Richard Ingrams: His next magazine creation is obvious

Madame Arcati always helps those of advanced years (see my back catalogue on all the old prostitutes I have profiled) - and so it falls to moi (again!) to make a suggestion to Richard Ingrams (lately deposed editor of The Oldie, once of the province of Private Eye) on his next career move. I should hate to see this national treasure tarnish as bitterness takes possession. My art department has gone to the bother of mocking up my career suggestion. Gratis. (Click image to enlarge.)

 

Molly Parkin: Is she an outsider or an insider-outsider or an aparter?

Molly Parkin
Photo by Anthony Lycett

My darling Molly Parkin is featured in the Guardian today in a series called The Outsiders. I'm not quite sure what an outsider is really. Certainly this tribe does not include marginal sociopaths who've done little with their lives, or "loners" whose existential lonesomeness is frequently cited as reason in itself for demonisation or witch-hunts or criminal suspicion or posthumous besmirchment. So perhaps the series title should be: Insider Outsiders. It surely celebrates the people who belong but who somehow stand apart. The Aparters could be a much better series title. Madame Arcati only seeks greater precision beyond the slack-brained come-ons of newspapers.

That said it's an entertaining encounter between legend and young fan (Clive Martin). As I write there are four reader comments, two of which have been excluded on the grounds of breaching "community standards"; and the third sends up the community standards message. So, 75% of the current reaction is blighted by over-eager censors. Which reminds me. A little while ago I attempted to post a comment beneath an item in the Guardian on the Telegraph's editor-in-chief  Jason Seiken. I simply pointed out that Mr S's birth details are unknown; and would someone supply because I wished to cast his horoscope. Oh dear! Some underpaid hireling imagined I had breached community standards and in consequence cast my innocent message out.

It is an irony that a piece about a wild spirited bohemian outsider is managed by corporate disciplinarians. Yes, my love affair with the Guardian ended some time ago, I'm afraid. Alas, the Guardian is no more a guardian of free speech than Pravda or the Sun. 

In other news, Clive's interview with Moll appears on the day we learn that pink-haired Zandra Rhodes is made a dame in the Queen's Birthday Honours. This is certainly a lot more deserving than the honorary damehood awarded to Angelina Jolie - has she been successful in her laudable campaigns against sexual war violence? Yes, if judged by the mass of media photo ops of a statuesque beauty in battle war zones standing by the side of William Hague. Perhaps we can agree that "Dame Molly Parkin" certainly has a very definite ring to it, now that we know that HMQ has the most excellent taste in fashion and style. That would be most deserving.

Finally, it is Clive's youth (or conformity) that must cause him to express a degree of embarrassment in drawing attention to Moll's "outrageous" sex life, because she's 82. In this day and age I don't think advanced years is reason not to reflect on past or even current amatory activity. I wholly encourage young writers to put aside their Mumsnet attitudes and accept that while there's breath in the body there's probably a hormone or two as well. Let's leave the measuring-speak to undertakers.

You can read Moll's interview - and all about her current projects - here.

Thank God for Amazon - book shops and their lanky owners are OVER

On Newsnight last night, a schoolboy publisher and a middle-aged glamour puss (oh, all right, Caroline Michel who bosses Peters Fraser & Dunlop - the multi-media/lit agency) talked about Amazon and its ongoing battles with Hachette. This Independent piece gives the guff if you've been snoozing or sleeping with a politician these past few days.

The internet vs book shops fight served as excuse to raise their TV profile: in short, is Amazon a hostile monopoly that wishes to suck the life out of our high streets and turn us all into supine keyboard shoppers prone to bowel cancer from lack of physical activity? A leading question perhaps but the answer is probably a qualified yes. And if that's the case, I say this: thank god or Richard Dawkins for that.

The demise of book shops is a wonderful thing. Since childhood I have associated such establishments with wood rot, dust, poorly stocked shelves - they never have the books I want - and geeky elephantiasis in the owner (in male proprietors especially: unusually tall, scalpy, half-moony speccy, poorly dressed, snaggly of tooth, Oxbridgy in a distinctly unsexy sort of way; underfed but over-weak tea'd and cursed with sociopathic reflexes, such as gazing down on one as if Princess Michael of Kent had reincarnated as a giraffe crossed with the carcass of the late homosexual Norman St John Stevas).

Book shops are all Basil and no Fawlty; places of hushed hostility only crackling with corduroy static and pot-pourri'd with the ever-so faint whiff of skidmarks. Repressed people stand about 'sampling' books they have no intention of purchasing - the equivalent of shoplifting in my view. All those words snatched freely from the page never to experience again the initial thrill of discovery in the brain of this standing loafer. Books bake gently in shop windows, curling at edges and yielding colour to UV-unfiltered nuclear blasting (aka the sun). The grey cheap recycled paper cannot withstand such exposure; but don't expect a discount when you pick up the irradiated item and discover its fragility to human touch - foxed and fucked. The Giraffe Princess St John Stevas at his bell tolling old till - still showing pounds shillings and pence - will demand the full price, which adds another sad £1.25 to his profits since he has had to haggle with the distributor, the publisher and the cleaner for his (or the odd her) cut.

What a sad state of affairs. So, welcome the rise of Amazon as the necessary Dignitas to book shop vendors. Put these dinos out of their misery. I have never yet failed to find the book I want on Amazon. Payment is simple as pie. Delivery is within two or three working days. A sexy post-person with a cute bum hand-delivers my package, superbly wrapped and invoiced. Amazon is just one of many answers to a prayer in the 21st Century, marking the end of avoidable boredom, frustration and employment of thin tall people who drawl and keep the tea industry going. A surfeit of alternative vendors and second-hand booksellers on Amazon ensures competitiveness and survival of the fittest (allowable in the books world) - and the eternity of books in the life of consumers.

If you see a book shop today, pass it by without a second thought. Soon it will be sold off to some delightful gorgeous people with white teeth and in sexy underwear, such as nail technicians.

Gorgeous! Princess Michael of Kent discusses 'dark shadows'!

Josephine Pembroke

All this fuss at The Oldie (the latest news is that Richard Ingrams has been locked out) reminds me that ages back I meant to blog about Josephine Pembroke and her online Radio Gorgeous. Josephine, who's about 50 but looks 36, is the wife of The Oldie's publisher, James. Radio Gorgeous is a station which discriminates against men by only featuring the lives and voices of females - arguably a not unreasonable editorial principle given millennia of misogynistic exclusion, Private Eye and cricket. A little correction is in order, surely.

Ever the swashbuckler, I, Madame Arcati - as female as you are lizard, in the Ickian sense - clamped headphones upon my head and decided to listen to the very first thing on Radio Gorgeous that I was drawn to; an example of Fate's Prodding. And who should I encounter there before I've drawn breath but Princess Michael of Kent! Josephine interviewed Princess Pushy on the occasion of the publication of her latest novel, The Queen of Four Kingdoms.

Her Royal Highness is certainly an authority on name-checking the crowned and titled stars of yore - a 'professor emeritus of history' fact-checks her books. In speech she accents foreign words, as if her tongue does the italic font. Rouen, for instance, emerges as 'Rrrooowahn' - I'm sure a media queen of etiquette has decreed that one should pronounce foreign terms in the usual English accent. But no matter.

Interest grows when she describes in pornographic detail the burning of Joan of Arc. Apparently she died of smoke inhalation not of actual burning - consumed by 'à petit feu, I was brought up speaking French, as you may know.' The executioner wore a leather apron. And a mask. Joan was chained to the post. Her corpse was properly burnt and the ashes thrown into the Seine as ghastly peasants screeched 'she's a boy!'

When later the princess talks of people's unreadable hand-writing, apropos Old French, Josephine laughs, 'My husband.'

We learn that the princess' blood group is A-positive - it's sweet and mosquitoes love it. However it may account for the arthritis she once had in her hands until a homoeopath 'cured' her by banning alcohol from her diet - she's not touched a drop in 13 years. Plus, she had hot wax baths which caused 'toxins [to come out] and they smell....' She always had dark shadows around her eyes like her kids because of smoking and drinking - but not now. She nags her dark shadowed children to give up these vices so that they, too, may display faces of unblemished light. But they ignore her. Freddie works for JP Morgan but one day will be a writer, like mummy.

Oh the details! Everything is framed in gilt, in luxe thinking and oneupmanship. The princess is rendered naked. I strongly urge TV channels and radio stations to hire Josephine Pembroke. This woman extracts the nitty-gritty. Like the princess, Josephine is 'well-organised.'

Listen to Princess Michael of Kent here. The interview gets more interesting after 44 minutes if you wish to jump and dodge the history.

Roger Lewis: Oscar Aid and a smoking twat

You know I adore Roger Lewis, author of one of the funniest books in the English language, Seasonal Suicide Notes. It's the Basil Fawlty of modern literature. Nothing in it is sacred save the author's beautifully cherished reactions to the world, recorded in a comic stream of conscious uncoupling for all eternity (ie hello Oxfam book shop!). I told him the other day that I had a new book out, but with Roger he doesn't waste time on insincere expressions of good luck (he's not alone). He ignored my news and got down to business. The Daily Mail's best book reviewer wants me to put out an appeal to help his son Oscar. Madame Arcati, whose heart exceeds her capacity to find supportive friends, is only too happy to oblige.

First, my congratulations to gifted Oscar for winning a place at the Royal College of Art. You see, I react to others' news. Oscar starts there in the autumn. This is no mean accomplishment. Roger tells me that only 16 places were up for grabs against a tide of aspirant millions. Do watch Oscar's affecting degree movie below - John & Iris - which creatively blends reminiscence with interpretive animation.

But there's a problem - money!

Would someone out there, with perhaps a bulge in his or her pocket - a tent even - kindly consider sponsoring him or otherwise granting Oscar a sum so that he may complete his studies. Please email Madamearcati69@aol.com with your offer which I'll pass onto Roger.

As Roger explains: "Newspapers and magazines don't want to pay for my prose, and publishers now offer contracts without advances on royalties! So unless you are either a po-faced academic, with a nice fat salary and index-linked pension pot, or a TV celebrity producing ghosted memoir shite, that's it for books. Or Lewis' books. Nevertheless, in a Seasonal Suicide Notes sequel I want to do for 2015, it will be called I'LL JUST DIE & THEN YOU'LL BE SORRY."

Well, we don't want that! So please, people. Cough up - you don't really need that patio decking or that new Dutch pension plan.

In other news, I did enjoy Roger's Kafka essay in Craig Raine's Arete publication ("whatever an Arete is," Roger wonders aloud in his email to me). In it he writes of someone called Pinky June - some kind of porn star, I think - who "smokes cigarettes with her twat." He adds: "Pinky at least won’t get lung cancer in a hurry, inhaling in that fashion." 

Now that we're the wiser for that, do relish Oscar's film - and think seriously about how we can fund the poppet's studies:

The Oldie: Richard Ingrams tells it as it probably isn't

Madame Arcati offers her condolences to Richard Ingrams, the nat tresh who co-founded Private Eye in the previous century just as sexual promiscuity was getting into its stride; or so it is imagined. The poor poppet finds himself unemployed after he 'resigned' as editor of The Oldie, a tiny magazine that soldiers on for people no longer as moist as they once were.

The circs of his departure he tells in the Mail on Sunday today. Here we go you lazy, solipsistic cunts. Read all abaht it. Of course what he says is about 10% of something: apparently there were bitching sessions with the publisher James Pembroke. Ingrams tells of his horror at being summoned to anal 'brainstorming' sessions. Then following a slapfest with handbags flying all over the place, Pembroke compelled Ingrams to submit to a disciplinary hearing. Can you imagine? At this, the ancient satirist flounced out, in full knowledge that newspapers would be gagging for the deeeetails. Ah, the attentive duvet of celebrity insurance!

The piece Ingrams has written could be the truth, the whole truth, etc etc. He attributes his departure to the curse of modern management techniques with its petty rules, procedures and whatnot. He can't abide that sort of thing, having made his ascent in life through the informal wilds of making-it-up-as-he-goes-along, with charming people by his side giggling on cue. But I am not convinced that's the real story. The impression I get from Ingrams' doubtless well-rewarded article is that Pembroke wanted him out and simply used legislated procedure to start the process. That's the actual story, in my view. How procedure advertises employer animus and alerts the subject to the exit door, now ajar.

In all of the media places I have plied my trade, the 'disciplinary hearing' is only activated once a decision is made to sack someone. It matters not what the reasons are. Only that the power-in-charge has tired of you. If you want someone to stay in your employ you don't put them in the virtual stocks - you talk to them privately; offer carrots with implied stick. Such hearings usually are part show-trial, part kangaroo court. I don't say Pembroke planned to act as judge and jury in a quasi-judicial charade. Only that he most likely couldn't stand the old fart any more and had to find a way to get him out, so began a legal process. Circulation was slipping after all. Ingrams tells us so.

That angle is not complimentary to Ingrams, of course, who now recasts himself as some sort of worthy champion of gentleman journalism cast upon the rocks of MBA-inspired martinet bureaucracy. Old stagers know how to carry on the show - 'All right Mr DeMille, I'm ready for my close up.' I do hope Pembroke breaks cover with his (honest) version of events.

Ruminations of a Sequined Relic: a new poem by Molly Parkin

I LOST MY LOOKS AT 82
AND TURNED INTO A CRONE
REFLECTED IN MY MIRROR
WAS A FACE I'D NEVER KNOWN

I SHAVED MY HEAD AT 82
SOWING THERE BRIGHT SILVER HAIR
I DUMPED MASCARA, LIPSTICK-PAINT
THE END RESULT WAS QUAINT RESTRAINT

HARSH ARTIFICE, MASKED-GLAMOUR GONE
REPLACED BY SMILING EYES THAT SHONE
WITH KIND CONCERN, AND NOW PRONOUNCE
 A FRIENDLY, GENEROUS COUNTENANCE

I'D NEVER REALISED BEFORE
THAT THERE ARE DIFFERENT TREATS IN STORE
LIFE BRINGS US GIFTS, THE SPIRIT LIFTS
US HIGH ABOVE WHAT WE'VE ONCE BEEN
WHILST OFFERING A SWEETER DREAM

molly parkin 2014

Jackie Onassis - and she didn't just polish cock!

All this stuff about Jackie Kennedy-Onassis shagging le tout Hollywood. Not just the other Kennedy brothers (Bobby and Teddy) but William Holden, Paul Newman, Marlon Brando, Gregory Peck (er?), Rock Hudson (OK I made up that up), Warren Beatty, Rudolf Nureyev and sooo many others! Thank goodness, that's what I say. I always hated to think of her sulking about the White House all neglected and sad while JFK dogged about. Now it turns out she quite boldly pursued cock; celebrity cock, mind. Not just your average cock. She didn't do nonentity cock. 

Cock's on my mind because of something I read in this week's excellent Popbitch. It reports that Nick Clegg has a 'polished' cock. Can you imagine? Does he use Brasso to go with his neck (a laboured joke but think about it). And polished things arise in a lovely anecdote that's fallen my way about Jackie. I can't wait to tell you...

In the very late 1980s, my source had a job as a shop assistant at Paragon, the huge sporting goods dept store near Union Square in Manhattan. He tells me:

"Jackie came in one day and asked me a lot of questions about exercises and various equipment and asked what I could do for her butt (as if she had one). I recommended equipment where she should lie on the floor and raise her midsection while clenching her buttocks. Anyway she was puzzled so I dropped down and demonstrated.

"Later when she went to pay, I was nearly blinded by her change purse - like the coins were seriously dazzling. I said, 'What the fuck, does someone polish your money?' And she looked down, looked back at me and said, 'Um, yes.'"

"Um, yes." So Jackie!

Imelda Marcos musical to party at Vout-O-Reenee's!

Molly Parkin cuts Vout's umbilical cord with 'birth-mother' Sophie Parkin (in fuschia, darling) to our right

Even the suits among you know the truth. That I know better. So, trust me. I sense your sexual excitement.

I am therefore delighted to welcome a new club of joy and culture to the London biosphere, launched on May 15. It is called Vout-O-Reenee's and thank God it's in London's Shoreditch and not adjacent to the media whorehouses of Soho and their parasite bar mirror gawpers. Its mother is Sophie Parkin, a Gemini woman of nonpareil good taste and unforgiving insult - and frankly the kind of robust soul required to found and steer such an establishment, dedicated to the artist, the iconoclast, the maverick - in short, to someone who is fresh of flesh yet able to settle her or his bar bill. The Chelsea Arts Club (aka The Old Cunties' Convalescent Home - commodes available on request) must be spitting. They missed a trick when they passed on Sophie.

Muriel Sophie Parkin invites you to party

But don't just believe me. I learn that the very best are flocking to Vout to celebrate the lucrative expressions of their life force. In September, for instance, it is the chosen venue of the after-party for the Fatboy Slim/David Byrne Imelda Marcos disco musical, Here Lies Love. Dubbed a 'poperetta', it opened to rave reviews in New York in 2013. It is the London theatre event of 2014 - and I am delighted that its creatives will celebrate inevitable glory at Vout's. Only the best shoes will be admitted.

I understand that Here Lies Love - created by Talking Heads' icon Byrne and superstar DJ Slim - opens the National Theatre's newly named Dorfman Theatre in the autumn.

See you there, dearies.

For Vout membership details, email: info@vout-o-reenees.co.uk. 07753702910. 30 Prescot St, London E1 8AZ

Burchill, Fallowell (and others) in my new Lifesurfing tome

Such a joy to be back among you, especially given the egregious state of blogging these days. I can but do my best, permitting you a glimpse of Arcati's ancient soul which bubbles with spite and acuity and long memory, though I dress it all up in a sage's garb and vocabulary of daunting endowment.

Yes, I shall be publishing a naked Prince Harry artwork - by a former mayor (only the best on Arcati). But before that exciting controversy, I wish to do what we all do these days - and offer you my ass.

Step forward Lifesurfing: Your Horoscope Forecast Guide 2015. You know the drill. Monthly forecasts of uncanny precision. It's rather early to be thinking of next year; I know that. There are, however, other things to read in my gorgeous tome as you while away the rest of 2014 in anticipation of 2015.

This year I have included a number of in-depth astro-profiles of certain people I find intriguing and entrancing. Julie Burchill, for instance. Yes, I have peered into her horoscopic bowels and found...well, why spoil it? I have included non-astro personal insights and revelations which can only add flesh to the planetary bones of Britain's most revered media opinionist. Duncan Fallowell, too, has been conscripted: the temperature of his heart is a question of some longevity - whip out your thermostats with Madame as we watch the mercury shoot up (or down).

I could go on...but I know you have things to do, such as peruse the latest porn uploads. So I shan't try your patience. I'll try it later.

FREE sample read: E-Book. For classier acts there's always the Paperback.

Steph Booth: Labour says No to Cherie Blair's step-mum

Steph Booth

You would think that being the step-mother of Cherie Blair might count for something within the Labour Party. Yet writer and political activist Steph Booth - fourth wife of actor Tony Booth since 1998 - has discovered that extensive relevant political experience (quite apart from family connections) counts for little or nothing to the worthies of socialism-lite.

For I learn that Steph's application to join the Labour Party local government panel - to be included on the list of potential candidates for 2014 council elections in Calderdale (in West Yorkshire) - was rejected back in October. She was told she had insufficient experience. But as Steph says: "I've been in the Party since 1982 and fought every local and national campaign since. Wrong kind of experience I suppose."

She adds: "The local government panel have yet to forgive me for insisting the election of our PPC [Prospective Parliamentary Candidate] was open and fair - ie. they could not slip in their own preferred candidate. They were very cross when I got the general secretary's office to enlighten them about procedure."

Many will say this is a healthy sign that a direct family link to Labour aristocracy is entirely irrelevant - and perhaps it is. But others may speculate whether such a link works against Steph's interests given the controversial figure ex-PM Tony Blair has become, both within the Party and nationally. Certainly she has never attempted to capitalise on her position within the Blair/Booth family and has only asked to be rated on personal political merit.

Final word to Steph (half in jest?): "Maybe I should read the runes and just give up on the Labour Party?"

Meanwhile, she has her work cut out caring for husband Tony who has Alzheimer's. She is currently filing occasional pieces to the Irish Times on life with the actor.

In one article she reveals: "After becoming a pensioner himself Tony [Booth] began to channel some of his political energy into the pensioners’ movement in the UK, speaking at rallies and conferences. His activities were sometimes an intense irritation to his son-in-law, Tony Blair, who was then the British prime minister. My Tony wasted no opportunity to inform the other Tony just how poor the provision for pensioners was in the UK and how much better it was in Ireland, urging the prime minister to do better." To read more, click here.