The Sun seeks protection - under 'bonkers' Human Rights Act

The Sun newspaper never misses an opportunity to wage war against the Human Rights Act. With approbation it last year reported the PM's vow to tear up the statute. And the paper fell in love with Britain's Equality and Human Rights chief Trevor Phillips when he described the Act as 'bonkers'.

As the paper wrote last December, Mr Phillips [said] the laws had "fallen into disrepute". 'People believed they had "come to mean the defence of the rights of unpopular minorities — of criminals, terror suspects and illegal immigrants — at the expense of everybody else."'

So, which newspaper staff (or unpopular minority) are now thinking of defending their interests under the Human Rights Act as Murdoch's internal inquiry team hand bribery suspect hacks (or 'legends') over to the cops? Step forward the galley slaves aboard HMS Sun. The irony is just too exquisite.

To read more, click here.

Richard Dawkins: The real message of his atheism poll

I see yet another professor, the Richard Dawkins one, is bidding for guru status: he's trying to make capital out of a poll which tells us that most Christians don't read the Bible and probably don't go to church much if at all. Apparently this is evidence that atheism is the growing faith du jour.

Perhaps he's right. But then again how many atheists have read AC Grayling's The Good Book: A Humanist Bible? Very few if sales have any say. You'd think your average fashion follower would acquaint him or herself with the godless script(ure). But no. Instead, he or she watches another TV professor, the Brian Cox one, and marvels at the universe as fascinating facts are reeled off from the textbooks.

This approach at least permits one to embrace the stats of eternity while grazing on cashews.

If the Dawkins poll has a message, it is that no matter what one's belief system (and atheism is just another belief system), most followers are happy to take their position cues from the idiot boards of priests and professors. There's just too much sex and socialising and work to get through.

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.

Duncan Fallowell: Madame Arcati's blithe disregard for Miss Marple

Miss Marple or Madame Arcati?

Dear Madame Arcati

I have just watched the film Blithe Spirit, directed by David Lean, in which you star. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the film is in Technicolor and that in it you wear a blood-red dress! I've seen the film before, but so long ago that I'd forgotten it was in colour. In fact I remembered it as being in black & white largely, I expect, because the profile photograph of you on your entertaining blog, which I've had reason to view quite often, is also in black & white. But it's incorrect! That photo of you is not of Madame Arcati but of Miss Marple.  How could you play such a trick? Since you have decided to return from the dead, I think it only fitting that you celebrate the occasion by altering your profile picture from the misleading Miss Marple to your true coloured self in that enchanting 1945 film of Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit.

In grateful anticipation,

From your well-wisher, Duncan Fallowell

Dearest Duncan

How very lynx-eyed of you! Yes, it's true, I confess everything. The profile pic is indeed of Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple. I much prefer the image, to be honest. It conveys my fearsome gravitas. There are however many black 'n' white film stills of Miss Rutherford as the dotty clairvoyante and only the odd colour one - as you can see below. Perhaps readers would like to select the still for my new profile.

Thank you for noticing.

Best wishes, MA x

Molly Parkin's 80th birthday party: 'No fucking corporates invited'

Molly Parkin between the legs of her own effigy which
 greeted guests at the Chelsea Arts Club entrance.
Photo by Tommy Candler

Swathed in a unique shoulder-to-floor scarlet creation, light glinting off a vast Andrew Logan mirror brooch (black nail varnish matching what she insisted was a 'glass not plastic' jet bracelet from Murano), Molly Parkin gazed down on a heaving crowd of party-guests and gave her advice to womenfolk, apropos men:  'Fuck 'em, don't marry 'em!'

We're at Molly's 80th birthday bash. Friday night, Feb 3. She's addressing friends and liggers at London's legendary Chelsea Arts Club from a high-up balcony - her 'Mussolini moment'; or as she prefers, 'My Jesus on the Mount' impression. She loves that a newspaper recently made her 'theologian of the week' after she told the Indy on Sunday that Christ, like she, 'would have had sex with everyone' had he, like she, lived through the 60s.

The Jesus act ends when she lifts out her top denture, waggling it at the screaming crowd, and delivers the rest of her speech half-toothless. 'Well, I was afraid my teeth would fall out and break,' she told me later.

Molly outside the Chelsea Arts Club being
filmed by Robert Chilcott.
Photo by Duggie Fields

At least three hundred Boho-Soho-beau mo types crammed into the club's main hall to celebrate the birth of this, yes (awful word, I know), 'iconic' woman whose fashion style, beauty, wit and rumbustious life still inspire or astonish.

'I don't want any fucking corporates at this party,' she had said earlier in her room at the club. No suit zombies, no kerching hustlers. Just fellow artists, child-souls and 'people living their passion.' Three beautiful dresses were laid out on the double-bed - the scarlet one she wore later, a black one traced with scarlet and her 'gilded beauty outfit'; not forgetting the black swan ruffled or feathered ensemble with black turban she wore already. She'd got through all four self-stitched costumes by night's end.

In her honour, the club had decorated its outside walls with many monochrome portraits and cartoons of Molly by the artist Tony Common. She was particularly touched by a line montage of life in her birth place, Pontycymer, Wales. And over the main entrance stood a giant wooden Molly effigy 'so that people can walk through my legs and look up at my cunty,' as she put it.

Molly with daughter Sophie Parkin.
Photo: Tommy Candler

First, the apologies. Dame Judi Dench couldn't make it so sent teetotal Moll a magnum of champagne. Barry Humphies had just flown back to Australia and Mavis Nicholson had slipped on the ice. Twiggy was on her way but got held up by snow. Sian Phillips: just too exhausted. Andrew Logan was in India: he gifted her a beautiful brooch with a hologram eye the same colour as Moll's eyes: green-blue-grey, depending on the light. Zandra Rhodes, intriguingly, was held up by a person from Egypt. Bob Geldof - well, what happened, Bob?

But had he or any of the others turned up, would they have got in? The club's hall was chocka for most the evening. As was the makeshift smokers' tent 'for the cancer-seekers,' said Moll.

Marc Almond made it having just returned from New York. He looked astonishingly youthful and healthy - quite a contrast to the nonsense one hears following his bike crash years ago and claims that he never goes out. In fact he was recently spotted in the Colony. In his Soft Cell days he looked to Moll as his hair and makeup muse - he even lived with Moll in her Cheyne Walk house back in the 80s. 'He was like my understudy,' she says.

Another gifted sleb she discovered, or at least helped to fame when she was fashion ed of the Sunday Times, was Manolo Blahnik CBE who turned up in treble cashmere. Never less than exquisite, with hair so stiff you could pick a lock with it, he now describes himself as a 'factory boy' because he sits at a lathe to make his shoes. 'I have never been happier than to be one of the boys.' He gave Molly a letter which entitles her to select a pair of shoes as his birthday gift next time she visits one of his shops.

Another behemoth of fashion inspiration is Barbara Hulanicki OBE, founder of clothes store Biba. She'd flown over from the States for the do and wore her trademark shades. We didn't get to talk much but I did introduce her to The Lady's editor-in-chief, Rachel Johnson, who put in an admirable display of targeted socialising.

Once she had talked to Barbara, Rachel then insisted we seek out Moll. A few minutes later, seated birthday girl appeared to revive the Jesus act as Rachel knelt down before her in an act of slebby supplication and told he she looked 'hot' and gorgeous. I don't think Our Lord & Saviour could have hoped for a blessing anything like that.

I was also delighted to welcome Duncan Fallowell, friend of this blog, and once described rather mischievously by Gore Vidal as 'the canapes' on London's literary circuit. We managed a quick embrace before he was lost to others and a long night ahead. He was spotted gossing with Duggie Fields, accompanying a fabulous Italian girl in shocking pink and leopardskin, and then with Jenny Runacre, 'looking like a Russian countess - she gets better and better,' to quote Duncs.

Molly outside the Chelsea Arts Club. Tony
Common drawing. Photo: Tommy Candler

Cosmo's veteran agony aunt Irma Kurtz also sticks in  my memory because we discussed astrology. She told me she's a double Virgo with (I think) Capricorn Moon (or was it Libra?). Awfully down-to-earth. Mysticism does not interest her: as a humanist/atheist, she's taken with the idea that animal energies explain so much of what passes for psychism. But when I pointed out that I do not know most of my astrological clients, she agreed that was a hard one to explain away.

I could carry on name-dropping but won't. Everyone agreed it was a contender for party of the year - Duncan described it as 'anarchic'. I loved the Marlborough-educated  former barrister and public prosecutor Clifford who gave up his life of lawyering to become a nude male model for the likes of Lucien Freud after being impressed by the free spirited lives of Moll and her sometime late lover George Melly.

I know Moll was utterly delighted by the guests and their many gifts, including cash. 'The central heating boiler broke down at the weekend so the money was useful to keep me warm,' she said.

She added of life at 80: 'I'm at the pinnacle of refinement after a time in the gutter and pleasuring meat porters. I know spiritual contentment.'

Moll is now planning her 90th birthday party.

Molly Parkin at 80: 'Jesus would've slept with everyone in the Sixties'

A sweet but too-short interview with fiancee Molly Parkin in the Independent on Sunday today on the occasion of her imminent 80th birthday (next Friday). 'Jesus would've slept with everyone in the Sixties,' screams the headline, quoting one of Moll's catchy throwaway jokes.

I've never quite understood who reads the Independent papers, but if I were to judge by some of the early readers' comments, I would have to conclude that sexual enlightenment lies before many of them. A furtive, sneery, schoolboy-ish tone is all too apparent: editorial ambition so frequently overshoots the default stagnant point of audience evolution.

Next weekend, Madame Arcati will be running a special report on Molly's birthday do - there'll be no mention of John Mortimer's smacked arse or Bo Didley. Just Moll and friends and life now. Meantime, read the Indy's interview with her - and relish the gorgeous pic. Click here.

Susan Penhaligon poetry: The Ashes - in memory of actor Richard Warwick

Susan Penhaligon

Madame Arcati debuted (post-Coward rehearsal) as warrior. These days, this site is a salon of the precious talents - a refuge from the tyranny of media criminality and the tiresome reflexes of tenured hacks (I have yet to see one decent media cock-cocker or cunt-cunter at the Leveson inquiry - do you now see the playground prejudices at work? The recycling of stereotypes in real-life real-time?).

But enough of transitory fashion. The passing delusions. One of the talents the Madame Arcati salon adores is actor Susan Penhaligon. I have already showcased her poetry (click here to read); and I'm honoured to publish yet another example of her work - I ho hope publishers are paying attention.


The Ashes was written in memory of actor Richard Warwick (1945-1997). Susan tells me: 'He played my husband in A Fine Romance. Tragically he died of Aids. He was one of my best friends.'

The Ashes

Into the spider's web and stone of

Cheltenham

past the Daffodil cinema,

into the sleet

towards your favourite place,

on the day we left you for the

boatman.

Down familiar roads,

maps drawn heavy in the mind,

the lines of childhood unsmudged,

your brother rattling memories on

speed -

where the tree house formed

an ark in the Yew tree,

a hidey hole by the Holly bush,

in 61 the flooded fields iced over

for you to skate the Cotswolds.

We ford the mud-filled, wet-filled

fields,

the Severn banks collapsed,

a racing, river road

collapsing trees and sky and us,

us three,

the friend, the lover, the brother,

our faces wet with flooding.

We stand before the Elephant tree

and pour you out,

from our palms where we held you

we pour you out

like spice, like adding salt,

we put you to the liquid earth

in the flooded wetlands of your

childhood.

And through the rising deep,

across the seascape fields,

the waters covered the face of

the earth

and the Ark sailed on towards us.

(Copyright © Susan Penhaligon 2012)

Roger Lewis: Very fat ladies and their gunts

Britain's wittiest writer Roger Lewis has written again - I thought I'd share our correspondence with his gagging-for-it public. The 'Paris Connaught' he mentions below is a commenter to his last letter, should you wonder....


Dear Madame A,
Who is "Paris Connaught"? And if it is a "nasty little site" what is she doing accessing it? Paris Travelodge more like.
It's like Groucho Marx, who complained to some magazine in high dudgeon and moral indignation, and said any more of it "and I will be compelled to cancel my subscription."
Molly Noyle Parkin sends me "jokes" with rude words. I have taken to addressing her as Noyle, which is probably Welsh for the vadge.
Talking of which -- I have just discovered from my new doctor friends in The Royal Cornwall Hospital that the part in very very fat women between the overflowing belly and the vast bulging thighs is known by the profession as the "gunt".
It has almost been worth my while nearly dropping dead to know this. I offer it as my New Year present to you.
Always,
Roger Lewis

XXX 

My Darling Roger

Only this afternoon, Moll and I were gossing about you - and she sent me a delightful joke of yours. I don't know who Paris Connaught could be: the oddest people pass by en route to the porn sites. At least the bint - a word I love - is not Paris Premier Inn From £29 A Night.

I have never heard of the word 'gunt' and thank you for it. I wonder whether Fern Britton or Dawn French are familiar with it. Do you think their diet doctors fingered their gunts? Questions, questions.

Love, respect (but save me from 'Love and Light')

Your MA x

(I'm bunging all of this up. Francis Wheen 'liked' your last letter on my Facebook page, btw. A lovely poppet. Pity about the atheism)

Roger Lewis: Pancreatitis and being taken for Sir Roger Moore CBE

Roger Lewis

Fans of Roger Lewis were most concerned to hear he was at death's door over Christmas with pancreatitis. Happily, Britain's funniest writer was refused an astral tunnel visa and is now back home convalescing. In response to my solicitude, he wrote me the following:

Dear Madame Arcati,

Home at last, where I creep about the chimney corner in a brocade dressing gown like John Hurt doing Beckett's Krapp.

Pancreatitis. Not recommended. My fault for ignoring the diabetes symptoms. But still. 1 in 3 die of what I had -- and once I was on the IV morphine drip, death seemed quite a nice option. (As it still does) 

Because I have been patched up by the docs only to have to face fucking bills, fucking invoices, fucking VAT and fucking income tax demands and fucking trying to make fucking ends fucking meet in that fucking freelance way.

I think that's all part of what made me ill: 30 years of doing what I do and mostly all I get are inadequate and irresponsible reviews and (save for yourself and a handful of discerning others ) scant recognition.

Thrilled you seem to like the new book, What Am I Still Doing Here? - darker and madder (and better) than Seasonal Suicide Notes. If I ever do a 3rd volume I have the title ready: "I'll Just Die And Then You'll Be Sorry."

I'll go down in history for at least being Ronald Searle's final patron -- his cover the last thing he ever did.

One funny thing happened this week. I got these fulsome ("Darling Roger") emails from veteran film director Bryan Forbes, whom I only know very vaguely -- from my Peter Sellers research days. Turns out he thought he was communicating with Roger Moore. He (Bryan) only twigged when he asked with justified bepuzzlement "What were you doing in hospital in Truro over Christmas?" As indeed, what would 007 Sir Roger Moore CBE be doing in Truro over Christmas, or at any time?

The boiler has gone kaput this morning. On the whole I'd rather be back in the High Dependency Ward.

Gluckliches neues jahr !

ROGER

The Standard's Londoner's Diary picked up this story. Click here)

Cheiro: The man who foretold Wallis and abdication

Cheiro

Darling Madonna has single-handedly revived interest in dick chick Wallis Simpson with her much-mocked movie W.E. Since I have not seen the flick, and will probably successfully dodge it, I shall confine my commentary to a far more interesting aspect of this 'royal love story' - one that perhaps owes its provenance more to the exquisite bonding joys of PG-threatening tongue-fu than anything else.

I have in my possession an original copy of Cheiro's World Predictions, published in 1925. For those who don't know of Cheiro, he was an Irish astrologer and clairvoyant, aka William John Warner. Oscar Wilde's palm was familiar to Cheiro in which doom was writ large - the reading is recounted in Richard Ellmann's Oscar Wilde.

Thinking of Madge's W.E., I turn to page 72 of World Predictions to read Cheiro's forecast for the then Prince of Wales, later Mr King-Emperor Wallis Simpson.

'Rumour says that Queen Mary, and in a lesser degree, King George, have worried themselves seriously over this problem of the Prince who may be fond of a light flirtation with the fair sex but is determined not to "settle down" until he feels a grande passion,' he writes. Cheiro goes on to foretell: 'But, it is well within the range of possibility, owing to the peculiar planetary influences to which he is subjected, that he will fall a victim of a devastating love affair.

'If he does, I predict that the Prince will give up everything, even the chance of being crowned, rather than lose the object of his affection.'

Written 11 years before Edward VIII's abdication over Wallis, I'd say - in the spirit of compromise - that this wasn't such a bad guess.

Duncan Fallowell: The death of Diana

'Death is the normality, life is the exception.' I like this line from Duncan Fallowell's essay 'The Death of Diana', in his latest book How to Disappear: A Memoir for Misfits. A newspaper should buy the rights to this piece for the next death anniversary of Diana. Fake iconoclasts will be appalled.

Madame Arcati performs a resurrection (before Easter)

Ssshhhh! Don't say anything but I'm back. It's true I died and passed into an astral waiting room and met the Dear Leader and others; but what people don't realise is that you can return to this vale of crocodile tears if you wish - and if your body is still intact.

I won't be updating regularly, just when I feel like it. I am so distressed to read that Andy Coulson is having to sell up his house, take the kids out of private school and ignore Rebekah Brooks at parties - it's no way to treat a former lackey and professional liar, is it?

As for myself, many changes are swirling about - doubtless Neptune's passage into Pisces on February 3 will trigger certain things. I'll keep you informed. It is most important not to get bored, don't you agree? There will be more astrology on this site amid the usual updates on literary and cock-cunting matters. If you don't like it, just fuck off, dearies.

The next big party is Molly Parkin's 80th (no further invites available!) - and Madame will be there. In person.