Celebrity

Wednesday

Michael Beloff

One to admire

The English Bar is no longer immune to the celebrity culture. There are lawyers’ equivalents to Hello! magazine and the Oscars ceremony; lists of the 100 most, top ten, five to follow, proliferate. But peer and public recognition do not always coincide. To that rule Michael (or more usually Mike) Mansfield is a notable exception. He is indisputably the most high- profile barrister of his generation, both within and beyond the profession, and for that reason alone his memoirs, published to celebrate what he claims to be his retirement from practice, were always likely to be of interest. Expectations are amply fulfilled. This is essentially a fascinating and passionate record

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Michael Jackson’s Final Freak Show

The Washington Post’s Lisa de Moraes has the right attitude to today’s media-overload as at least 16 networks compete to see who can provide the most gruesome coverage of the Michael Jackson memorial today. Odds are that ABC will be the winners, if only because they have Martin Bashir on their books… We’re guessing Jackson fans probably won’t be watching ABC’s coverage, Bashir being the guy who profited most by taking down Michael Jackson. In case you just came out from under a flat rock, Bashir’s the guy who did that 2003 documentary, bought by ABC, that led to Jackson getting slapped with those child-abuse charges and Bashir getting offered

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Angelina Jolie is the World’s Best Woman, Right?

Angelina Jolie attends Belstaff’s ‘The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button’ Premiere & After Party on December 8, 2008 in Los Angeles, California. Photo by Alexandra Wyman/Getty Images for Belstaff. Some of you will doubtless have your own sordid little reasons for thinking, yes she is. Here’s the good news: Naomi Wolf agrees with you! Ms Wolf has written what may be the most amusing piece I’ve read all year. The Lovely Angelina, you see, “has it all”. The whole thing is priceless but, as Double X’s Willa Paskin explains, this may be the most deliciously off-the-wall part of the whole extravagant mess: Then there is the plane. Women are so

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Ricky Jay & Susan Boyle

Ricky Jay has an op-ed in today’s NYT on the Susan Boyle phenomenon. It’s interesting – there may not be many people alive who know more about the history of freak shows and public oddities than Jay – but it’s really just an excuse to point you towards Mark Singer’s terrific New Yorker profile of Jay. It begins: The playwright David Mamet and the theatre director Gregory Mosher Taffirm that some years ago, late one night in the bar ofthe Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Chicago, this happened: Ricky Jay, who is perhaps the most gifted sleight-of-hand artist alive, was per- forming magic with a deck of cards. Also present was a

Monday

Alex Massie

Oprah: The Queen of Snake-Oil

Michael Kinsley has a very entertaining take-down of the “new” Newsweek in this week’s edition of the New Republic*. However, I doubt the “old” Newsweek would have dared publish this very entertaining, even brutal, demolition of Oprah Winfrey. In fact, it’s the sort of piece one might imagine appearing in TNR. So, whatever the merits of Kinsley’s piece and whatever the future may – or more probably does not – hold for Newsweek, anything that exposes Oprah’s weird combination of sappy new age snake-oil and shameless hucksterism is no bad thing. If nothing else, it’s worth being reminded that Oprah peddles the anti-MMR nonsense that, if its supporters have their

Monday

Alex Massie

Choosing Between the Lesser of Two Evils?

Good grief. If I lived in, say, Luton South perhaps the only thing that could persuade me to vote for Margaret Moran would be the appalling thought of replacing her with, of all people, Esther Rantzen. What next, Janet Street-Porter for parliament?

Wednesday

Toby Young

Fame is still the spur

In The Frenzy of Renown, Leo Braudy’s magisterial study of fame and its history, he identifies the principal allure of being a celebrity: ‘In the heart of the fan and the famous alike, fame is a quiet place where one is free to be what one really is, one’s true, unchanging essence.’ The belief that you can only become fully realised in the glare of the media spotlight is, of course, an illusion. In fact, the opposite is true. Far from enhancing the personality, fame corrodes it. Responsible adults are reduced to an infantile state in which the sole purpose of others is to satisfy their needs. As John Updike

Sunday

Alex Massie

The Life and Times and Death of Jade Goody

At some time in the future, historians will view the Jade Goody Affair with the same kind of bewilderment and revulsion that we reserve for the excesses of Victorian Britain. But of course Goody’s celebrity – absurd and mawkish and repellent as it was – demonstrates how little human nature changes and reminds us that we’re much closer to the past than we sometimes like to think. And that, of course, is just another way of observing that the sky is always falling. To wit, here’s the Telegraph’s (lengthy) obituary, which also serves as a commentary on the marvellous monstrosity that is the British tabloid press: The first time she

Thursday

Alex Massie

McCain tells America: you’ll like Obama and even if you don’t you’ll be fascnated by him…

As Time’s Michael Scherer writes, McCain’s decision to portray Obama as nothing more than a flashy celebrity better known for being famous than for any great achievement is, well, strange. Here’s McCain strategist Steve Schmidt: “It’s beyond dispute that he has become the biggest celebrity in the world,” [McCain Campaign head Steve] Schmidt said of Obama. “The question we are posing to the American people is this: Is he ready to lead? . . . Do the American people want to elect the world’s biggest celebrity or do they want to elect an American hero, somebody who is a leader, somebody who has the right ideas to deal in a

Friday

Alex Massie

Lessons from the Tomb Raider

It’s easy, of course, to mock actors and pop stars and their worthy pretensions to saving the planet. But whatever else one may say of her, I think it’s true that Angelina Jolie takes her role as a UNHCR “ambassador” more seriously than most. Anyway, she has an interesting and persuasive op-ed in the Washington Post today: My visit left me even more deeply convinced that we not only have a moral obligation to help displaced Iraqi families, but also a serious, long-term, national security interest in ending this crisis. Today’s humanitarian crisis in Iraq — and the potential consequences for our national security — are great. Can the United

Alex Massie Alex Massie

If a Little Sparrow beats its wings, does that mean tall buildings fall?

On the other hand, some actors really are loopy to the tonsils. To wit, alas, the lovely Marion Cotillard, who is, it seems, a pretty keen conspiracy theorist: Marion Cotillard : J’ai tendance à être plutôt souvent de l’avis de la théorie du complot. Xavier de Moulins : Un peu parano ? M. C. : Pas parano, non c’est pas parano parce que je pense qu’on nous ment sur énormément de choses : Coluche, le 11 septembre. On peut voir sur internet tous les films du 11 septembre sur la théorie du complot. C’est passionnant, c’est addictif, même. X. de M. : Sur le 11 septembre par exemple, toi, qu’est-ce

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Who needs TV writers anyway?

At last! A new TV “reality” show worth watching:                                                                                       Move over American Idol and make room for Rockstar Curling, a reality television show that may indeed have a rock-star connection. NBC confirmed yesterday it has an exclusive option to air a 10-episode sports reality show that will give the winners a shot at competing in the U.S. championships and even going to the 2010 Olympics. And one aspect that would make this a draw to the button for

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Correction of the Day

Definitely from the Department of Too Good to Check: CORRECTIVE: Paris Hilton Story                                                                   Tuesday, November 13, 2007 sfgate_get_fprefs(); (11-13) 15:44 PST    GAUHATI, India (AP) — In a Nov. 13 story, The Associated Press incorrectly reported that Paris Hilton was praised by conservationists for highlighting the problem of binge-drinking elephants in northeastern India. Lori Berk, a publicist for Hilton, said she never made any comments about helping drunken elephants in India. [Hat-Tip: The Agitator]                        

Tuesday

Wednesday

Alex Massie

A (Rather Good) Bit of Fry…

Stephen Fry has a blog? Ye gods, whatever next? That said, he may not have quite mastered either the brevity or the frequency elements of the gig. Still, absorbing stuff. Or something.  Certainly it ain’t your average celeb-blog. What may be the world’s longest post on Smartphones ever written by a Cambridge Footlight, concludes: As the General Confession in the Book of Common Prayer has it, “I have followed too much the devices and desires of my own heart.” Amen. Then there’s a lengthy – but very warm and very wise –  rumination on fame which, well, you’ll just have to read for yourself. But here’s a fun story: I’ll

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Jeanne Campbell, RIP: Forget Not

John F Kennedy, Nikita Kruschev, Fidel Castro, Lord Beaverbrook, Oswald Moseley, Claus von Bulow, Norman Mailer, J Paul Getty, Randolph Churchill, Henry Luce, Gore Vidal, the Beatles and Napoleon Bonaparte… Just some of the names appearing in this Daily Telegraph obituary of a remarkable and entertaining (yet oddly melancholy) life: Lady Jeanne Campbell , who has died aged 78, was a journalist who reported for the Evening Standard from New York for many years; she was also the former wife of Norman Mailer, the daughter of the reprobate 11th Duke of Argyll and the favourite granddaughter of Lord Beaverbrook. As a journalist she covered the funeral of John F Kennedy

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Deparment of naivete

The anti-land mines brigade are claiming victory (of a sort). The NYT’s The Lede is too charitable by far: No one gets into arms control for the glamor and the primetime awards shows, but the International Campaign to Ban Landmines just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to celebrate their 10th anniversary punctuated with a pragmatic rejoinder: “Success in progress.” Emphasis added of course. Equally obviously, that’s exactly why many people “get into arms control”. Ditto tree-hugging and fretting about global warming and lord knows how many other causes.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Judging Arthur Miller and Gunter Grass

That wise owl Terry Teachout responds to the brouhaha over the revelation that Arthur Miller “deleted” his Downs-syndrome son from his life, by digging into his vast archive to retrieve the column he wrote when Gunter Grass’s youthful service in the Waffen SS came to public attention. Mr Teachout reminds us of five important principles whose application is by no means confined to artists in trouble: 1. Judging the sins of the past by the standards of the present can be a shortcut to self-righteousness. Make sure you have all the facts–and that you understand their historical context–before passing sentence. 2. Don’t lose your sense of proportion. 3.Remember the Golden

Alex Massie Alex Massie

What I loved once and what I love now are two different things.

Matthew d’Ancona makes a pretty sweeping claim this morning. Sir Michael Caine is, he writes: almost certainly the Greatest Living Englishman. My first reaction was that this was pretty strong mustard. But then again, now that Bill Deedes has gone, who are the other contenders? Your nominations please… And if Sir Sean Connery can be labeled the Greatest Living Scotsman, perhaps it’s appropriate that his old partner from The Man Who Would Be King be accorded the crown south of the border. In the light of recent developments in Scotland and England, readers are also invited to speculate, as wildly as possible, upon the potential political consequences and significance of

Tuesday