Julie Burchill

Looking back on the Queen’s 1992 ‘annus horribilis’, the events involved – though surprising at the time – seem almost staid now. The wife of her favourite son was photographed canoodling with an American. Her daughter divorced. Her daughter-in-law was the co-creator of a frank book about the sorrows of her marriage to the Queen’s eldest son, and to top it off, Windsor Castle burnt down. There’s a whiff of Sunset Boulevard about the isolated pair as they flail around wondering where to go next Three decades on, there’s a marked difference between the Queen’s awful year and that of her grandson, Prince Harry. The Queen’s year might have happened to anyone who had a bit of bad luck and a lot of castles.

I’m not the biggest Donald Trump fan, so I surprised myself by being pleased when he won the American election so conclusively. There was a serious reason for this. Though I’m thoroughly for abortion and against sex pests, it’s no good the Democrats pretending to be the party of women’s rights when they’re in favour of allowing cheating males into female sport and perverted men into female prisons. This isn’t feminism at all, but what I’ve dubbed ‘Frankenfeminism’ which ends up making life both less fun and less safe for women – and that’s a rotten combo.

I still remember the day when, as an adult in my twenties, I was informed by a well-wisher that Aslan from The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe was really Jesus. As this was before my religious awakening, and I was quite the militant atheist at the time, I became rather irate at this revelation. How dare ‘they’ slip a moral message in amongst all that magic and wonder! Now, of course, I see that compared to the story of Christianity itself, a bunch of talking critters is very pedestrian stuff indeed.

Did you know that Bruce Springsteen’s son, Sam, is a fireman? Fireman Sam Springsteen. It sounds like a joke, but it's not. Good on Sam: the child of a star, doing something useful for a living. Brooklyn Beckham-Peltz, the daddy of all nepo babies who has just launched his own brand of hot sauce, could learn a thing or two. Nepo babies, despite their apparent good fortune, will forever be one of life’s plus ones Beckham junior, son of David, might also take a leaf out the books of other celeb offspring who are doing something useful. The daughters of Richard Branson and Roger Taylor have both worked as doctors. Brian May’s son is a physiotherapist.

I’ve always found the word ‘presenting’ – as in TV presenting – somewhat comical. It’s such a giveaway. In theory, the presenter is presenting the show they host; in reality, they’re presenting themselves for public approval. To add to the fun, ‘presenting’ is also a word used to describe monkeys being rude with their nether regions. Though they are often referred to as ‘the Talent’, a presenter can’t really be said to be gifted in the way other people are on television; a good actor, a fine singer, a nifty dancer. They don’t do – they are. So though they may appear to be the jammiest showbiz tribe – paid a fortune to sit there reading a cue-card – their position is also the most precarious.

The inquest into the death of Steve Dymond, the unfortunate man who was found dead a week after his appearance on the Jeremy Kyle Show in 2019, gives one the odd feeling that society has changed a lot in a short time, while at the same time not having changed at all. The days are gone when daytime TV was synonymous with the likes of Jerry Springer – the originator of the three-ring circus school of television – and his English imitator Jeremy Kyle; now it’s a much more sedate affair, with the likes of Homes Under The Hammer providing a low-level buzz of banality to accompany one from breakfast to tea-time. But that doesn't mean the moral high ground belongs to us. The daytime TV witch trials may be over, but the woke trials of social media are alive and kicking.

We’re quite happy to think badly of most professions. The corrupt politician, the sleazy hack, the bent copper and the vain actor are all familiar entertainment tropes. But when it comes to those who keep us alive, we understandably don’t find the fact that they may be wrong ‘uns in the least entertaining. It’s the topsy-turvy world-gone-mad incongruity that disturbs us. Healthcare workers are there to make us better, not worse. We call nurses ‘angels’ and while the promise ‘First, do no harm’ isn’t actually part of the Hippocratic Oath (it’s from another of Hippocrates’ writings called Of the Epidemics) we’re rightly appalled when a Harold Shipman or a Lucy Letby comes to light. When we are at our sickest we are at our most vulnerable.