Watching brief - Amanda Platell thinks the Observer has got sexy
Published 19 May 2003
Perish the thought, but I think the Observer has got sexy. Even readers who dress to the left are interested in sex and celebrity, provided it's more West End than EastEnders
Twenty-four hours after her resignation speech Clare Short discovered that hell hath no fury like a lefty scorned. The right-wing press is famous for its merciless character assassinations, but nothing could have prepared Short for George Monbiot's onslaught in the Guardian. With a passion and a poison matched only by her own, Monbiot trashed that which Short holds most dear, her record as minister for overseas development.
He charged her with being the poodle of big business and big government, and of piddling on the poor. Monbiot administered death by a thousand cutting remarks, in a devastatingly powerful indictment of her work and her character.
Not for Short the almost universal respect following Robin Cook's departure from the government; new Labour's conscientious objector has become an object of ridicule.
It was left to the Daily Mirror's Paul Routledge to defend the friendless Short. In her honour, he coined the expression "the Weapon of Ms Destruction". Sadly for Clare, the weapons were all strapped to her body.
I treat Sunday newspapers like I did dinner as a kid - there's the stuff you want to eat, like the steak, and stuff you have to eat, like the cabbage that's been boiled for 30 minutes. I always kept the best for last. Newspapers are the same and I find the Observer increasingly one of those saved until later.
This was not always the case. But the paper's rising circulation has coincided with a subtle yet relentless feminisation. Perish the thought, but I think the Observer has got sexy.
Take last Sunday's front page - Meg Ryan, Lisa Marie Presley, Anne Robinson, the I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here! winner Phil Tufnell, virginity, sex, booze, food - and all this before you got to the euro row, Potters Bar and hospitals fiddling waiting lists.
Page five had a marriage quiz, with a quick compatibility test, which I failed. Further inside came an amusing account of the Beckhams' arrival in Provence, opposite a damning one of the Channel 4 social experiment that placed a boy from a sink estate in a top public school.
And it works, this blending of the serious and the frivolous. I mean, surely those who dress to the left are just as interested in sex and celebrity as the next person, provided it's at the right end of the market - more West End than EastEnders, perhaps? A big income and an even bigger brain do not preclude a passing curiosity in such things.
It's a delicate balancing act and Roger Alton, the editor, has sacrificed none of the Observer's reputation for risk-taking - as demonstrated by its pro-war stand - nor its pursuit of the serious. Its seasonal arts pullout probably sums it up best, where Observer critics serve up their summer highlights with everything from the San Francisco Ballet in Edinburgh to a new film version of The Hulk. It's cultivating culture without being elitist.
Prince William may not be the great white hope of the royal family after all. He has selected Out of Africa as the theme for his 21st birthday party, the film version starring Robert Redford and Meryl Streep. No prizes for guessing who William will be going as, then.
It is a particularly appropriate choice for the future king, being a tale of privilege and excess in a land where pleasure is always placed before duty. Central to the story are a bunch of ghastly German aristocrats, a string of long-suffering women who are tolerant of the odd dose of syphilis and their husband's mistresses, and a sensitive, self-indulgent hero who will go to any lengths to avoid his responsibilities. The only significant character from an ethnic minority is Streep's loyal black servant, whom she abandons. A perfect choice for this young man and his friends.
The day after BBC Radio 4 won Station of the Year at the Sony Radio Awards, I was in Soho House and overheard a journalist saying: "If Radio 4 didn't exist, you'd have to invent it."
The problem is, there is no way such a station would ever be launched now, in a climate where programmers are intoxicated by youth and interaction. Imagine the selling line - well, it's upmarket but not up itself, with no music unless to illustrate a point or a joke. Its flagship shows will be traditional hard news and politics, a woman's hour, some wacky comedy, a bit of intellectual navel-gazing, a soap set in the dullest farming village in creation and none of what is now regarded as the holy grail of broadcasting, audience participation.
My professional experience of Radio 4, especially Today, The World at One and the Six O'Clock News, is that it observes the most rigorous standards of journalism. Put it all together and you have what John Humphrys described as "the civilising force" in this country. And Humphrys - who was given the Gold Award - is one of the most civilised men to walk it.
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