Jonathan King's whopping 'Christmas card': A review

I'd assumed that the physics-driven vogue for the atheistic faith would result in fewer festive communications. So many apparent friends have now replaced the Star of Bethlehem with Prof Brian Cox's inter-stellar Lego-like imaginings - which at least offer welcome savings in the winter fest family budget. 

But I was wrong. If anything, the Christmas greeting has become much more ambitious.

I first noticed this with writer Roger Lewis. Not content with just sending me (and dozens others) a card bearing glittery-cute Santa bears, he enclosed a round-robin, four-page account (single-spaced, A4) of his 2012 (lesbian porn sites being a feature).

Now Jonathan King has gone one better. Instead of a card, he has dispatched a fully illustrated, 227-page book. It's titled Three Months: 100 Glorious Sunny Days In the Summer of 2012: a 'snapshot' of his life largely abroad when he's not here addressing the Leveson Inquiry and dismissing it presciently as a 'waste of space'.

Three Months falls well within the Katie Price definition of biography - ie diary (with distinct serial possibilities). On p22 we learn that he's had lovers 'much prettier' than Brad Pitt (this memory arises over coffee and petits pains at the Carlton in Cannes), some time after his dear friend, the veteran newspaper interviewer Lynn Barber, has called him an 'egocentric bore' to his face. 

JK has of course weathered much greater insult and is still grinning as Britain's panto 'vile pervert'. A knighthood cannot be that far away. After all, April Ashley, who was once dismissed herself as a deviant monstrosity by our upstanding red-tops, is now an icon of transgender equality with her MBE ribboned in pink and grey. The ghost of John Profumo must surely concur.

Three Months is of course a relentless deluge of name-dropping - but King's en passant goss is worth all the ego-coddling. We learn, for instance, that he's working on a TV format for Simon Fuller (that'll please Cowell) and that he's not given up hopes of getting his hands on The Brits and Eurovision once again - the UK last won the latter under his ministration. Whenever he pops abroad he first has to tell the Marylebone cop shop whose boneheads are always 'nice and helpful'.

And his story on Peter Mandelson is so deliciously wicked that I delight in not repeating it.

JK's intellectual life is sustained by a bookishness that may surprise the tut-tutters of tabloid tat. Paul Bowles and Graham Greene share his journeys; and I was astonished to learn that he actually ploughs through the Booker finalist tomes. Frankly, I'd rather have anal sex with a traffic cone.

I could go on. But I have to remind myself. Three Months is meant only to be a Christmas card!

Jonathan King's euphoric profit from Eurovision 2012

I am most pleased to learn that Jonathan King - currently flying high as the nation's 'vile pervert' - has returned to pop picking form and made himself a nice profit from Eurovision 2012.

The man once known in the UK as 'Mr Eurovision' - he produced A Song for Europe for the Beeb in the 90s, amongst other things - tells me that not only did he predict Sweden would win but won £700 on it at 7-1.

He tells me he backed the winning song Euphoria when it 'was just a demo entry in the Swedish contest; I knew it would win; but nothing to do with stars or literary techniques - just me knowing a hit when I hear it!'

Unlike anyone at the BBC these days.

Eurovision 2012: Mary Beard's bibliomancy predicts Engelbert's humiliation

Sweden, a worthy winner of Eurovision 2012. I am most pleased.

I am also delighted to report that a recent prediction that Engelbert Humperdink would flop at the show proved painfully true, with the UK last but one. My mystical divinatory tool was Mary Beard's ancient bibliomancy - the use of a book, opened at random, to discover a future truth. This is what I wrote on April 28 2012:

'Actually, the commonest book to use is the Bible. Now, let's see. I'll ask the question: 'Will Engelbert Humperdink win Eurovision?' I open the Bible randomly and (without looking down down on the page) select Ezekiel Ch 33 verse 32 (I swear I'm not making this up): this reads: 'And, lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear thy words, but they do them not.' Mmm, I think that's a definite No.'

So there, you materialist scum. To read more click here.

Oh, Sweden...

Simon Cowell's Sweet Revenge: 'Unauthorised' - in a sense

'This book is not written by me. It is unauthorised. The writer is Tom Bower,' tweets Simon Cowell. 

Yes, but it is apparent from the text published in the newly socialist Sun - which is milking Sweet Revenge: The Intimate Life of Simon Cowell quite brilliantly - that Simon (aka Jubilee's Borgia Ginz) granted generous access to his thoughts and experiences that include intimate episodes only he and AN Other (usually one of his paid-off and presumably 'gagged' exes) could have furnished. 

Simon is even thanked in the text for his cooperation - this does not make the book authorised. But then again I notice that the word 'unauthorised' is not to be found on Bower's cover.

In an interview with the Camden New Journal of Jan 5, 2011, the reporter noted: 'The biography, due out in May [2012], is the result of hundreds of hours of unprecedented access to Cowell, plus direct contributions from his many supporters and rivals.'

Bower sat in on Cowell's various TV talent shows and doubtless shared mugs of tea with his subject.

On the other hand, Bower says: 'Cowell will not read the manuscript before publication - it is in that sense an unauthorised biog. He has no copy approval.'

I love the finessing 'in that sense...'. Tells us everything really about this 'unauthorised' must-read.

Jonathan King on Leveson: 'Dacre was mumbly and Steve Coogan needs a haircut'

Jonathan King, not as Lord Justice Leveson

Jonathan King talks to Madame Arcati about the Leveson Inquiry which is examining UK media regulation, ethics and practices in the wake of the phone hacking scandal. What does he think of Paul Dacre's performance in the witness box? Which newspaper editor has the worst hairstyle? And what does he hope to bring to the party if called to give evidence? Read on....


Q: Darling, you've applied to be a 'core participant' in the Leveson Inquiry - I may have missed it, but what's the outcome? Or if there is no outcome, when will you know the decision?


JK: The outcome was pretty rapidly NO, I'm NOT a Core Participant Victim (not yet proved to be a hacking victim, in the fairly narrow confines of the Inquiry description) but will hopefully be called as a Witness in the next couple of months.


Q: Can you tell us the gist of what you'd like to say to Leveson? For instance, would you mention how Andy Coulson at the News of the World rigged a photo of you in a park to make it appear you were ogling young people?


JK: Very much - the "Pervert in the Park" doctored photo is prime evidence of how one single witness for the NOTW (Editor Andy Coulson), denying they did it, was enough to convince the head of the committee examining it at the PCC (Les Hinton - then boss of News International, owner of NOTW) that the paper had NOT breached the PCC code. The executive "meant" to be in charge of my complaint was Stephen Abell - now Chairman of the PCC. My evidence alone could shut down the PCC.

I believe my entire prosecution is incredibly illuminating to the Inquiry regarding the relationship between Police and Media. Whether GOOD (Crimewatch) or BAD - my case shows how a case can be constructed and get to a conviction with no evidence - just one person's word against another's. Likewise the fascinating "Matthew Kelly" incident, just days before my appeal was due to be heard. I've had first hand experience. For example - how precisely did The Sun hear about my arrest (they were at my front door within minutes)? And was a photographer really strolling through Hyde Park at just the moment I was there being interviewed for a TV show?

Q: What do you think of Leveson so far? Do you think the judge should be careful of saying over and over again that he thinks most of the journalism out there is good and valuable?

JK: I'm thoroughly enjoying the Inquiry. Leveson himself has won a JK Best Supporting Eyebrows Oscar. But yes, his determination to be fair at all points, whilst laudable, is also illustrative of how the law suffocates truth with boredom, even if it doesn't intend to. I fear that the Inquiry might err towards condemnation and restriction of the media where it needs to focus on how the whole system has been broken.

Q: Which witnesses have especially improved or damaged their reputation as a result of appearing at Leveson?

JK: I seem to feel differently to everyone else. I'm a fan of Kelvin's, so I'm biased. I thought Richard Desmond was very good and quite funny whereas Paul (Dolly) Dacre was mumbly, irritated, truculent and snappy. I'm glad Steve Coogan won all that money - maybe now he can afford a decent haircut. Talking of haircuts, virtually EVERY Editor has ghastly hair. Richard Wallace of the Mirror is tonsorially extraordinary. Hislop was fun. Waxie Maxie is clearly not a well man. He dressed for a funeral, kept chewing and gurning, shifting and looking uneasy. I fear he won't be with us for much longer; such a shame. He's kept us all entertained for so many years.

Q: Will Leveson make much of a difference in the end?

JK: I don't think the Inquiry was intended to. It was set up by Spoonface Cameron to make him appear (in the media) to be strong and forceful (bombing innocents in Libya wasn't doing it). I think Leveson himself has every intention of improving things and he can if he doesn't allow himself to be steered into the wrong direction. After all, the horrendous crime of giving the parents of a dead teenager false hope for a few weeks (can anyone explain why that is SO dreadful?) may shock us all (in the media) far more than the inefficiency of our civil servants but the broken system needs far more than a Band Aid and the media is the least of our problems. The millions of our tax monies spent on an Inquiry might have been better wasted prosecuting football managers or paying banker bonuses.

Q: And finally, what's the Inquiry room like? Any BO?

JK: Far smaller than one thinks, no smells or farts but lots of computer screens - apt. The Royal Courts however are glorious - I'll turn it into a hotel any day if they'll let me. It's wasted as it is. To think, my lips have now sipped from the same glass as Hugh Grant, Paul (Dolly) Dacre, Heather Mills and the McCanns! And my buttocks have graced the same seat as Neville Thurlbeck. Isn't life a fascinating parade of excitement.

Thank you so much for your time.

Jonathan King shock horror! A 'fair' press interview

The new Independent editor Chris Blackhurst can't be all bad. He has actually run a fair interview with social media pariah (du jour) Jonathan King when the press convention is to label him a paedo, run doctored pics of him ogling kids in parks (as Andy Coulson did at the News of the World) or pretend he never existed (as at the BBC, until the DG Mark Thompson reversed that foolishness in a written apology).

The Indie relates how its interview with JK came about: he wrote to Blackhurst pointing out that his memoirs had recently topped an Amazon book sales chart and that thousands had viewed his movies on YouTube and elsewhere.

Such maverick responsiveness in a sitting editor must be almost without precedent in modern times. To read the piece click here.

Jonathan King: The Sun, The Moon, Paul Merton and HIGNFY

The Moon in Me Me Me

The witty topical TV quiz Have I Got News For You? this week had Andy Hamilton suggest that, if The Sun closes down, the new tabloid should be called The Moon.

"What a brilliant name!" exclaimed Paul Merton.

Yes - so brilliant that six months ago Jonathan King's second movie, satirical Me Me Me - premiered in London and screened at the Cannes Film Festival - featured a national British daily paper called… The Moon.

In fact, the film's already had 12,000 full length downloads and views to the free website - you can watch the movie for nothing here. It was the No1 film on YouTube last week for 13-30 year-olds.

The film was revealed exclusively by Madame Arcati last May. Perhaps the scriptwriters should borrow Madame's crystal balls or invite JK back on - I'm sure he's more than capable of giving them a run for their six-figure fees.

To read Madame's 'non-review' of the flick, click here.

Roger Lewis book party: Adult nappies, posh gits and names galore, darling

Perfect

Party reports from guests Molly Parkin, Jonathan King and Duncan Fallowell. And a letter from host Roger Lewis on his glorious celebration.

'Roger was wearing sandals. The last person I remember wearing sandals at his own book launch was Jeremy Sandford, circa 1985.' So reports Duncan Fallowell, one of many notable guests at Roger Lewis' launch party for What Am I Still Doing Here?, his fabulous and funny autobiographical follow-up to acclaimed Seasonal Suicide Notes.

Madame Arcati couldn't make it, of course. but she had not one, not two, but three famous appointed ambassadors dispatched to the Chris Beetles Ltd event on Tuesday (Oct 18) evening in London's SW1: the blessed Duncan (a biped concordance on party lore), the divine fiancee Molly Parkin and last and never least - oh yes - Jonathan King, lately the recipient of an apology from the BBC DG Mark Thompson himself.

Molly Parkin portrait by
Darren Coffield

JK tells me: 'My dear friend Lynn Barber just e-m'd me to say Duncan Fallowell was terribly keen to meet me because of our mutual friend Arcati! I'd have liked to have seen him with his clothes on.'

He adds: 'Molly Parkin looked gorgeous and took most of the attention in a room which ranged from Richard Littlejohn and Quentin Letts through Barry Cryer to Lynn Barber and Valerie Grove. Literally anyone who is anyone in London literary society was there and most had read about the BBC apology on Madame Arcati's site, so I spent the time fielding journalist questions. But the main puzzle was - how does Arcati know everything? I'm sorry to say I revealed the existence of the crystal ball, the cards and the stars.'

Isn't he adorable? OK, if you're a tabloid cunt he isn't adorable.

Duncan Fallowell

Molly Parkin reports: 'The party was full of posh gits - literary, artistic and fashion types I normally avoid - and loads of old Colony people, and Gyles Brandreth and (film director) Joe McGrath (82 now!) who worked a lot with Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan. Even Clair Woodward, the Arts & Ents Editor of the Sunday Express, was there. Men at the party kept on coming up to me and saying, "I want to shake your hand so I can say I shook the hand of Molly Parkin."'

A little confusion attended the opening minutes of the do. 'We couldn't get in initially and it was already 6.20 pm,' says Moll. 'Then a funny little girl opened the door; a bit of a cock-up. It was in a gallery of sorts with loads of water colours on the wall; the party was split over three separate areas.' Duncan adds: 'It was such a weird basement of cramped chambers.'

Moll continues: 'I met that wonderful journalist on the Independent Matthew Bell who was there with a difficult girl - he told me Duncan was trying to get my attention - it was terribly crowded. By the time I was free he'd gone - Roger wasn't happy about that. Roger said, "Duncan's prematurely disappeared."'

Moll paraded in a self-made tall magenta turban which excited the interest of author and journalist Valerie Grove - 'What have you stuffed the turban with?' she asked after calling it a 'fantastic hat'. Moll replied: 'Adult nappies.' Poor Val gave a disgusted 'Oh' and hoped the nappies had not been used first.

Jonathan King

Moll confides to Madame Arcati: 'Actually, the nappies were not used but I had bought some after someone told me about incontinence in the elderly. I'm not incontinent but I wanted to see if they work. So I put one on and went for a piddle - and not a drop leaked out. So next time I go to the theatre or cinema I'm going to wear a nappy and I can have a piddle without getting up. Nappies make great padding for turbans.'

And as for Duncan's early exit... he explains: 'I had to leave Roger's launch to go on to the Keats-Shelley party at Carlton House Terrace - followed by dinner at the Academy Club.

'But I then caught up with Roger around 11 pm at the Groucho where he was staying with his wife [Anna] and 3 sons - they'd been for a slap-up at Rule's. There were more drunks in the Groucho than in the Academy which must be a first. And so the Groucho was strangely quiet, several out cold slumped in armchairs. Roger on the other hand was just warming up and waving a glass of champagne around in the air and chatting up the pianist.'

Moll pays tribute to the surprising youthfulness of their 50-something host Roger and the 'beauty' of his sons. Duncan adds: 'I asked Roger, "Where did you find your handsome barman?" He replied "That's Sebastian". I didn't recognise his youngest son who last time I saw him some years ago was a hippy in embryo.'

How annoying! Madame Arcati regrets not attending this party. And yet she feels she walked among Roger Lewis' guests after all, in three persons, one nappied.

What Am I Still Doing Here? can be bought here.

Oh, and a letter from Roger Lewis himself....

Dear Madame Arcati,

Yes -- a great do. Barry Cryer said, "It's your book come to life!"

Luckily, the Booker Prize dinner siphoned off the dreck.

A highlight for me (in addition to your Molly) was the presence of Biddy Baxter! It was as if Dame Sybil Thorndike had turned up. She said: "Did you get a Blue Peter Badge" and I said, "No I bloody well did not!"

Also, we had Lord Archer, who unsportingly refused to exchange Belmarsh tales with young Jonathan King.

Judi Bowker

But also sneaking in -- the divine Judi Bowker. That's right, that vision of loveliness from Black Beauty and Clash of the Titans, where she was last seen lashed to a rock being menaced by Laurence Olivier. She was also blonde and gorgeous in The Shooting Party, with James Mason. But best of all -- Brother Sun, Sister Moon, where Zeffirelli got all these English lads to Tuscany and tried to, well, you can guess the rest.

We also had Eric Potts, the world's greatest pantomime dame -- this Christmas he's doing panto in Wimbledon, but with Barry Humphries. How can that work? Dame Edna as one of the Ugly Sisters ?

Perhaps Chris Beetles was still mourning his chum Rob Buckman, the celebrity doctor, who died on a plane heading for Toronto last week, but he was so gloomy, Rachel Johnson went up to him and said: "Are you Hungarian?"

Beetles shut the lights off at 8 sharp and 30 seconds later we were all on the street. A humorous sight, Gyles Brandreth, Barry Cryer, Stephen Frears, Joe McGrath, Molly Parkin, Francis Wheen and documentary-maker Tony "All You Need Is Love" Palmer tottering up the spiral stairs, from this dungeon where we'd been boozing. Everyone hung around for so long on the pavement, I thought, Christ, I'd better write another book so we can carry on celebrating.

A cab then drew up at the kerb, and executive editors from the Daily Mail piled out. A mob from the Sunday Express squared up to them, as if about to have a fight out of a Western.

Myself, Lady Lewis and the 3 little Lewises then went to Rules. The rest is as Duncan described, including my orthopaedic sandals for my diabetic foot.

Love,

ROGER

Jonathan King: BBC says sorry for editing him out of TOTP re-run

Much to my astonishment, the BBC Director-General Mark Thompson himself has personally apologised to Jonathan King for a recent BBC Four Top of the Pops re-run from which King had been edited out. You may recall Madame Arcati's tirade on this last month.

After an assurance that King will not be excised from future re-runs, Thompson writes: 'I want to join BBC Four in apologising for this incorrect decision.' Thompson's 'colleagues' at BBC Four are quoted in the letter. They write: 'We accept that this should not have happened and we would like to apologise for any upset this caused.'

To read the letter in full, click here.

But who decided to play taste-Nazi in the first place? Whoever h/she is, they're in the wrong job. The Daily Mail needs you! As for Mark Thompson, sensible man, even if he did bite a man on the ear once.

Stephen Fry and Jonathan King: A £600 dinner date at Le Gavroche

Jonathan King

While I'm loath to give Stephen Fry yet more publicity, I am nonetheless intrigued to learn that the ubiquitous polymath and audiobook favourite had dinner with self-described 'vile pervert' Jonathan King last Thursday evening. This suggests a healthy disregard for the opinion of tabloid phone-hacking scum, or at least a degree of personal loyalty or, at the very least, hedonistic tendencies, despite his professed love of tea.

Their venue of choice was London's Le Gavroche. Yet le menu exceptionnel appears to have been the least of it as two (shall we say) monster egos tussled over whose (er, ego) was the largest of them all. Or to quote JK in his message to Madame Arcati: 'Upon boasting about my achievement [presumably of reaching the No1 spot in Amazon's Pop Culture Kindle chart with his memoirs 65 My Life So Far], I had to suffer his numerous No1 positions in every known chart in the Universe.'

Personally, I should have drowned Fry in the watercress soup, but JK bore this onslaught with magnanimity. As he says: 'Oh dear. But he is a lovely person.'

Naturally, their date could not go unnoticed. JK reveals: 'We then had a very loud disagreement about the value of language and the abilities of different species - as we left I apologised to the other Gavroche diners and a lady said, with a huge smile - "Absolutely brilliant"!'

I wonder who settled the £600 bill. [Answer from JK in comments]

PS - JK adds in a private email - 'I had lunch with Neil and Christine Hamilton last week [See photo]; Anne Robinson a few months ago; Jane Moore next week - real friends don't desert - even when one becomes a Vile Pervert!'

Jonathan King autobiography hits the No 1 spot in Amazon's Kindle chart

I am delighted to see that Jonathan King's autobiography 65 My Life So Far hit No1 on the Amazon Kindle pop culture chart. This is amazing given the near-universal attempt to edit our tastes by our nation's media by ignoring the intriguing tome. Thanks to Madame Arcati's review and that of Roger Lewis in The Lady, however, and a little PR by the author himself, and... well, success!

You don't have to be signed up to the JK Fan Club to appreciate his priceless anecdotes about bisexual John Lennon and sooo many other stars he worked and (well) hung out with. Despite the BBC's best efforts to delete him from public record there's no denying his huge contribution to pop culture, for better or worse.

Madame's review can be read here. To buy the e-book, click here.

Jonathan King: BBC edits him out of a Top of the Pops rerun

The BBC's vacuous decision to edit out an appearance of Jonathan King on a 1976 edition of Top of the Pops for a BBC4 rerun sets an intriguing precedent. We all know King was convicted and jailed for sex with underage teenage boys a few years back, but what could be the rationale for this show 'laundering'; this charade that King never existed?

As columnist Terence Blacker writes in the Independent, "Certainly, if the BBC's new policy is to give musicians a retrospective morality test before allowing them on the screen, its censorship department is going to be busy. There will be no room for Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Pete Townshend, Ike Turner and many others – and that's before one has even reached jazz."

To this roster of BBC disappearing acts we should perhaps add, among so many others, George Michael, Michael Jackson (OK never convicted, but, y'know....), Boy George, Gary Glitter of course, Sid Vicious. Oh, and not forgetting convicted murderer Phil Spector and all his work. And if past notoriety is a factor in deciding spiritual contagion, should we not even consider Sir Elton John for footage oblivion - after all, that well known hack-moralist Alison Boshoff of the Daily Mail felt compelled to write this line in worthless huffy-puffiness back in 1999: "Sir Elton John was last night facing the possibility of legal action after he appeared with a troupe of male strippers dressed as Cub Scouts at a gay rights concert." Sir Elton still awaits the writ.

Whoever at the BBC made the decision to airbrush King out is in the wrong job. There must be a Murdoch red-top that needs you.

Jonathan King: Me Me Me - the movie non-review!

Dahlings, dahlings. Please, I don't do reviews any more. Shuuuu up!

What I do is this. I celebrate the arrival, the delivery, of a creative project. The miracle of doing. Who gives a toss whether a movie or novel is any good? You want a review of Jonathan King's latest musical flick, Me Me Me? Then ask the likes of that nice Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian to give Lars von Trier a rest and apply his testing template to the work. And he will tell us the distance between his idea of celluloid perfection and film-in-hand. That's all a review is really. A measurement of failure for gobbly fat arse atheist consumers by someone who never made a movie in his life. Fin.

Which brings me back to Me Me Me. It's here! And you can watch it for free (link below) or buy the DVD (a marvellous piece of work, two discs; one with just the soundtrack, and a booklet with the song lyrics for a g 'n' t karaoke over your keyboard) or buy whatever on iTunes; you know the drill. It's the 'best movie of the year by a thousands miles,' declares Ben T Voxpops. Ben's such a sexy name doncha think? All the Bens I know are sexy. So, take it from a Ben. Me Me Me is worth it.

The brothers Stansall: Henry (left) and Rupert

I've watched Me Me Me of course and I can say this. It's far better than Baz Luhrmann's Australia, far superior to Starship Troopers' first and second sequels; and in a realm of total bliss set against Shekhar Kapur's frightful Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Like Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange or Jarman's Jubilee, there's not much to liken Me Me Me to (at time of release), though JK has cleverly digested the great lesson of The Only Way Is Essex that acting soooooo gets in the way.

Who needs the sad artifices of cinéma vérité when you can cast anyone shaggable to emit a noise on camera?

What I love about JK is that he's a relentless hater, and Me Me Me picks up where his glorious first film Vile Pervert: The Musical left off, blasting tabloid culture and his old nemesis Max Clifford once again. Indeed, the movie's newspaper editor, one Marshall Artes (Daniel Jefferson) of The Moon shit daily, adopts the measured, soft and creepy tread of Waxy Maxy as he lures a pretty female intern to out a Banksy-style street artist with a talent for graffiti of sweet lickle innocent babies.

JK

I'm sure we'll hear a lot more from the two spunk avatars of the piece, Henry and Rupert Stansall (who play the street artist Johnny Bambino and his brother Jay Fratello); and I'm more than happy to commend the Aladdin song Rub It Hard sung by a cop who raps as biggYbiggy. Perhaps Take That could sing it at Eurovision 2012 after Gary Barlow's sunk The X Factor.

Is Me Me Me any good? Oh do fuck off you Which?-crazed swine.

To read more about Me Me Me and watch the movie for free, click here.

Jonathan King: Second movie Me Me Me out in May

Me himself

The ever-productive Jonathan King (yes, him; get over it) releases his second movie on May 5.

It's called Me Me Me and is not ostensibly a sequel to his glorious Vile Pervert: The Musical - my movie of the year 2008. A video from the slick new flick featuring a female trio fast approaches 100,000 hits in one week on YouTube - I do like their catchy song Don't Let Him Touch You, which I take to be a welcome homily to save one's cherry for the right bastard.

You can buy it on iTunes now. Details of where you can view the film for zilch in its entirety will be given in May.

Meantime, view the video below. Click screen once.

Jonathan King: Nation's Vile Pervert returns as God this Christmas

Jonathan King as God in Vile Pervert

Jonathan King sends Madame Arcati a gorgeous Christmas card with a cover pic of him as God bearing news of his 2010. He reports that his movie Vile Perpert: The Musical hit 55,000 downloads this year while iTunes brought in a tidy sum.

Unfortunately, Madame Arcati was on her extended 'retirement' this summer when Private Eye revealed that the author of the novel Beware The Monkey Man, Rex Kenny, was none other than.... Jonathan King.

The exposé resulted in 'dozens of review copies (sold unopened by "reviewers" to shops) to shift from Amazon within days.' Flogging unread review copies to bookshops is a nice money-earner for our nation's impoverished critics.

If you want to know more about his novel, visit the dedicated website.  I'm sorry I didn't get to read or review it: perhaps I shall in 2011. However, if you haven't already, do read my review of his excellent film Vile Pervert. The unelected YouTube nannies have of course disabled the video excerpt for the protection of one's fragile morals, but JK's put up another ('Wilde About Boys'). You can watch the entire film here.

Also, read my review of his excellent memoirs 65 My Life So Far. An ideal prezzie for bystanders to pop culture.

Vote for Roger Lewis to be Oxford's next Professor of Poetry!

Esteemed Arcatiste, legendary memoirist and wit, Roger Lewis, has been nominated for the Oxford Chair of Poetry. Oxford grads such as Duncan Fallowell (can a knighthood be that far away?) Lynn Barber (a damehood?), Rachel "The Lady" Johnson (the sack?), and many Bright Young Things (pah!) in publishing / the media/ journalism, have rallied to his cause, God bless them.

Oxonians need to (a) register to vote by June 4th and (b) actually vote. Polls open on May 21st and close on June 16th. This can all be done online - click here. This is a new departure for Roger; I just hope he is not robbed of his comic ingenuity in the process. I shall be most displeased. Very.

In the past people had to turn up in person in Oxford, so the dons always had it all sewn up, the tarts. Madame Arcati won't be thwarted.

Reward Showbiz™: The 10 most pointless celebrity books and TV shows

I'm a great follower of reward showbiz™ (© Madame Arcati 2010) - gigs bestowed upon slebs only because they have a name. Many showbiz or media projects are dreamt up simply as an excuse to get a star to front them. Such projects have three essential characteristics: 1) a star; 2) a journey, quest or list; 3) pointlessness. Here's my latest top 10 rewardees:

1. Joanna Lumley for Joanna Lumley's Nile, a new four part series on ITV1 starting this week. No earthly reason why the Nepalese goddess should be associated with this river, but it's an opportunity to wallow in cultivated mellifluousness as she bears her polished teeth at familiar sights - such as a lookalike camel - in various gurnings of rapture. Oh look, there's a pyramid.

2. Quentin Letts for his throwaway read 50 People Who Buggered Up Britain. The Daily Mail's right-wing attack dog is a professional frother who appears to favour a return to Feudalism and the use of the rack. An utterly pointless addition to the listerature genre - he is after all part of the problem.

3. Michael Palin and his various TV/book tie-in travels, from the Sahara to his Hemingway Adventure. Nothing in Palin's career quite prepared us for the unedifying sight of a perfectly credible comic actor turning into a Phileas Fogg freebie tart. If he has shed new light on any part of the globe do let me know.

4. Andrew Marr for History of Modern Britain. Any excuse to get this gesticulating barker on the box. Rest assured, his "history" will be referenced by no serious scholar; it's just a loafer's guide to event whatnots, the sort of crap Reader's Digest might have once published for leisurely reads.

5. Jeremy Paxman for The Victorians: Britain through the Paintings of the Age (book and TV series). What does he know about art? The book was substantially written by someone else in any case. A great vanity juggernaut to keep a familar face on the screen.

6. Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman for Long Way Round: TV series and book. A chance to ogle at two leather clad arses in different international locations. Shamelessly the book's publisher writes on Amazon "The fact that those men are figures with notable film connections ... may be the reason the book got written ... but so what?" How sad are the punters?

7. Richard Hammond for all his TV shows but Top Gear. TV looks for any excuse to have him either blowing up things or testing things that may blow up, all because he nearly got himself killed once. Each promise of doom leaves us cruelly tantalised.

8. Sophie Dahl for Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights (book/TV show). A Nigella Lawson copycat  - famous surname + food erotica. The book boasts Dahl's "Matisse-like line drawings" destined for no public exhibition. Only two years ago or so she was presented as the great white hope of literature after a spell as a waif on catwalks.

9. Peter and Dan Snow for 20th Century Battlefields (book/TV series) - lanky father and son become visibly excited in the historical presence of slaughter. Where's a swingometer when you need one?

10. JLS - for all those fucking endless music rundown shows they've been fronting since they didn't win The X Factor but went on to become the show's biggest boy band stars. Testicle hugs and downward spastic finger thrusts conduct their guides to Michael Jackson and others. The tiny one especially requires treatment.

'George Harrison beat up 14-year-old groupie'

The late Beatle George Harrison once punched and broke the nose of a 14-year-old female groupie, claims Jonathan King in his memoirs, 65 My Life So Far.

He writes that this "black girl had the obnoxious habit" of tracking down stars to their homes, ringing their doorbells and then "pour[ing] out a Tourettes-style stream of insults, carefully and cleverly constructed to carry a vestige of truth."

She got her comeuppance when she got to to the door of Harrison's home in Esher. He told King: "I let her go on and on until she finally dried up, then I looked at her and smashed in the face, breaking her nose and several teeth. We'll never hear from her again."

He was right. She didn't bother any more celebs.

King's autobiography is reviewed here.

65 My Life so Far by Jonathan King: Review. Mr Vile Pervert's extraordinary fate

Oh, JK! How could you? Or rather, how could you not?

What with all the celebs you've fucked, discovered, promoted, befriended, detested, wanked, created, re-invented, guided, supported and, yes, fucked again with your self-proclaimed 8" phallus over the decades, how could you not have had an index compiled for this monster-sized tome of star goss that is your autobiography? It took me half an hour to find the Madame Arcati mention on p570. And then I only found it by deductive reasoning.

Please, please get one done for a future reprint! Listen to a gnarled old index-loving clairvoyante.

So, here it is. Mr Vile Pervert's extraordinary life story, told as a breathless, occasionally careless, romp. I thought I'd speed-read it but a lot of the time I couldn't. I kept on returning to many pages thinking: Did I get that right? Did Jonathan King actually write that as a 13-year-old boy he was having (or had) "passionate encounters" with 65 boys at his public school, Charterhouse? And later, did I read that a sexually passive male friend of his relished being bare-backed by loads of men at gang-bangs, over 1,000 one weekend? In Holland? Belgium? Or was it over one year?

And was JK really once an annoyingly ubiquitous national institution whose influence ran through most branches of showbiz? - contributing to the careers of 10cc, Peter Gabriel, Genesis, the Bay City Rollers, Scott Walker et al: why, he even helped bring the The Rocky Horror Show to the masses. You may have to re-read the book just to grasp the full scale of his victories: the popstar (as JK and under his many aliases), the pop promoter, the pop producer, the stage impresario, the TV star, the Eurovision-meister, the tabloid columnist, the blah blah blah. And then the full scale of his spectacular fall from grace.

65 My Life so Far is for certain no apology, no penance or mea culpa, for his conviction and imprisonment for sexual offences against male minors. He proclaims his innocence, gives the legal definition of a paedophile (which he persuades me he is not), castigates the cops. And it is to his credit that he doesn't try to bolster his denials by cleaning up his epic cock and cunt lives as an unashamed bisexual. He is at least a kindly tart and make no mistake. At one orgy, while he's cock-arsing an Adonis, he finds a moment to help the blow-jobbing codger at the front adjust his dislodged false teeth. Earlier in life King says he bedded 12 girls in a row while his first hit Everyone's Gone to the Moon held the No1 spot - the single that later would enchant his unlikely devotee, Miss Marlene Dietrich, no less.

Such uninhibited frankness is almost unheard of in celebrity autobiography, and for King it's a risky strategy. The messageboard moralists, the slaves to tabloid scripture, will seize on such detail as further proof of his criminal deviancy. I'd rather view him as a horny unapologetic libertine, a brazen Lord Rochester-type with a crooked smile - one of life's mavericks who always broke or bent the showbiz rules as he pioneered and innovated - and one brought down by a strange prosecution stuffed with greys and blurs.

Even the late Mirror/Sunday Mirror/People editor Richard Stott, an intolerant and vindictive tabloid bruiser of the old Fleet Street school, harboured doubts about the rightness of King's conviction.

As you'd expect, King's book will offend in many other ways. I have reported already on his revelation of John Lennon's bisexuality. His Jimi Hendrix story, that the star admitted having sex with a female minor, will enrage fans. Bolan and Bowie worshippers will also be irked. Heather Mills won't like his fondness for Macca. The sheer industrial quantity of celebrity cock-cockery tends to confirm King in his pluralistic view of human sexuality: that our puny, day-to-day assumptions and expectations bear little resemblance to the rich pubic reality. For certain, he is, like Gore Vidal and other erotic adventurers, a case study for future field workers in the realms of cocking and cunting, same and other.

His book is not perfect. No index - and no guiding chapter titles, just numbers! And I'm sure it was Leslie Howard who co-starred in Brief Encounter, not Trevor [Yes, I know now JK's right!]. But did I misread it? And ... and ... his time at Cambridge starts but never exactly finishes: he just goes up and then ... becomes a popstar. Cambridge kind of fizzles out in the chronicle, a prized but expendable lucky charm on his chunky career bracelet.

King is another one of those Zeligs, like Nicky Haslam - he's been everywhere, knows everyone. And thanks to clean social habits, still remembers. If he remains the sharp-tongued smarmy bighead of lore - even by his own testimony - he also comes across here as big-hearted, broad-minded and resourceful: "I was meeting some fascinating people in Belmarsh," he writes of the jail, "terrorists, rapists, murderers."

If you have any kind of showbiz pulse, King's book is an absolute must. But best leave the bourgoeis morality at the door.

Click here to buy
Book website

Jonathan King: 'John Lennon enjoyed my bisexual orgies'

In his just-published explosive memoirs 65 My Life So Far, Jonathan King adds credence to the many unsubstantiated rumours of John Lennon's bisexuality. He reports that "two or three times" in the 60s, Lennon stayed over at King's flat with "with several young ladies and was perfectly happy to indulge in a multi-gender session of stimulation." Lennon, according to King, "was the most relaxed and adventurous Beatle."

Madame Arcati will be reviewing the surprisingly frank and graphic book very shortly - meantime to buy a copy click here. A perfect Christmas gift.