Catherine Bennett joins Observer

Excellent news - the new Observer editor John Mulholland has hired Catherine Bennett from the Guardian - as first reported on Arcati the other day. This is a good omen for a paper that has been compromised too long. Bennett is brilliantly civilised. Mulholland knows who I want removed.

Join Brian May against whaling

One of the better celebrity blogs is Brian May’s. The Queen star posts regularly and actually interacts with his audience – and I’m impressed by his recent outspoken attack on the resumption of whaling by Japan. “I was looking at murderous Japanese boats going out to kill 1,000 intelligent, beautiful higher mammals ... the magnificent whales. And we all sit back and watch it happen?” he writes.

As Greenpeace reports, “If the countries that oppose whaling were putting one-tenth of the effort into ending it that the Japanese government invests in maintaining a sham research programme, whaling would have ended by now.” If you’d like to sign Greenpeace’s message to various world leaders to call Japan's Prime Minister Fukuda to stop whaling, click here.

May’s blog click here.

Read Adam Macqueen

Mmm, here's an interesting and amusing blog with Private Eye and Popbitch connections, click here.

Morrissey declares war on NME

A delicious row brews between Morrissey and the NME – he’s on the cover this week adorned with his own words on the topics of immigration and floodgates. “Oh dear, not again,” sighs the mag. Shouldn’t this have been, “Oh goody! More PR for the NME!”? The interview itself confirms Moz’s view that logistically it’s probably unwise to let the entire world move into the UK but the NME takes this as code for darker sentiments even though he backs its Love Music Hate Racism campaign.

Now my attention is drawn to Morrissey’s website – oh dear, Big Mouth is awfully upset, and with reason if we are to believe the piece therein penned by Moz’s agent Merck Mercuriadis. His tale of what NME’s editor Conor McNicholas said one minute and then did the next is, prima facie, curious to say the least – it appears he only confirmed that the magazine would be tough on the star and his opinions when it was too late to injunct the issue, having first denied a hatchet job. Legal threats are made by Moz’s front, and a lawyer’s letter to Conor (“Not for publication") is published. Could it be that Moz will sue NME?

Let us examine the interview. It follows the lazy Q‘n’A format (I can get away with it because my stuff’s free) but has a caveat-style intro in which we are alerted to Moz’s “belligerence” on the topic of immigration. Contrary to NME’s testimony, he does not “steer” the conversation to the topic of immigration, but rather is slyly led there with such questions as “You live in Italy now. Would you ever consider moving back to Britain?” Ah, yes, I know that old trick; it’s artfully done. Moz’s basic message is more Laurie Lee rosy tints than BNP; a sentimental elegy for an imagined lost England: it’s the curse of age and is usually cured by a bout of hard sex with a stranger. The Q‘n’A is then interrupted by a little NME lecture about Moz’s form on immigration before the interview picks up again specifically on race and immigration. Moz repeats his concern about “floodgates”, denounces racism as “silly” and suspects he’s about to be pilloried. The interview ends with NME shaking its head in consternation at Moz’s “ravings” which make him sound like a “rogue Tory MP”.

The magazine makes clear it does not think Moz a racist. Rather, he is naïve and does not understand the effect of his words on a world he no longer understands. But damagingly a letter to Mercuriadis from the NME interviewer Tim Jonze is reprinted which reads: “I should mention that for reasons I'll probably never understand, NME have rewritten the Moz piece. I had a read and virtually none of it is my words or beliefs so I've asked for my name to be taken off it. Just so you know when you read it.” His name nonetheless appears on the piece.

I can’t think any legal complaint will succeed since interpretation is by its nature subjective and no words are made up or falsely attributed so far as I can see. But the NME ed should have risked telling Mercuriadis of its editorial treatment of the interview from the outset. Of course, no editor wants to lose a guaranteed seller, even one that’s “belligerent” on immigration.

Click here to read the Morrissey complaint

Catherine Bennett to leave the Guardian ...

... and take up residence at the Observer? If true I shall put the paper on order again. I love Bennett, she's my favourite sourpuss.

Christy Brown and the celebrity wankers

I think it would be fair to say that Christy Brown is remembered today thanks chiefly to Daniel Day-Lewis’ extraordinary mimicry of the writer/painter/poet, who had cerebral palsy, in the 1989 movie My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown (it won 16 film awards including two Oscars). As Georgina Louise Hambleton writes, in her new biography, Christy Brown: The Life that Inspired My Left Foot, “It still perplexes me why Christy has been forgotten as an artist. In his poetry (all of which is now out of print) and his prose, his skills as a writer are vast.”

Most probably the memory of his Herculean victory over disability crowds our perception of him; it cannot be the case that his work was elevated merely because of the circumstances of creation – given the peer raves he enjoyed during his lifetime. Critics are usually not kind, only intermittently dishonest on good days. It would be best to rediscover his work when the air of schmaltz has thinned away.

Hambleton has many wonderful stories to tell – my favourite featuring Peter Sellers and Britt Ekland. Brown met the couple when he had grown famous. After just 15 minutes of their company, he turned to his sister Ann and said, “These people are awful wankers.” Hambleton adds: “Sellers (who had ignored Christy after their initial introduction) leant over to Christy’s ‘interpreter’ and asked, somewhat pedantically, ‘What’s that he’s saying?’ Ann did not know what to say, so she thought quickly. ‘Ah, sure, I don’t know,’ she said. ‘He’s speaking Irish.’”

Christy Brown: The Life that Inspired My Left Foot, Mainstream Publishing, £15.99. Click here to order

Ben Stiller buys up Gods Behaving Badly

Great news that Ben Stiller's production company Red Hour Films has snapped up the rights to Marie Phillips' debut novel Gods Behaving Badly to turn into a TV comedy series. London-based Phillips wrote a StrugglingAuthor blog about the writing of the book before it was sold - it's a tale of the Greek gods who have been living together in a house since the 1660s, still in control of the world but dangerously bored: Aphrodite, for example, now runs a telephone sex service. A dream come true for Phillips. This reminds of the time in the mid-'90s when Robert Redford phoned up Nicholas Evans in London to secure the film rights for The Horse Whisperer. Can't say I much liked the movie; perhaps Gods Behaving Badly will turn out better.

Marie writes an entertaining blog - click here.

Mother Meera in UK next March

Those interested in the work of Mother Meera will have a chance to receive her darshan in London between March 27th and 30th, 2008. For further details click here.

Gordon's November horrors foreseen

Arcati readers will know of my keen interest in the astrology annual Old Moore's Almanack - I have been particularly impressed by its predictive accuracy on the topic of the government. It foretold a happy August (with traditional Gord-style values emphasised) but that by November the government would be in trouble with new scandals aplenty - Northern Rock and the loss of 25 million benefit files might reasonably be regarded as, er, headaches. For my last Moore's report click here.

If Moore's remains spot on, then the UK economy in 2008 will perform reasonably well even if the PM is given little credit.

Christopher Biggins and actor star in a dream

Dear Madame

I thought I must share a dream I had this morning. It could have only come about from reading your blog and watching ITV ... In fact, it was possibly more "waking nightmare" ...

The dream: I'm sitting in The Ivy with none other than Kevin Spacey and Christopher Biggins. Kevin is holding court, discussing his movie triumphs and theatre excursions. Then, he looks slowly at Biggins followed by me and adds: "And I'm also writing the lyrics to P.Diddy's new album."

At this point I become EMBARRASSED and look at my table napkin, but Biggins seizes the moment with a huge cheshire cat grin - "How prodigious!" He throws his head back and laughs like a hyena on acid.

This dream REALLY happened. What's happening to me? By the way, the Biggins in my dream was the On Safari version. Thanks for your time:).

Mark

Jonathan King writes ...

Hi Madame - seven years ago to the day I was arrested! I'm drinking a toast to celebrate as I type.

Click here

All the best, JK

Duncan Fallowell ponders his bathtime churning balls

In this week's excellent Spectator - I love to stroke my cheeks with the gorgeously sexy silky paper, inter alia - Roger Lewis lists as one of his Books of the Year Duncan Fallowell's "long-awaited hedonistic masterpiece about his visit to New Zealand, Going as Far as I Can (Profile, £12.99)." Lewis writes: "New Zealand comes across as a philistine hellhole, so Fallowell shuts himself in a motel to contemplate his knackers floating in the bath instead. You assuredly didn’t get that in Bruce Chatwin."

The phrase darling Duncan actually writes is: " ... a good long soak in the bath and
contemplation of my balls slowly churning in their sac"*. It has been brought to my attention that this is "a unremarked phenomenon," namely, "that balls in this relaxed state can often be seen to make a definite churning movement of their own accord." My male writer adds: "I can't be the only man to have noticed this [as well] but I've never seen it referred to elsewhere. Can your readers offer some input on this?"

Any New Zealanders are most welcome to contribute, btw.

*Duncan spells this as "sack" in his book for the reason he gives in comments.

To order Duncan's new book click here.