I may have a heart of flint yet even I, in the right circumstances, can turn into a channel for the late Dame Barbara Cartland and bat my false, matted eyelashes while posing as a fan of romantic nougat. I turn to the Spectator's riveting Low Life column in the latest issue and learn that its author Jeremy Clarke - described as 'The Evelyn Waugh de nos jours' - is the proud owner of a 'bird' whom he takes to a pub after what sounds like an evening at an art class. He tells us that the art teacher may very well fancy his bird as booze is knocked back. The sculptor, too, has designs on her contours. Then someone identified as the mother-in-law asks whom the bird is with. To which the bird replies, 'testily':‘No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!’
Is it a bird?
Who could this bird be? Given her vocal feistiness, Janet Street-Porter? Dame Shirley Porter? Perhaps even Clarissa Dickson Wright? Or could it be one Farah Damji? - described by the Evening Standard as 'London's most dangerous woman?' Well, it's not beyond the realms of possibility. Both Jeremy and Farah are highly attractive persons free at the point of delivery and of proven fertility. Both exhibit a cosmopolitan tolerance of some of life's hardier annuals while nonetheless flouncing about in rarefied atmospheres - the Spectator's in Jeremy's case.
Jeremy Clarke
It is distressing then to learn that when she attempted to defend her love in the last 24 hours, by posting a comment below his Low Life column in response to my foul abuse, she was censored! I believe the comment has now been restored - but we can't have the home of free speech (ie the Speccie) nursed along by nannies or people better off running sex clinics (reception). But whatever the truth of the matter, I extend my best wishes to lovebirds everywhere. Just remember: the fun is always in making up, you sweety-tweeties!
One of the joys of Twitter is clearing out useless, boring or unresponsive tweeters with Twit Clean (this is not an ad!). The service produces reports on tweeting performance.
Now, let's see. Annie Lennox: she's described as 'self-obsessed, talks about self more than 50% of the time.' She's also rated a 'Snob' because she follows back only 0.02% of her followers (c.72,000). Well she can go.
Radio One DJ Chris Moyles is also a Snob, only following back 82 of his 2.3 million fans. Other Snobs include Guardian Books, Jemima Khan (following back only 150 of 170,000 followers), Eminem (no interactions), the New Statesman (selling as few as 4,000 copies a week according to Guido Fawkes), Mariah Carey (following back just 58 of 7 million fans), Queen Rania, Telegraph writer Mary Riddell, Yvette Cooper (and she wants to be the next Labour leader), Donald Trump and TMZ.com.
Alas, Tatler is 'self-obsessed' and therefore 'not so interesting' (a pity because the magazine is now excellent).
Missing, presumed sedated, include Fern Britton who has posted nothing in 804 days; and Private Eye deputy editor Francis Wheen (who has a poorly back and his literary shed is now ash - fair excuses).
Wheen remains. Most of the rest - you've bored me long enough.
Even the ancient legend that is Madame Arcati finds herself astonished. I thought I'd heard and seen it all. Hugh Grant - yes, the man who is the current incarnation of British movie upper class cock-cunter - has saved the New Statesman. His naughty article on how he stitched up a former News of the World hack (see previous post) on illegal phone hacking in the Murdoch empire is now trending on Twitter. This is thanks to the feature going online (not from purchase!) - drawing in tens of thousands of new readers and reinventing the magazine in the process.
The mag now understands that celebrity power is its future, particularly since it is Stephen Fry who's leading the battle tweet (with a link to the mag that doesn't work). I tweeted first, natch. Also, countless people now know of the skulduggery at the Screws even though much of Hugh's nuggets are not new.
And all this occurred on guest editor and socialite Jemima Khan's watch. Frankly, if you haven't done a Hello! spread, just fuck off. Celebrities' low carbon spotlights make a spectacle of everything adjacent. NS ed Jason Cowley must stand down in favour of Jemima. Now. She can make him travel or beauty ed or whatever. Keep him 'appy, as they mispronounce in northern soaps.
BJ (Before Jemima), the NS squeaked. AJ, it roars. I do not recommend a BJ situation.
Now, it is true I ran a very rude piece about Jemima only the other day. But part of my function is to fill the sails of the zeitgeist so that we may journey forth. Suzanne Moore was right to highlight the total neglect of editorial low-class urchins without a job or famous parent. Jason was right to bring in Jemima. This paradox must not cause us sleepless nights. Jemima can be installed and she will hire more under-privileged urchins.
Problem solved.
PS My thanks to the New Statesman's Helen Lewis and Duncan Robinson for giving me the precise figure of Hugh Grant hits on the NS website: 'A lot'.
The divine newspaper columnist Suzanne Moore has made her thoughts known on the topic of Jemima Khan guest editing the current issue of the New Statesman. As a former writer on the little-read publication, who departed amid some acrimony, she's entitled. Suzanne has no personal beef with the fragrant Jemima but does wonder on a social network site, slyly, whether the magazine may 'walk the walk on social mobility.'
By this I assume she means: when will the left-wing organ open up the editorial floodgates to talents who are not the spawn of very famous rich families and/or international socialites with a lot of crawly friends? Suzanne speculates aloud whether Peaches Geldof might succeed Jemima (next time editor and former Durannie Jason Cowley fancies undertaking some Big Society work).
I must say Jemima wins the Madame Arcati Award for Self-Promotion. Just about every piece she either wrote or commissioned was pushed on Twitter - I adore the musk of ambition and cannot criticise the poppet. Thanks to Jemima we now know that Nick Clegg blubs to music; though student face-readers will have already discerned the moany cry-baby countenance in repose. In May he will be crying an awful lot, alas.
Now that Jemima has reminded us that non-editors tend to do a better job than editors as editors, may I suggest that Suzanne Moore be invited to guest edit an edition of the New Statesman in the not too distant future. Her brief reign would be a reminder of what this magazine once stood for - and exemplify the meritocracy Mr Clegg now espouses (without a mandate, natch).
PS Helen Lewis, assistant editor of the New Statesman, tweets me: 'Well, I worked with her [Jemima] on it, and thought she was lovely (and brought in great articles). You can quote me on that!'
PPS Another tweet: mailto:'tlcSW7@Madame_Arcati re guest ed "it was an ironic move in a week when the gov't announced an end to upaid internships for the rich"'
PPPS Suzanne Moore tweets: 'My issue with Jemima is not at [all] personal. She did a good job .It is entirely political. I want jobs to go to unemployed talents.'
Make this woman the new editor of the Independent and stop pissing about.
She's a liberal-leftist icon and she makes lots of money from Lord Rothermere by offending him every week in one of his own newspapers. She's proof you don't have to become a rightwing 'mare to coin it in journalism.
And she's no Labour lapdog. When last year the New Statesman made Alastair Campbell guest-editor she resigned from the magazine on highly publicised principle. How could a publication which opposed the Iraq invasion get cuddlesome with one of the war's chief mongers? She's of the left but no apparatchik. Just what we need as virtually every British newspaper right now takes dictation from Andy Coulson.
She's indie down to her legendary fuck-me shoes. She is Madame Arcati's most interesting choice.
Haslam with Cilla Black, friends again, though she's mentioned only in passing in his memoir. Bitches
Do you imagine the spirit of Madame Arcati can be barred from a party she is determined to attend? How sad and deluded you must be.
Of course I was at Nicky Haslam's Warhol-yparties to mark the publication (at last) of his memoir Redeeming Features. All three of me at the two of them. It was Bonfire Night. Nicky: in monochrome as a Regency rake. Slimmer. Whiter-haired. We Arcatis drifted into London's Aqua Nueva and clocked novelist Susie Boyt wearing the same damned ugly bridesmaid-style, too shiny dress - emerald green! - she had on at Fay Weldon's book launch about 6 or 8 weeks ago. It doesn't flatter her at all and the main reason we say so is because she's some sort of style queen. She sings Judy Garland in any case. Her soul is plainly gay male.
Duncan Fallowell attended fully clothed
Countless white-haired cocks were all about: Duncan Fallowell knew them all so we asked him for IDs. Most amusing as ever and he confided, between canapes and a little chat-up of the German waiter (whose name we'd reveal if we hadn't accidentally binned the scrap of paper), that given the size of the crowd, he was impressed that there were only two people there with whom he'd engaged in carnal relations. He wouldn't say who. Not Nicky Haslam though.
Cilla Black turned up late even though she and Nicky are supposed to have fallen out according to Lynn Barber who left early. The International Herald Tribune's fashion queen Suzy Menkes OBE queued eagerly to get her book signed - just ahead of us so we complimented her violet nail varnish, which was just a ruse to peer into her quiffy rollbar coiffure and marvel. She couldn't wait to see what NH wrote in her book. She's not in it, by the way.
Any number of people posed with their fingers stuck mid-book for the impression they'd "found their mention" - a party strategy to appear important regardless of omission or commission. The elder slebs took lots of pics of each other as if to celebrate unexpected longevity: Andy and Sony would have loved it.
Nicky's niece: her card is in our purse. Why? Carina Haslam (http://www.carinahaslamart.com/). And we also have Johnny Gibson's card who's head of marketing of Sound and Music, at Somerset House. Who he? With Carina?
Duran Duran's Nick Rhodes posed about still with the 60s Liz Taylor mascara while the actress who plays Gail in Coronation Street looked exactly as she does on TV except in better clothes. We met Nicky's "designer stalker" Fish and her very cute friend, a chap called Shaun (or Shawn) who edited the BBC documentary on Nicky out on the 16th.
That was the common party the papers wrote about. The after-party at Mahiki was more fun, despite the exorbitant cocktails - or was it? At one point Nicky sat next to us and we asked whether his young handsome filmmaker boyfriend was here. Nicky said no, he couldn't get hold of him. Awwww.
“Is that a vagina?” Ruby Wax demanded to know as co-host of Andrew Logan's Alternative Miss World 2009. Three large sails had made a grand entrance on the stage - a vagina was not the first thing they reminded me of, unless you‘re talking about an acute case of thrush. On a similar theme she added later of more imagined stylised pudenda: “There’s a strong smell of fish in the air.”
Yes, so moving on …
The 12th in the series since 1972, this Crufts-inspired AMW was once again the post-Warholian dry debauch of androgynous excess. The venue this time was The Roundhouse in London’s Camden and the theme The Elements - happily, only very loosely taken as inspiration.
Miss Flotsam told how she hates tidy beaches, and Miss No Signs Of Any Civilisation Whatsoever complained of traces of rust on her underbelly. I liked Miss Trailer Trasher’s boast that she has enough residual energy to become extremely unpleasant while Miss Bubbles Of Hope was composed of 78% air, 17% alcohol and 5% grape resin. Miss Majordha Beach's helium-inflated balloons, representing clouds, broke away and collected on a roof trap high up: I wondered who pops them in the morning. When Miss Sahhara gave birth to Africa I prayed Madonna wouldn't materialise and adopt it.
I can’t remember who won now but if it was the Miss who was hoisted aloft out of a tank-size puffball skirt then I concur - was that Miss Hokusai? Please write in.
Actually, the winner was Miss Fancy Chance
Andrew appeared as principal and exemplary host and hostess in a male/female harlequin-style get-up: to Ruby he probably looked like a badly bruised vagina with labial piercings and mirror adornments. Not for me to reason why.
My fiancee Molly Parkin was one of the judges and she took me as her VIP guest. We’d rendezvoused at the Chelsea Arts Club first - she was dressed as a thunderstorm in black and sparkling red. But since flashlight is white we recast her as a volcanic eruption with lava flows. I wore a dark velvet suit - a cloud seeking a silver lining. Molly Parkin and Bruce Lacey (photo by Frances Lynn, see below)
In the Roundhouse’s VIP gallery other judges and their friends and/or fuckees joined us: Julian Clary - he asked me how he could find Madame Arcati on the internet: his delightful friend wore a pink balloon; Ken Russell, who sported a one-piece tent, his fifth or sixth wife and feet bandages; Time Out boss Tony Elliott - I told him I approved of his acting editor Mark Frith and he said “He’s good, I hope he stays”; the wonderful eccentric and performance artist Bruce Lacey - in one minute he twice fell off a pouffe, yet danced later; Zandra Rhodes; Tim Currey (great new teeth), oh, and so many others. Btw, Molly got the biggest aud cheer during the introductions.
One guest told me how she'd been Miss Conception in '81 - "and we had these props to represent artificial insemination". Now her daughter was about to open the show singing La Vie En Rose - "Andrew told me to wear a little black dress so people might think, 'Am I at the right show?'" Another guest told me: "I came second to Ursula Andress once in a beauty pageant ... "
The striking thing about the judging panel, in contrast to the huge youthy throng below with their muscle and tatts, was their age: both Bruce and Ken are over 80, many of the others in their 60s and 70s. Even Julian is close to 50 though looks closer to 30. This I like. All these Yodas presiding over the stripling Anakins for mischief and mayhem. Pass the lightsabre, darling.
From the gallery I peered down on the Misses preparing their costumes backstage: a multicoloured prosthetic body parts tip, lit by dressing room mirror lamps, with young lithe bodies seeking drag heaven. The show was tremendous fun. I can’t imagine why it’s not on ITV1 - it’s a telegenic spectacle, funny, and it doesn’t have Simon Cowell pulling panto faces. What more do you want? No wonder Michael Grade’s on his way out.
“He’s being strangled by a penis,” shouted Ruby as a monster tower-costume collapsed on stage. For once she was right. She may not know her cunt but she can certainly spot a cock.
My new friend the author Frances Lynn has some good pics of the judges and guests, click here. She's also written this enlightening piece on Madame Arcati here. Yet more amazing photos at frillip moolog, here. Ken Russell writes about the show inThe Times.
Incidentally, I was much taken by The Irrepressibles, a 10-piece orchestra - fronted by the "angel-throated, androgynous, Jamie McDermott"- that was part of the entertainment
Suzanne Moore responds to Alastair Campbell via Madame Arcati
Fancy the New Statesman ridding itself of the utterly enchanting writer Suzanne Moore - and not even bothering to tell her. She'd written for the publication for 20 years, then last week it was guest-edited by the hideous bully and Iraq War apologist Alastair Campbell. This was the last straw for Suzanne who volubly recalled, unlike its useless, hapless and pompous editor Jason Cowley, that the mag had opposed the Iraq invasion. She opened her copy of the mag and saw her name had been dropped from the masthead.
She told all in the Mail on Sunday yesterday, click here. She writes: "I know it is now possible to get fired by text or email but have I been fired without even realising it? Quite a feat, even by my amateurish standards. Also, have I been fired from a nominal position for which I didn’t get paid?"
Suzanne got in touch with me this morning about the matter, and in particular, in response to a long page 3 report in today'sGuardian. She is incensed by Campbell who's quoted as saying in an email to the paper: "I had no idea she worked for the New Statesman. I don't read the Mail on Sunday. But professing commitment to leftwing values in that rightwing rag lends a somewhat weakened credibility to anything she says."
Suzanne writes to Madame Arcati: "What Campbell says is surprisingly lies. He knows who I write for or he should as his partner Fiona once came round to interview me and my daughter about state education. But perhaps they just don't talk anymore. Who can say?"
Certainly I shall not be reading the Statesman anymore - it requires a change of owners(s), editor as well as culture. You can't have a leftwing magazine run by practising right-wingers.
Meantime my congratulations to Suzanne on her principled stand.
Jason Cowley's Granta devotes its Summer 2008 issue to nature writing - not your Laurie Lee lyrical burbling, but a new kind that interests me. The only fiction featured in the edition, Phantom Pain, is by someone called Lydia Peelle. She sets out her literary green philosophy which in brief ... well, actually, she puts it rather well and doesn't need paraphrasing, and I'm lifting her words from Cowley's editor's letter:
'The new nature writing,’ she told me, ‘rather than being pastoral or descriptive or simply a natural history essay, has got to be couched in stories – whether fiction or non-fiction – where we as humans are present. Not only as observers, but as intrinsic elements. I feel this is important, because we’ve got to reconnect ourselves to our environment and fellow species in every way we can, every chance we have. In my thinking, it is the tradition of the false notion of separation that has caused us so many problems and led to so much environmental degradation. I believe that it is our great challenge in the twenty-first century to remake the connection. I think our lives depend on it.’ Granta's New Nature Writing
I think it’s time Madame Arcati applied for the New Statesman editorship and put owner Geoffrey Robinson out of his misery. Just leave it to me. The magazine’s worthiness must be totally expunged and my ruthless editorial initiatives would include:
1 The introduction of a horoscope that had coded messages and goss from Westminster as well as astrological guidance for named persons.
2 Human interest analyses of our power players eg Why does Gordon Brown’s voice go husky on Fiona Phillips’ TV sofa? – by a voice coach. No one cares to read political essays apart from some ugly swats with fat behinds and scant head hair (but nasty bushy pubes).
3 Duncan Fallowell appointed Books and Travel editor. He could work from home or Auckland. He would write the lead pieces and supply goss.
4 The Exes Files: A Top Of The Pops-style weekly update of the biggest spenders at Westminster detailing what’s been acquired through expenses – with pictures + competitions to win items and services featured.
5 Bodies - a page dedicated to the examination of politicians’ personal appearance – aesthetics, body mass index, sulphur index from breath, clothes etc. My friend Karl Lagerfeld could advise. I would also commission a weekly DNA profile to calculate when the subject's likely to die. And of what.
6 Madame Arcati’s Prognostications – Rome had The Sybil, the UK could have Arcati, tapping the unseen forces that have more influence on our lives than fucking endogenous growth theory.
7 Madame Arcati’s séance with a famous dead politician starting with Winston Churchill. I’m sure Winnie would have a few things to say to Gord. Boudicca on Ruth Kelly would be a revelation.
8 Lady Colin Campbell’s Diary: She would flit all over the place collecting goss-nectar from royal and powerful places. Lots of pictures and one-line sentences. A mag needs colour, darling.
9 In Bed With A Politician: Each week we would literally get into a powerful person’s bed and talk about all things done horizontal – sex, sleep, coma, drinking etc – and admire the ceiling.
10 The Destroy Page: Of course the NS has to retain a bit of social conscience so we’d identify a bully or some bit of scandal, personalise it, and then call for the total destruction of the Guilty Person(s) – a piece supported by incriminating videos on YouTube and online petitions. Geoffrey might have to stump up a budget for this one.
I have no doubt whatsoever that these measures would restore the magazine in our affections and make it, y'know, interesting.
Do read Duncan Fallowell’s marvellous diary in this week’s New Statesman – Scrooges can click here.
His first item tackles the verminous anony-mice of the internet (I know them soooooooo well) who have sent him abusive mail over his (still) unpublished New Zealand book Going as Far as I Can: The Ultimate Travel Book. In the course of this he touches upon the “two empresses of the blogosphere, Susan Hill and Madame Arcati”. Other than the fact that he lists our names in the wrong order – and Susan is too pacific a person to be called an empress; she is more a Queen (but should at least be made a Dame [Dame Susan Hill, mm, yes ...]) – Madame Arcati is pleased to appear in the Staggers’ pages, particularly on the day its editor John Kampfner has resigned. I’ll come back to him in a minute.
But anyway, Empresses Madame and Susan are name-checked for their appeal to their vast publics (hello Quebec!) to send comforting “online hugs” to Duncan as the ghastly, cowardly anony-mice nibbled away at him with their blunt yellow teeth over a book they have yet to read. Such was the response – and such our influence – that he ended up feeling “buried alive in chocolate truffles”. There’s no pleasing some people.
But anyway, back to Mr Kampfner. Yes, he’s gone! Was it as recent as the summer of 2006 that he delivered a triumphalist speech at a Statesman party over the increase in circulation (25k to 30K a week I think)? Tesco paid for the champagne then and the Hamiltons hustled about. At last summer’s do Virgin paid for the champers and the Hamiltons hustled about (see my party pieces on labels). At the latter knees-up Kampfner was plainly subdued, his speech perfunctory, his boss Geoffrey Robinson faintly sarcastic about a throne and his editor. An empress of pre-resignation body language I feared then that he was not long for this world. He lasted longer than I expected. A staffer told me that the two men were at odds over budgets.
As Kampfner spoke my eyes were drawn to columnist Suzanne Moore's fuck-me shoes and their gorgeous lace-ups: I was rendered deaf. Though I would deny being lesbotic I did feel a funny tingling - my uterus sort of sighed - and I imagined her heels were six inches long, which is good length for all sorts of different things. She subsequently corrected me on this in a published message.
May I suggest Paul McCartney buy the magazine off Robinson once he’s given Heather her £80m (the global prayer meeting went well, thank you)? I think Macca would be perfetto.
Kampfner glammed up the Staggers: he ushered in the nice silky paper. His stand-out piece was the Tony Blair wars report which listed the numbers of the dead from his various military entanglements. He brought in Julian Clary – a feline diarist of minor absurdities - but failed to sign up Mr Fallowell as the magazine’s travel editor. What a loss. Tsk. His worst mistake was letting go arts writer Ben Dowell – who I hear it rumoured has embarked on a mini-me adventure. I prefer cats myself.
Kampfner’s gone but he’ll be back in a senior role on a newspaper. He has a loud voice, the requisite certainties and lovely big ears. If he wants his horoscope done, he’ll have to send his birth details.
Good turn out of dark suits and floral frocks at the rather subdued New Statesman's “summer” do at the Banqueting House in Westminster last night.
Under Rubens’ splendid ceiling in the Main Hall – one of the last things Charles I would have gazed upon before losing his head on the scaffold just outside in 1649 - proprietor Geoffrey Robinson mounted the throne dais and announced that Gordon Brown was expected at 8.30-ish pm. If the PM did turn up – if he could be bothered to cross the road from Downing Street – I wouldn’t know because he was still not there 45 minutes after ETA when I left. Before then, Robinson introduced his editor John Kampfner for whom, he suggested, the throne was a better fit.
Kamfner’s speech wasn’t the gung-ho marathon of last year when he was the debutant editor on a mission to impose his youth on the venerable organ. I expected him to reel off stats aplenty but instead he just barked at the throng with that over-manly, Andrew Marr-y voice of his – I do wish some editors were swishy and effeminate (Statesman columnist Julian Clary would be perfect) – and I haven’t a clue what he said, to be honest as I was preoccupied by Suzanne Moore's shoes (see below).
Best person of the evening, aside from Ben Dowell, the magazine’s erstwhile much-missed arts diarist and Open’s new arts diarist, was his guest Stephenie Booth, fourth wife of the actor Tony Booth, the father of Cherie Blair (sometimes Booth QC), wife of the former PM Tony Blair. “I expected you to have big hair,” I said in a Tourettes-y moment, gazing at her chic crop. “I expected great architecture on top of your head, hair sweeps, etc.”
Another woman might have taken offence at this but she was most sporting. She said: “Maybe you were thinking of Pat Phoenix – she had big hair …” Yes, may be. Phoenix was the late Coronation Street actress who played Elsie Tanner, Tony’s second wife, a beautiful lacquered siren of sorts who smoked a lot.
Stephenie and Tony are based in West Yorkshire and I think she said she stays over at Cherie’s when she’s in London – I may have got that wrong; party conversation is really wonky radio stuff. "I love my husband, he makes me laugh, he's so funny," she said. She is involved with a newish charity called The Great Generation so I look up the website later. Its mission is to “To help tackle world poverty, by encouraging and sustaining charitable giving.” For more click here.
To my surprise she and Tony are on good terms with Tony and Cherie, despite the former Tony's opposition to the Iraq war. To her surprise I was able to tell her that "Broonite" Geoffrey Robinson and Gordon Brown are not the best buddies of political lore, owing to all sorts of treacheries by the former Chancellor. “Yes, but then Gordon doesn’t have friends,” someone in our group observed.
As to the party itself, Virgin Media paid for the generous supplies of champagne (Tesco last year), Christine Hamilton and her idiotic bowtied husband hustled about, Sky’s political editor Adam Boulton padded on the periphery in cheap rubber-looking shoes with a red stripe up the back sole, columnist Suzanne Moore wore a complicated pair of fuck-me shoes – all 6in spikes and lacy ankle binds – Austin Mitchell MP held court in front of the throne and all sorts of other nano-journo and political stars huddled together in butt-out circles of shouting and mis-hearing.
In a gathering of left-leaning winners who eagerly embrace capitalism, the royal throne seemed entirely at home.
