The Lady Magazine Commences Liquidation Proceedings

Very sad news received today under the solar eclipse (traditionally not great) in Aries.  The Lady magazine has commenced liquidation proceedings arising from HMRC pursuing an alleged £360,000 tax debt. I am supposing the magazine is no more. Only recently it brought out its 140th birthday edition, having been launched in 1885. My condolences to proprietor Ben Budworth and editor Helen Budworth.

I was recruited to the magazine back in 2011 by then-editor Rachel Johnson who was a fan of the Madame Arcati blog. I was The Lady's first and last astrologer. Did I see doom coming? The myth about astrology is that hard and fast forecasts can be made. But let me put it this way. The solar eclipse of today is ruled by Mars, and the magazine's Mars is in its 8th house, traditional zone of death and taxes. The future is not set in stone. But we way reflect on where the planets are at certain events. 

I had the honour of working with some great editors of the magazine. Rachel did the essential thing of breaking moulds and she enjoyed spikes in circulation, but only spikes. I think it was Channel 4 that broadcast a riveting documentary of life at the magazine when it was housed in a wedding cake of a property in Covent Garden. Sam Taylor was a joy and I felt appreciative of astrology, or of acausal approaches to life. Helen brought a great pizazz to the title and I always liked her. 

I'll say more about The Lady another time. 

How Vanity Fair put Graydon Carter in his Place

Faint praise is one way of damning something. Another is to throw a knowing glance at the something before shifting one's fanning gaze elsewhere, fast. As if to say, "Next!" This latter course has been adopted by the April 2025 edition of Vanity Fair, and the 'something' is Graydon Carter's memoirs, When the Going was Good, about his time as editor of that magazine - all of 25 years.

VF's fanning gaze takes the form of  a tiny capsule nod to the fact of this book's existence, a review-ette no bigger than a postage stamp. Oh here it is...

Given Carter's eminence - among other things, presiding over the sensational Caitlyn Jenner cover marking the transition of Olympic gold medal-winning decathelete Bruce to the sisterhood - one might think that the book worthy of a longer review and/or an extract and/or an interview. It was not meant to be. There was the chance to mire the readership in celebrity goss and relive VF's glory days! A chance to celebrate its best editor, arguably. Current editor Radhika Jones plainly decided - or it was decided elsewhere - that the book should not experience an excess of enthusiasm. On the other hand, to ignore it altogether would be less than elegant. After all, one of the reasons why statuesque intellectual Radhika holds her post is because Graydon (and Tina Brown before him) made the magazine such a success in the first place. Kerching, poppet. 

The review-ette has all the hallmarks of an amateurish nepo-intern job. Have you spotted its tautology? Do write in. So, what's going on? We now turn to last week's The Sunday Times Magazine for likely backstories and Hadley Freeman's breathless interview with Graydon. 

Hadley shows some gusto as a writer, and what she lacks in exquisiteness of style is plainly over-compensated for by an abundance of gall (or chutzpah). This latter goes far in mainstream journalism. Pushy-push push. AI-subs can tidy up the outpourings. Alas, Hadley had to fly steerage London to New York to meet Carter, a revelation that plainly amuses him. He flew Concorde in his pomp.

The interview is quite revealing. First we learn that he thinks not too affectionately of American Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, his boss at Condé Nast as editorial director in the last eight years of his editorship. We discern a long-standing froideur between the legends. He tells Hadley: "It's funny, Anna's job title has gotten longer as Condé Nast has gotten smaller. She's like one of those Ruritanian princes". He also shares that Anna has the vulgar habit of terminating a restaurant meal as soon as she is done, leaving "dinner-mates...mid-bite". Anna was always "frosty" and hints he could have said so much more. While Anna will not have known what Graydon had say to Hadley, we may suppose she got wind of the book's contents - the "cheeky anecdotes" about her - and it was editorially intuited that a minimal reception was in order. Fanning gaze!

We then come to Radhika and her VF - a gelding compared to Graydon's big bollocks stallion. Hadley finds the gelding "less fun", and here I would agree. The layouts are sophomorically distracting and the features candy crush toothless, but for the recent profile of the Sussexes which found its courage in running with the media pack and slagging the Montecito royals off. Hadley tells Carter that she finds Radhika's covers "dull" to which he responds, "You can say that, I never could". A good House of Cards line of non-self-incriminatory agreement. He looks happy to note that today's VF has fewer ads.  

Personally, I would have run a long extract from Graydon's book and relished the indiscretions. Get dirty. I mean, who cares? But Radhika's VF is just nice. And if it does get mean, it looks over its shoulder first.

River the Regalista: Now Meghan Writes Him a Letter!

Madame Arcati's Substack

2

2

---

---

Good heavens, the Duchess of Markle has written a letter to one of her trolls, River. Below is my take on him-she with tiara. Meghan attempts to deploy humour in her elaborate epistle, and she reveals some self-satire to her credit. River may accept to gift from Montecito. Meanwhile, River...

Among the baubles of YouTube podcasters is a young femme-chap called River. And how he flows and flows. A torrent of royally-inflected words pour forth on a regular basis, and he is indeed articulate. University-educated probably, or an inspired autodidact. River is a vision of tiara’d pulchritude, and is yet another specialist in matters Meghan and Harry; a regalista in the mode of drawling Lady Colin ‘aw aw’ Campbell and Dan ‘spite face’ Wootton (litigation pending, poppet?), sniping at anyone who may offend or challenge The Firm. In all instances, Meghan of Montecito is marked for especially vicious scorn. Unlike Lady C, River does not pose as an insider with direct Windsor wormholes spewing goss. At least I don’t think so. I have not watched all of River’s videos. I find my horoscopy to be quite time-consuming. From what I gather he is an assiduous reader of royal tattle with a sharp eye for a revealing detail missed by most others. This prompts engaging monologues that sustain the impression of exclusivity.

I have no idea who he is. He says he lives near Hampstead, London. Even Grok is non-plussed, muddling him with the Michael Jackson American impersonator River Gibbs whose videos can be found on YouTube and Instagram. Indeed, I confused the two until River himself drew my attention to one of his podcasts in which he scotches the multiple personality rumour. I must admit I did find it hard to reconcile the athletic rollerskater River G with his Serene Highness River on his armchair throne, imagining that he boarded the transatlantic red-eye to play two different parts. How silly of moi. (Btw, since following River G on Instagram he has made the account private. So my other alter egos watch him instead.)

River’s YouTube channel is popular. He has 154,000 subscribers, and his 367 videos to date have been viewed 47,000,000 times. I’m well jel. Each video draws a cacophony of commentary, mostly of the pleasuring kind, though one recent message earned River’s ire. He was berated for using ‘Jesus Christ’ as a ‘quss’ word and was told to ‘man up’. River’s response was a thing of wonder as he majesterially tore into his critic, telling his public that he could not give a fuck what they thought of him. In any case, as he wondered in effect, what kind of Christian would be watching a faintly louche Rocky Horror Picture Show-type podcast? And why would River, a master of princessy maquillage, want to be manning-up?

This last point takes us to this week when River went off usual topic and gave an entertaining account of his well-populated love life history. Male members (or ‘tree trunks’) were size-queened by ethnicity, and apparently ‘gingers’ smell of pig’s urine. I’ll take that under advisement. It was all very fruity, my fruits - one of his signature endearments. When not engaged in sexual congress, he is quite psychic, confidently predicting Trump’s victory, and appears to approve the 47th’s dictum that there are only two sexes/genders. Tell that to Caitlin (a Trump pal). I gather that divinatory topics are not his thing.

In our short exchange on his YouTube channel comment section, willowy River warmed my heart by asking whether I was ‘THE Vic Olliver’. I like the THE bit. From this I must deduce that in his formative years, before he grew to just under 6′ 2″, he was an avid reader of my old Madame Arcati blog on Blogger. Goodness knows what he made of my cunt-cockery language. What or whom have I created? In the metaphorical sense River is my blog son (or daughter if you prefer), and he has used my example of what else you can do solo and get away with in public. River is my electronic blood but, no, I shall not leave him anything in my will. I draw attention to his PayPal account where you can reward him for his successful screen labours.

Of late, River has moved residence, which was quite a trial for him it seems. He used to be filmed in what looked like a well-decorated snug. Now he has a courtyard of ivy and a new armchair throne set in a drawing room. The mise-en-scène is witness to the sharp study of glossy magazine palace interiors pics, and it is just possible that he will one day do a Lady C and acquire his own Castle Goring. Whether he has to do any whoring so to do - jungly Lady C-style - remains a matter of speculation.

To join River’s court, here is the link to his channel River Broadcast. If Netflix is reading this, sign him up. And if you know River, do leak into my lughole.