Julie Burchill

Many of us have been flirted with by fruit; perhaps it can’t help being fruity, following the principles of nominative determinism. ‘PLEASE DON’T SQUEEZE ME TILL I’M YOURS’ blushing peaches on market stalls used to beg, lest we bruise them with our greedy paws. ‘UNZIP A BANANA’ leered a television commercial, so typical of the licentious 1960s. As if knowing that vegetables can never be as sexy, fungi could only fight back with the highly uninspired ‘MAKE ROOM FOR THE MUSHROOMS’ slogan of the 1980s - a limp retort at best.   What they all had in common was the anthropomorphisation of food. It seemed like a bit of fun at first.

As I’m an OAP, it’s not very often that I see an amusing online game I got into early trending online, so imagine my glee on seeing the following on X this week:  ‘Peter Murrell Meme Turns Follower Counts into Luxury Kitchen Splurges.’ Freelance journalist Jill Foster started the game by pairing a pound sign with her follower count and a kitchen item, sparking replies from a £35,900 cutlery tray (the proud possession of The Spectator’s own Gareth Roberts) to a £394,000 salad dressing bottle. The humour stems from Murrell's real court-listed buys, including a £3,232 Jura coffee machine and Jamie Oliver spoons, all funded by SNP donations from 2010 to 2022.’   To be specific, it had to be the last item in the kitchen that one touched.

When I became wheelchair-bound at the end of 2024, the biggest change I had to deal with was not being able to walk any more on my lovely long legs. But, as I surveyed my poor ruined body in the cold light of 2025, I was dismayed to see that there were a multitude of minor indignities which had vandalised my youthful looks since my spine went under the knife.  My lovely, glossy, dyed dark hair was now thin and greying. My teeth were mostly missing. My bingo wings could have flown me to the Moon. My lovely legs were like an old man’s. My bum had disappeared. My lovely vulva was vandalised with an unspeakably common plastic catheter. My stomach was crenellated from rapid weight loss.

One of the funniest - and in my opinion, falsest - things women have long said is ‘I’m doing it for myself - not for men’ about improving the way they look. Men have rarely said the same about women, which reflects that men have never been principally valued for their looks, historically, as they generally earned far more money than women. Women had to look as pretty as possible in order for a man to pick them and support them financially, thus my brilliant line ‘Men are judged as the sum of their parts; women are judged as some of their parts.

I almost spat out my toast (smothered with the As Ever, The Raspberry Spread Trio - ‘Made To Keep On Hand And Enjoy Often’ $42 - natch) in pure molten anticipation when I read that my role model in spreading jam to flour, sorry, speaking truth to power, will be hosting a women-only weekend ‘retreat’ in Sydney during her forthcoming Australia jaunt, with tickets ‘a steal' at £1,700. I already had my credit card in my hot little hand until I remembered that though I love to lunch tête-à-tête with one lady, being in the company of many women at once - with not one awful toxic man around - makes me feel like drawing crude approximations of penises on fragrant toilet doors after around half an hour.

What do you think of when you think of Jameela Jamil? (I realise that I may be talking to the wrong demographic here, but bear with me, and I promise I’ll broaden it out.) I think of hair – lots and lots of shiny, black, beautiful hair. Personally – and I thought this long before telogen effluvium, caused by the trauma of spinal surgery, made half of mine fall out and turn the rest grey – I don’t believe I’ve ever seen hair as lovely, not even on the great stars of Hollywood like Veronica Lake. If ever anyone had ‘pretty privilege’ (a term which I find censorious and covetous; attractive people should get prizes, just like brainy ones do) it’s Jamil.

When the ghastly Lynda Snell of The Archers ‘did’ fasting last year at Ramadan to suck up to the new Muslim family in town, I thought this kind of thing had got about as silly as it was possible to be. But reading about what happened last week at London Fashion Week took the gluten-free cake.  Non-Muslims either choosing or being compelled to celebrate Muslim holidays has been going on for some time. Understandably if disagreeably, with its Muslim mayor, London splurges on the celebration of Ramadan, decorating Piccadilly – the heart of the city – with 30,000 (sustainable) lights.

Until around a decade back, most of us either watched the Eurovision Song Contest because it was extremely camp, or for what passed for the ‘politics’ – Greece and Turkey not voting for each other over Cyprus, and that exquisitely rebuking nul points the UK invariably got from Germany and France, for being an uppity little island nation which was still celebrating winning Second World War.   The campness is still there, but it now sits uncomfortably with real politics – that of the culture wars. 'Trans' and Israel are the flashpoints, with the supporters of the first and the opponents of the latter overlapping in a vicious Venn diagram. This was summed up in 2024’s Irish entrant, one Bambie Thug, who offered ‘I’m queer!

Pick the prince who recently said this: ‘I take a long time trying to understand my emotions and why I feel like I do, and I feel like that’s a really important process to do every now and again, to check in with yourself and work out why you’re feeling like you do.’  Prince Harry, right? The baffled bailer across the water with too much time on his hands, who in the past, while doped up, has confessed to having conversations with both a trash can and a toilet. O, that the alumni of the Algonquin could have been around to join in!  No, it was Prince William. I must admit that I felt a vague foreboding when I heard his comments on BBC Radio 1’s Life Hacks on Wednesday – the Mental Elf strikes again!