UP Tracey Emin
Despite society’s obsession with celebrities, we all need to face facts:
ultimately, we still know very little about them. Brad and Angelina might
drop chips on the floor, say, “It’s OK — the germs haven’t had a chance to
get on there yet”, then let Zahara eat them. Victoria Wood might
persistently partially obscure her neighbour’s driveway with her Volvo.
Nigel Havers’s dog might hump everyone’s leg, while Havers sits there
laughing and shouting: “Classic! Classic!” We just don’t know. Over the past
few weeks, however — for a few glancing moments, at least — the gauze has
been lifted on the lives of a few, otherwise reclusive, stars. For during
the coverage of Madonna and Guy’s impending divorce, it emerged that the
Ritchie-Ciccones, on Christmas Day 2004, sat their children down to a festive
Kabbalah-appropriate meal of steamed fish — in the company of their
houseguest, Tracey Emin.
Then, this week the soon-to-be-divorced Jo Wood — the long-suffering wife of
Rolling Stone Ronnie — announced her Christmas plans<NO1> for this year<NO>:
gathering what remains of her family around her at her place in Kingston,
Surrey — and then being joined by Tracey Emin.
Well, this is, obviously, intriguing. Not least in that, with her
free-floating Christmas Day guest-spots with divorcing couples, Emin appears
to be turning into the Ghost of Christmas Love Doom. Is there, maybe, an
element of these families hosting Emin against their will? Every November,
the Groucho Club could throw the names of all their members into a hat, and
make the “Who’s having Emin for Christmas?” draw. Even now Lenny Henry and
Dawn French could be desperately hoping that Tess Daly and Vernon Kay get
the short straw for 2009.
Or, conversely, is Emin such perfect festive company that there is in fact a
waiting list for her — with Sharon Stone and Paul Daniels scratching
each other’s eyes out over the honour of having her round in 2012? After
all, CW would put money on her being pretty lively company: getting wibbly
swigging on a bottle of Harvey’s Bristol Cream stashed in her handbag,
covering little Jack’s Christmas bicycle in tampons (“It’s a menstrual
cycle, you bourgeois fascists!”), then smoking Rothmans up the chimney,
screaming: “I can see Santa’s knickers!”
CW bets that Rocco, Lourdes and David Banda will really miss Auntie Tray this
year.
UP Paris Hilton
Hilton — a young woman, for those of you not intimate with her CV, whose life
consists of a mad whirl of tiny, rat-sized dogs, sparkly shoes and
accidentally making porn films — has been papped carrying a copy of
The Economist in her handbag. The incident has caused many people to laugh
at Hilton, claiming that she is engaging in an attempt to be taken more
seriously that is both a) amusingly dim, and b) futile. But CW suspects the
real motive behind her purchase of magazine: she was simply too embarrassed
to be seen with a copy of The Spectator, and covered it up with the first
thing that came to hand.
DOWN Sinitta
The 1980s poplet, whose hit Toy Boy is still heard in Troon's desolate gay
clubs, has talked of her relationship with her former boyfriend Simon
Cowell, to whom she is still close. “We just are what we are,” Sinitta says,
dismissing those who see their bond as odd - before revealing that she keeps
an IN NO WAY FREAKY LIFE-SIZED CARDBOARD CUT-OUT OF COWELL IN HER
CONSERVATORY! Has the life-sized cut-out of her world famous,
multimillionaire ex proved a talking point with subsequent lovers? Do you
get lower insurance premiums if your house is, ostensibly, guarded by
someone who could be quite snide about your New York, New York?
UP Gok Wan
CW's favourite camp stylist with his own TV show has announced that he fancies
the angry TV chef Gordon Ramsay. This can be viewed only as a spur for CW's
weekly pun meltdown - this week, in the manner of potential tabloid
headlines! Actually, CW has got just one: “How to Look Good Bake-ed.”
UP Mariah Carey
Many wry comments have been made about the recent three-day trip to Europe
conducted by R&B superstar Mariah Carey. Despite possessing just one
body, one head and a single pair of feet to conceal from nakedness, Carey
nevertheless brought along 16 extremely large suitcases - no doubt to the
distress of the lower lumbar regions of many Europorters on minimum wage.
CW, however, doesn't join in with all the Carey luggage-based cavilling. For
it doesn't believe that it was real luggage. Not at all. CW believes that
Carey - who is, first and foremost (and even before being a spectacular
piece of ass) a creative - has moved into the sphere of modern art. That
luggage didn't contain 78 sequined evening dresses, 128 pairs of diamanté
tippety-tappety shoes for Carey's princess-like feet and her personal
hairdresser, Phillipe - frozen in carbonite (like Han Solo in The Empire
Strikes Back), ready to be defrosted the moment that Carey hit Paris and needed
hot-rollering.
No, no, no! CW is convinced that those suitcases were, in fact, empty, and
that Carey is making an Emin-like statement about herself: “I'm the 18th
biggest-selling artist of all time. I had a public breakdown on a TV show,
where I started handing out ice-cream to the audience. I ask for kittens to
pet as one of my dressing-room demands, I don't 'do' stairs, my sister has
twice been arrested for prostitution and, of late, a strange paralysis
appears to have seized my forehead, making me unable to move my eyebrows -
even were you, out of idle curiosity, to lean over and try to push them up
my head with the end of a ruler.
“Yes, that's right, I come with a lot of baggage.”
UP Russell Brand
You'd expect Brand to be abject, contrite and desperate. He has, after all,
had a key role in a media incident so controversial that it seems on the
verge of triggering a new Puritan revolution. Instead, with the kind of luck
that makes you suspect that, if you dropped him, he'd land butter-side up,
he is reported to have been cast in a £5 million role in Pirates of the
Caribbean 4 (The Legend of New Merchandising Deals?). This makes the
principled act of quitting his Radio 2 show double up as a fortuitous piece
of diary-clearing, and also establishes him as a naughty but loveable
pirate, giving him endless leeway for making “edgy” jokes in the future
(oo-er, Matron, etc).
UP The Prince of Wales
Today is the Prince's 60th birthday - a momentous day that will, doubtless,
start with him breakfasting on Duchy Originals sausages while saying “Ah-ha,
young Neddy Sea-Goon!” over and over to himself, and then get even more
exciting. Accordingly, celebrities have been sharing their best Prince
anecdotes. CW is especially moved by Barbara Windsor's: “On one occasion I
was invited to Clarence House - and he walked down the stairs. I was rooted
to the spot.” She should hire the DVD of Hello, Dolly!, in which Barbra
Streisand descends a staircase in heels and skin-tight gold lamé, belting
out a duet with Louis Armstrong, to find out how exciting staircases can be.
DOWN Kerry Katona
Two weeks ago Katona was OK!'s star columnist; its reports on her life often
referred to “our girl”. But after her “confused” appearance on This Morning,
the magazine and Katona have parted company, and OK!'s tone has shifted.
Reporting on her appearance at the MTV Europe Music Awards, OK! used the
phrases “recently bankrupted star” and “mouthy mum”, concluding: “The crowd
wasn't impressed ... [they] booed her. Perez Hilton [the Hollywood blogger],
said: ‘I'm looking forward to hearing if she can say one sentence without
vomiting on herself!'” A week in celebrity terms is long enough for
the formation of a new world order.
DOWN Mel B
Global disappointment in the wake of the Spice Girl's renewal of her wedding
vows in Egypt. The affair was dishearteningly tasteful: the bride did not
wear a leopardskin dress or scream “Spice up yer life!” as she rode
down the aisle on a backing dancer, clad only in a leather saddle and a
thong. But there was some joy when the bride commented to her husband, in
reaction to tabloid allegations: “Well, you've never killed a duck.” But who
needs the prompt of tabloid allegations? Everyone on their big day should
announce that they have never killed a duck. It seems so right. To love,
honour and leave mallards well alone.
UP Jennifer Aniston
Aniston, possibly the world's most dumped woman, has finally spoken about her
former husband, Brad Pitt, leaving her for Angelina Jolie. “I thought what
Angelina did was uncool,” she told Vanity Fair, instantly reigniting sales
of the T-shirts that read either “Team Aniston” or “Team Jolie”. CW would
like to propose a Third Way, vis-à-vis the shirts: “Team Acknowledging That
The Vagaries Of Human Emotion Are Complex, Life Is Infinitely
Discombobulating, And That Declaring Your Loyalty To A Celebrity You Know
Only Through The Pages Of Gossip Magazines And The Friends DVD Box Set Is
Not Only Nugatory But Also Deranged.”
