Best Spoof Series, Best MILF Of The Year and Best Female Performer Of The Year. Guests incl Tim Westwood, Dirty Sanchez and Bez."

To watch Sheila in action, you will need to use the web address in the pic. It's not a hyper-link, OK? Please be warned you are accessing a porn site of which I deeply disapprove. Scroll down to the bottom on the site.

Benedict Cumberbatch: Frankenstein stark naked and no small talk

Benedict Cumberbatch

Dearest Madame,

I see you are once more on holiday [since ended], but this is too good not to share given your love of celebrity cock on display (apart from John Barrowman's, which has been thrust in the face of 80% of the population of the North Atlantic seaboard).

I saw Frankenstein at the National last night. A questionable adaptation (Frankenstein himself is badly drawn and there's a lot of clunking punning on Paradise Lost) saved by wonderful lighting design and Benedict Cumberbatch who played the Creature the night I saw it.

It opens with the Creature's birth, which involves TV's Sherlock Holmes gadding around the stage stark naked for around ten minutes. No attempt is made to hide his manhood, which is on full display. I can also confirm he has very firm buttocks.

He's swapping the role nightly with Jonny Lee Miller (who, as Frankenstein was cruelly exposed as the ageing matinee idol he is) so doubtless he'll be on full display as well. Double portions!

As a sidenote, I was at university with Mr Cumberbatch, who was two years above me and very much destined for greatness at the tender age of 20. He was often to be found in the kitchen at parties talking with great intensity about acting. Hopeless at smalltalk, but then you do find with the very best actors that they're unsure as to how to be themselves.

I didn't manage to sneak a photo of the penis in question (the tuts would have been deafening) but perhaps another of your readers might?

Yours, as always, C x

Dear C

Thank you for your letter. Mr Cumberbatch would make a superb Doctor Who, naked or otherwise. Your failure to describe his cock is a matter of concern.

Best wishes

Madame Arcati

Frankenstein at the National Theatre, click here for details

Duncan Fallowell: At home with his many whiffs of other worlds

During my latest absence Duncan Fallowell posted a movie on YouTube, all about his library. If you love Come Dine With Me and the latest Hello! incursion into a celebrity's home, but prefer a literary flavour to your vulgar curiosity, then this is for you: pour yourself a glass of wine, sit back and wander free through Duncan's mountain ranges of books (his 'whiffs of other worlds'). He is a marvellous guide.

Do writers have to be odd? Is there a God? What's invaded his bedroom? And has he ever boiled a lobster in his lobster pot?, now entombed by books. Which ancient civilisation was the most adult? 'Open a book and you're opening a door... they [books] are an expression of freedom.' I like his agnostic thoughts (mystery must be our salvation) and his reflections on the nature of respect. His best, most thoughtful film yet.

Madame Arcati and stargazing at The Lady

I am delighted to see that The Lady reports a 4.9% circulation rise year-on-year, one of only two weekly UK magazines still heading north. So what better time to return from my break to amplify the Independent on Sunday's goss news last weekend that I have been appointed The Lady's astrologer - I or the person who thinks he pulls my strings. Little does he know!

Do acquaint yourselves with the magazine's website and a cast of characters that includes a cat called Eric and office dog Coco. Not among the galère are the likes of Katie Price, Kerry Katona or Justin 'homosexuality is a choice' Bieber - relish such a rare and salubrious environment.

And if you have any sense take out a subscription if only to follow my horoscopes from March 22. The future will become one eternal present.

On blogging, this time around I shall be posting irregularly, when it suits me. But hang around. You could do a lot worse.