Watching brief - Amanda Platell pays her debt to Germaine
Published 24 January 2005
Every woman owes a great debt to Germaine Greer and therefore a little forgiveness when she screws up - as she did by deciding to go on Big Brother
Given that I have only ever been called "sister" by my brothers, I see myself as the most unlikely defender of Germaine Greer's debacle on Big Brother. But defend her I must, not least because the venom of the sisterhood has been unusually toxic.
None more so than Julie Burchill in the Times who wrote: "She left because she couldn't live with the fact that Jackie Stallone is better looking." Not true. Big Brother is altogether the wrong venue to make the most of Greer's attributes, but even at 65 she is a truly handsome woman. In the flesh, she has heat; she's the kind of woman you want to warm your hands on. And comparisons of beauty are something Burchill would be advised to steer clear of. Burchill added that Greer, "like an old lady lifting up her dress and revealing her genitalia to a weeping world, simply does not understand how loony she looks". This is the kind of critic who inevitably makes the reader side with her victim, whoever it is.
Catherine Bennett in the Guardian pilloried Greer for claiming her reason for going on to Big Brother was to get the funds necessary to save her rainforest when in fact that rainforest is her Australian back garden. So what? She's still doing more than most of us for the planet.
Greer made a mistake taking part in this show and no one now knows that better than she. But every woman owes her a great debt and therefore a little forgiveness when she screws up. In the end, it was left to Jenni Murray on Woman's Hour to give Greer a firm but also fair sisterly grilling. And to ask her the question on all our lips: "Why do you wear pop socks?"
If proof were needed that irony seldom works in newspapers, one need have looked no further than the puff on the front of the Sunday Times's news review. "Please leave Heather alone, says Paul [McCartney] . . . in a rare interview".
McCartney has given more interviews about poor, abused 'Evver than George Best has given about his poor, abused liver. And this one, like all the others, just hardened our hearts to both of them.
Lady McCartney says the hostile press coverage has forced her to abandon public life. Who says the media never do any good?
Despite claims on Radio 5 Live by the legendary royal photographer Arthur Edwards that the Sun's pictures of Prince Harry in a Nazi uniform were worth £100,000, the paper is said to have paid only £8,000. Stories that the palace is hunting the mole who betrayed the prince are also wide of the mark. The pictures are believed to have found their way to the Sun in that time-honoured manner - through the greed of a photo shop assistant. You'd think Harry's lot would all have been equipped with their own darkrooms, as well as their dark horses. As for the Sun reporter who turned up at a recent fancy-dress party bedecked in his own version of a German uniform, I'm sure that's just rumour.
"I am first and foremost a politician," said Ann Widdecombe on BBC Breakfast, launching her third novel - her second book since the Tories' 2001 election defeat. "Writing is a pleasant hobby," she says. As any novelist knows, it is often not pleasant and is certainly not a hobby. I suppose she'll say the same about her two new TV series. One could be forgiven for wondering just when she finds time to fit in that other pleasant hobby of hers, being an MP.
To judge by recent days, it's not the Tories who are old-fashioned and out of touch but the people who make the news judgements in the media. While the Tories were revealing their spending plans for the future, the BBC and ITV (my Sky box was stolen in a burglary while I was in Australia) ran from dawn to midnight with the story of the defection to new Labour of a little-known MP who won't be standing at the next election anyway. Who cares? Is it any wonder people outside the Westminster village are turning off politics in droves?
I'm not saying this out of loyalty to Michael Howard. I have none. It's just bad journalism. The Guardian distinguished itself on Monday morning - the story having run for about 36 hours - with the headline: "Defection of MP derails Howard's election plan". What about the new drive for straight journalism devoid of comment?
And on the remote chance that the burglars who visited my flat read the New Statesman, may I point out the following. The jewellery you stole was left out on display because it had no sentimental and little actual value. It was given to me by my first husband. Several times I have considered either pawning it or giving it away, but was always fearful it would pass on to some decent, unsuspecting soul the ill-fortune that accompanied my marriage. May it bring you as much good luck as it brought me.
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