Madame Arcati's Christmas message: The best way to dodge Stephen Fry

Santa Fry

Darlings, a merry festive time to you all - except those cunts I hate. 

Well, I'm being honest. You're like me really. Only on Facebook just now I spotted a very famous opinionist celebrating the accidental self-incineration of a terrorist-looking bearded person from the Middle East. That sums up the spirit of Christmas for me, as we merge with the TV screen and snuggle up in the warm dank 3D folds of Stephen Fry's chins (hopefully he's had a proper shave, for once). David Walliams - welcome to your future!

Let us hope that not all of us are swept away by the floods - except perhaps the dog next door that's howling because its pensioner owner is forever out. The present inundations were of course predicted over a year ago by the astrology annual Old Moore's Almanack 2012 - perhaps more than a year ago, as the editorial letter in this edition is dated October 2010.

Allow me to quote for December 2012: 'Heavy rains could cause serious flooding in the west. Storms early and late.' The seer who wrote this then rather ruins it all by adding: 'On the whole, close to the normal pattern.' And the prediction started sooooo promisingly. Yet as a hit-and-miss forecast, it beats the hopeless Met Office that only five minutes ago was getting the Express all excited with promises of Arctic conditions.

Will Madame Arcati prevail in 2013? Probably. The challenge now is that most of my original readers are bloggers themselves - what a fashion I started! There they are on Facebook and Twitter gracing us with their synaptic crackle and pop (and family photos) - plainly Madame's work is cut out in capturing a new generation of glancer. I promise not to find solace in right-wing politics or more PhotoShopped celebrity cock.

Should you find yourself at a loss this Christmas, marooned by the Fry deluge of his repeats, quizzes and folksy, marron glacé thespianism (adverts included), then revisit one of the most popular of my 2012 posts: my interview with Sophie Parkin about her splendid bestseller on The Colony Club. Click here. (If you are predisposed to being offended, then best not read it: Blogger was soooo appalled by the language and references to bodily secretions in the piece, that Google adverts were pulled from this site.)

The Times and Sunday Times have raved over her book; more acclaim is due. And she published the book herself. Further proof that one's literary fate need no longer be decided by some privileged twat in an office.

Enjoy!

Meeks inherits... Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple

Dearest, dearest Madame,

I hope you're peachy. It's been a long time since last we spoke. 

I thought you'd be interested to know, if it has not yet come to your attention (a phrase which now reminds me of those silly, vulgar yet absolutely delicious parodies of Chloe Sevigny that now litter the internet, click here) that the sainted Ms Rutherford is now the subject of a play which is doing rather well up in Edinburgh.

It's called Murder, Marple and Me (click here) and by a gentleman called Philip Meeks who I think you'd adore - if you haven't already crossed paths as he used to be a rather good publicist. His wit manages to be both warm and cutting, which is a rare gift. He's on Twitter as @PhilipMeeks. You should speak about your mutual passion.

With all best wishes as always.

C x 

Darling C

Thank you so much for your recommendation - I do adore any attempt to impersonate me, especially since I started the trend of impersonating me, whoever that is. I shall have to check this Mr Meeks out.

May I also thank you for staying true as an Arcatiste. Certain fickle types have swanned off in hot pursuit of literary awards, imagining that their presence on Twitter and Facebook marks a new age in social media at the expense of blogging. However, posting holiday snaps and details of latest doings - vain toil to create a virtual salon of lapdogs and other creeps - is no substitute for what a blogger can offer, as your timely letter reminds us.

Margaret Rutherford as Philip Meeks' avatar

But for my selfless regard for others, would I now be in possession of the knowledge you have imparted? Would I now know of Mr Meeks and his promising show about me had I merely posted a photo of a mini-me on Facebook? I merely ask the question.

Much love as ever

MA x

Julian Clary and an encounter with his briefs

One thing I must do this year is read a Julian Clary novel. Most of the reviews of his work I've read exhibit sweet favour. Nothing is more depressing than the prospect of reading a sleb novel (I have yet to savour Katie Price's work, or David Baddiel's) so Clary's reported high competence is most welcome.

That his latest book, Briefs Encountered, features Noel Coward and that Clary lives in Noel's old cottage in Kent - well, how could Madame Arcati fail to be intrigued? I may even buy a copy, though professional journalists as a rule should be gifted the things they intend to publicise. Not that I'm cheap or anything.

I have much to thank Noel Coward. It is due to him that Molly Parkin and I are permanently engaged: Moll once had a curious style fixation on Margaret Rutherford who famously brought Madame to life in David Lean's masterly 1945 film production of Coward's Blithe Spirit. So, when a 'Madame Arcati' turned up on the doorstep of her life some five years ago, she could not but wonder at fate's symmetry. We bonded over memories of old thespian jowls and clairvoyante crystal balls and never looked back. I'm sure there are odder love stories.

Julian now makes for a Cowardy ménage à trois - albeit a remote, perhaps oblivious, member. But I must get to the point. A rather gorgeous book reviewer who has read Briefs Encountered (out March 29) has written in... and the news is good. H/she writes: 'Just finishing his new novel which is amusing and enjoyable though not Great Literature (I'm no snob about that, I like being entertained). Anyway it's very Blithe Spirit, set in his house using Noel Coward as a character... You might enjoy.'

A Madame Arcati birthday: Here it comes ....

Thank, you poppets, for your best wishes. The birthday of the person who imagines he (or she) runs this site is upon us (along with Joan Collins'). And an esteemed stage critic of one of our better newspapers sent this link by way of celebration of the nativity. It's to Leonard Cohen's Always.

The opening lines:

(Oh friends, ... don't matter if you're a man or a woman.
If you're in love with somebody,
these are the words that you got to learn to say.
Now listen carefully. Here it comes...)

Madame Arcati is back (again). Don't know why

Some of you may have noticed that I was disappeared by Blogger for a few days. No explanation was given. No warning. Friends spoke of a 'purge' of sites with adult content warnings. I know a few out there think Madame Arcati is a porn site that threatens civilisation as we know it, but I always imagined - being an optimist - that others actually read me and understood that this blog actually has a satirical intent; and if satire requires a PhotoShopped celebrity cock, so be it. I had fully intended to accept fate's hand and not bother to blog anymore. But since I'm back, hello. Nice to see you. Come in to my...

While I knew oblivion and rather liked it, the person who thinks he runs the shop set up his own astrology site. If you fancy a horoscopic analysis, click here.

Madame Arcati: There's only one actress who can play me (& she's dead)

Angela Lansbury: Me as Art Deco

My thanks to the American astrologer and investigative journalist Eric Francis for unearthing this splendid photo of Angela Lansbury posing as me. I interviewed him earlier this year - and to appreciate his singular views on the joys of self-sex, click here.

Lansbury projects elegant goofiness for fans of the Art Deco period; and I'm confident that her Madame Arcati (in last year's staging of Blithe Spirit) pleased fans of TV whodunits. But there's the problem: elegance. Only that scrumptious, asymmetrical gargoyle Dame Margaret Rutherford captured the essential wilful otherliness of me in the black & white movies: Arcati is not just some harmless fruitcake with fidgety mannerisms but an ideological warrior of the drawing room who happens to summon up spirits.

She is the timeless crank always proven right. Julian Assange, please take note.

I realise that such ideas are traumatic to diddumsy secular critics who take their scripture from sexy tabloid traditionalist Dr Brian Cox. So as New Year looms I'll move on as an act of charity.

Margaret Rutherford: Me me me

Also, Madame Arcati has no business being tall. This is where Penelope Keith went wrong when I saw her play me at the Savoy Theatre a few years back. I've always regarded tallness as faintly ridiculous and excess to requirements, such as in British Prime Ministers. Only haberdashery shop assistants need to be tall. Madame Arcati does not do excess.

At the Savoy I sat behind Nicky Haslam who wore a thick fur coat throughout the performance even though the theatre was properly heated. From the wafting odour I adjudged that his coat required laundering. But I was too polite to say.

Madame Arcati's first interview: Spacey's clan, Fallowell's cock and my view of Perez Hilton

If you want to delve into Madame Arcati's innards a little deeper then here's your chance.

The delightful blog of culture and outré video inquisitions Virtual Factory has been granted the unique honour of an interview with me and elicited all sorts of answers, some of which I recall. Here's a snatch:

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

MA: Cling film aside, I curiously delight in Royal Doulton’s Bunnykins collectibles 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.

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

MA: 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.

The Madame Arcati interview click here.

Madame Arcati graciously returns for Christmas

Goodness, how time flies. Anyway, Madame Arcati is back for the panto season, a little early, mind; rather like those unwelcome Siberian swans flying into Slimbridge. If someone had the nous to shoot them over the North Sea we'd be saved lots of drama queen autumn weather warnings on TV.

What have I been up to since I gave up blogging in June?, you ask. I wrote one or two pieces for the delightful Anorak site but quite honestly I prefer my own shelter. I'm not one for sharing or mediation. Otherwise I have been absorbed in the timeless wisdom of astrology and its tricky charts: so that in addition to my legendary sharp eye and perpicacious mind, I now offer you penetrating insights normally occluded by mere intellect. Don't you feel Christmas has come early?

One thing I want to draw attention to before I leave you for now is Molly Parkin's utterly brilliant and funny memoirs, Welcome to Mollywood, published this week. Not only did I think up the title in a moment of Croatian reverie last summer but Madame Arcati and her pupper-master feature in it. Naturally I shall review it; I just can't wait for you to read it (my review). It's a feelgood for the slightly pervy (her book).

I am sooo glad to be back among you. Put the word out, won't you dearies.

Blithe Spirit: Madame Arcati saves Rupert Everett!

Coo-ee, it's me.

I am delighted that Blithe Spirit is such a Broadway triumph. Regular bloggees will know that I have been unstinting in my promotion of Rupert Everett, and naturally I had a fateful hand in pushing this Cowardy production in his direction. His future is now assured. Google will confirm that the names Rupert Everett and Madame Arcati are recurringly intertwined both in life and now in art. This confusion is doing nothing but good for my visitor figures.

Angela Lansbury, 83, is I suppose an adequate substitute for me as Madame Arcati though I can't help but wonder whether she sometimes muddles her lines and thinks she's still in Murder She Wrote. No one can improve on Margaret Rutherford as me: she brought to Arcati that essential ambiguity that runs through her person in all sorts of ways, a woman misunderstood even in these broad-minded times. The turban doesn't help.

Madame Arcati. Lady Colin Campbell to sue? Nicky Haslam snogged by a paedo?

Yes, I am back. My announcement last week of this blog's cessation was a rehearsal of death: I think it most important sometimes to live through an experience for a better understanding of oneself and others, don't you think? I now have a better sense of what it will be like when I am no longer here: I felt your pain, your loss; while I felt utterly free. It's a kind of Method living. Immersing oneself in the alternative visceral as a preparation for the real thing: for the imagination is no substitute. Thank you for taking part in my experiment. You did not disappoint me. Bitches. Now I have things to report ....

Lady Colin Campbell

I do hope Lady Colin Campbell - she allows me to call her Georgie - is not about to sue the estimable ES Magazine, the supplement to the London Evening Standard. In its briefing report on the mega-rich Lily Safra - who effectively injuncted Georgie's marvellous novel Empress Bianca on the grounds of possible libel - it describes Lady Colin as the "transsexual novelist". Oh dear, dear. No! Georgie is not a transsexual and over the years has collected quite a tidy sum in court pay-outs and other settlements. Georgie was merely born with some tiny biological anomaly now sorted out: she's all woman I can tell you.

But I beg Georgie not to sue ES. It is generally peopled by immature, inexperienced know-nothings who have rich daddies and mummies and they're employed just for their contacts and for their aura which the commoners hope is contagious. Show pity on these pathetic specimens who think only of dosh and what's posh. Settle for an apology and show how big you can be, Georgie. See, I have a heart.

Nicky Haslam

Now to Nicky Haslam. In the September edition of Vanity Fair, in which he grants a lengthy, deeply comic interview about his life, it is claimed that his memoirs, Redeeming Features, will be published by Knopf in October 2009. Is this really true? There's nothing to this effect on Amazon.com. Weidenfeld still claims on Amazon to be publishing Writing On The Wall in October (as a US import from the UK). I am very confused. Perhaps a know-all could advise. But Redeeming Features must exist because the VF writer appears to have read it.

In the interview Nicky portrays himself as a post-War Dorian Gray, a "devastatingly beautiful" young man who seduced, or was seduced by, Lord Henry Woottons all over the place. Early photos do not entirely bear out his self-appraisal: to be frank, the arrangement of his jaw, in particular, puts in mind more a fresh-faced Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall - the mouth area seemingly paralysed by a million strangulated vowels.

Perhaps his most troubling anecdote has to do with a certain tutor he had as a child who used to "gently" snog him. No age is given for this initiation but he must have been pre-pubertal. "The physical nature never went beyond kissing" claims Nicky. Yet is it too much to conjecture that the tutor might have experienced an erection while kissing the little boy and walked out of Nicky's house with a tent in his crotch before a bout of furious wanking? I think Rebekah Wade may need to take a retrospective interest in this abuse. But among the upper classes such an aberration is plainly tolerated while the tabloids strike poses of horror.

Nicky has never much cared for sex: he is I think a romantic. But do read the interview. It's far superior to that embarrassing Madonna interview VF ran earlier in the year. The writer of that must have thought he was in the running for the Pulitzer now that Norman's dead. There's too much big literary cockedness about.

The Future
I shall not be updating as regularly as before; I may opt for occasional longer reports such as this if only to piss off internet surfers looking for nugget prose. Such busy loafers annoy me.

Madame Arcati, Pupbitch and some idlers

How Madame Arcati adores attention: it is the bright sunshine, the hot affirmation without the melanoma risk. Yesterday, Arcati enjoyed an unprecedented audience lift such as to encourage me in my plans to turn Arcati into a fully-functioning entertainment news website with me as the USP - due to happen in spring 2008 or sooner. And when I say an "entertainment" site I mean one that gives intelligent coverage to celebs and the arts - does the world really need another site just to tell us of Lindsay Lohan's next rehab appointment (Oh, hi, Perez, TMZ and the scores of mini-me showbiz sites on the blogroll)?

The attention arrives courtesy of the treacherous and unprofessional Popbitch site, which should be renamed Pupbitch, given its anthropomorphic fantasies about furry animals, and otters. Long past its glory days - it once broke some great stuff - Pupbitch is now mainly a dumping ground for unusable tabloid tales about celebrity cock, cunt and coke, supplied by some feral talent on the tabloids (music writers mainly). The Pupbitch crew don't work very hard - feet up at weekends with their Oxbridge pals; uncovered holidays galore. Most of their stories are just teasers to navigate around the libel laws, and most people I know just say of Pupbitch: "Whatever happened to it? It's crap." It is outshone week after week by the superior Jason at Holy Moly - I hate to say this, but Jason far out-bitches Madame Arcati and he runs stories I wouldn't touch with a bargepole. All power to him.

Pupbitch purports to have outed Madame Arcati, as do a few drama queens, Spacey fan neurotics, one idle Frenchman and one idle Italian, who've been emailing loads of people with my "true" identity. I guess these are the kind of people who think Elvira eats bats for breakfast and Dame Edna applies Nivea night cream to her facial nooks and nodules at bedtime. If there's anyone out there who imagines Madame Arcati grew in anyone's womb, allow me to disillusion you. Madame Arcati arrived fully formed, a vision in tweed, with a crystal ball or two dangling someplace and a vast bank of knowledge between her ears. Madame Arcati never played rounders in any playground. I hope that this is not too shocking a revelation.

And that's that for now. I shall be dealing with certain individuals in my own way, at a time of my choosing, and with the relevant facts to hand. Otherwise it's business as usual.

Wikipedia: Vanity publishing for minor slebs

I see that Wikipedia has put up a health warning on Nicholas Coleridge's self-authored vanity entry. And now a learned reader writes ...

Hello Madame,

I enjoyed your piece on Nicholas Coleridge writing his own Wikipedia entry but actually it's hard to find a minor celeb, or a person who's so determined to become a minor celeb, who hasn't.

Have you seen:
http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/ click here
...whereby you can look to see who at the Daily Mail, Telegraph, etc is writing their own entries.

Check out Christopher Hitchens' version of himself here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Clockback click here

I checked them out a few weeks ago so can't quite remember now, but Tristram Hunt's and Andrew Rawnsley's profiles had been boosted by someone on the Guardian's server, Daniel Hannan by someone on the Telegraph's server etc etc.

And, here rather sweetly, you can see how James Purnell's girlfriend, Lucy Walker, not only wrote her own entry but amended his to take the nasty bits out...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/ClareCat click here

Keep up the good work.

Miss Elvira

Madame Arcati: Shock sex poll result!

In a shock poll result, 100% of voters came to the wrong conclusion about Madame Arcati's sexual orientative classification.

Seventy percent thought she was a cock-cocker, 16% a cunt-cunter, 8% a cunt-cocker and 4% a cock-cunter.

Madame Arcati comments: "It is truly appalling that an entire international electorate can get it wrong. It doesn't say much for democracy. The clue to the right answer lies in the fact that no one can demonstrate who or what I am (or, we are) - but this did not stop people jumping to foolish conclusions based on school playground a priori assumptions or prejudices. No wonder Kevin Spacey refuses to discuss his preference for hunky twinks."

Nonetheless, Madame Arcati finished on a positive note: "Those who elected not to vote got it right."

Madame Arcati - beware cheap imitations

A number of readers have written to me privately asking me if I am one or both of the Madame Arcatis on Facebook and the one on MySpace. Short answer: No. One of the Facebook counterfeit Arcatis approaches people who feature on this blog inviting them to be their friend; that ain't me. These copycat individuals, devoid of a whit of imagination or intelligence, tragically hope to borrow a little bit of my glory by lockstepping with this blog. Doesn't bother me. But I thought you'd like to know.

Michael Coveney gives Quentin Letts a lashing

One of my favourite bloggers, Michael Coveney – who should be reinstated as the Mail theatre critic in my view (but would he have them?) – thanks Madame Arcati for naming the Mail’s right-wing all-rounder Quentin Letts as the creep who has been writing horrid things about him in Private Eye.

“It seems rather a grubby way of earning a few extra quid,” Coveney writes before noting Letts' Carmen Jones interval chit-chat with the Standard editor Veronica Wadley. “Let's hope she had a jolly good laugh at Master Letts's peevish skewering of her irritable theatre critic Nicholas de Jongh in the latest Eye. De Jongh's 'crime' was to stretch his legs during the technical hiccup at the Joseph first night and inform a security guard (or possibly Bill Kenwright) that he was a "f---ing theatre critic."

He then goes onto deprecate Lett’s “graceless” and “unfunny” comments about Thelma Holt and David Liddiment. It is no secret, of course, that Letts - or "the owlish sneak" as Coveney calls him - supplements his considerable six-figure Mail fee with a steady stream of £50 tip-offs to Fleet Street gossips.

On another matter, I have not forgotten Letts’ recent brutal assault on our new PM on Sky News, insinuating that Brown was only visiting flood victims for PR reasons. This hardly accords with the unwell Mail editor-in-chief Paul Dacre’s view of the No 1 Broonite whose workaholism, water-sign sulkiness and rages are the staples of a worthy life.

For Coveney's excellent blog, click here.

Allison Pearson, Arcati and The New York Post

From The New York Post, today:

"HERE'S one for The New Yorker fact-checking department. Is the weekly's film critic, Anthony Lane, married to journalist/author Allison Pearson, mother of his two children? Although the British couple often refer to themselves as man and wife, caustic media blogger Madame Arcati claims they're not legally wed. "Allison speaks highly of marriage: for the purposes of her £350,000+ column in the Daily Mail," Arcati writes. "When we are given moral lectures by gurus . . . it's sooooo important to know the backstory to the guru." The blog also posts a comment from Pearson: "OK Mme, you win. Anthony and I are not officially 'married.'"

I should say that Pearson has not confirmed herself as the commenter.

Arcati + Wikipedia + VLSmithBook = Grudge?

The Madame Arcati entry on Wikipedia appears to have been written by two journalists known as VLSmithBook. I suspect they have used Arcati to draw attention to a purported book project. They explain: "In autumn 2006 we were commissioned by a UK publisher to write a celebration of the life and work of [sic] Victor Lewis Smith (provisionally entitled The Private Life of [sic] Victor Lewis Smith)." I thought his surname was hyphenated. Other contributors object to this self-promotion and even suggest that the two journalists may bear a grudge against Lewis-Smith (recently departed scabrous TV critic of the Evening Standard, and a Private Eye contributor, among other things).

VLSmithBook write: "We've added a page on Madame Arcati as she seems important." This is a good call. But given that this is the free-for-all of Wikipedia, I am sure not one likely to go unchallenged.

Madame Arcati on Wikipedia

Someone has gone to the bother of writing a short piece about the Madame Arcati blog on Wikipedia. It could have been more exciting - I have broken quite a few stories, y'know - but I suppose we all start out on a spermatazoan dream. [click here]

Madame Arcati - a plethora of mini-mes

Madame Arcati appears to have spawned at least two mini-mes -there's some old queen on My Space filling up his space with Judy Garland and Divine musical selections - and pinching a few ideas off my Video Bar - and then there's some tragic mysterioso on Facebook masquerading as me, asking some of my frenemies to join her/it. Can't copycats be more original for god's sake?

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.