UK Politics
Julian's week - Julian Clary puts sex on the shopping list
Published 13 March 2006
I take another look into her eyes and decide that I do believe her. If she's lying I will . . . sleep with Peter Mandelson. Don't let me down now, Tessa
If you've seen the film Brokeback Mountain about the homosexual cowboys you may be amused by a new e-mail doing the rounds, claiming to be the boys' weekly shopping list. It starts with "beans, bacon, coffee and whiskey" and becomes progressively more gay: by week five it includes "five medallions of veal, porcini mushrooms, six bottles of Chardonnay and one large bottle of Astroglide". It suggests that, even in the deepest closet, our sexuality is apparent to the observant in our grocery lists.
I, as you may know, am no stranger to the organic courgette, but I still can't work out who these gay footballers are. The accounts of lustful gay orgies in the News of the World are most unsettling to a lonely bachelor like me. I may be reduced to following Premier League players around Sainsbury's to spy on the contents of their basket before I make my move on them. Anything resembling a French stick or a ring doughnut and I shall linger alluringly by the checkout, suggestively
stroking my mobile phone. If one is who I think
he is (Popbitch has its uses) we are ideally suited.
My guess is we'll be living together in a mock Tudor mansion in Essex within a month and I'm hoping for a civil ceremony by Christmas.
Writing about politics for your entertainment has been a steep learning curve. Well aware of my own indifference to such matters, I embarked on a crash course. I read all the papers and was glued to BBC News 24. I made some notes . . .
"That Tessa Jowell . . . she's a worry. When filmed trotting determinedly out of her deceptively spacious terraced house, she peers about like a meerkat. The tawdry accusations about £344,000 allegedly received by her forgetful husband, David Mills, from dodgy Italian Mafia types are waved away with the indulgent 'that's enough now!' expression of a fun-loving geography tutor unexpectedly covered in shaving foam during Rag Week.
"Then there's the question of the amount of make-up she wears. It's brazen, almost gangster mollish. Such eyeliner hasn't been seen in Westminster since Edward Heath hosted his famous Tarts and Vicars party at No 10 for the president of Albania, who was apparently the last to leave."
Tessa's dedication to cosmetic enhancement endears her to me, but it seems the media want her blood, come what may. I comfort myself with the knowledge that if she is forced to fall on her sword, she will do so in full slap. If things don't work out there's always a job waiting for her at the Clinique counter at Selfridges.
Then I see a picture of Tessa on the front page of the Sunday Express (purchased only, you understand, to give me the fuller picture on this matter). It makes me think. Her eyes look so sad and crestfallen. Ultimately we need to know, or at least form a moral opinion: is Tessa Jowell telling the truth when she says she didn't know about the murky details of her husband's dealings? I take another look into her eyes and decide that I do believe her. If she's lying I will . . . sleep with Peter Mandelson. Don't let me down now, Tessa, there's a dear.
Apparently, Tony Blair (Prime Minister also available as God-fearing chat-show guest) considers Tessa his best, if not last, friend. Poor bloke. If she goes, so does the make-up bag. He, Parkinson and the rest of us know that without the right foundation, he'd be about as popular as Pete Burns at a Premier League roasting party.
With the strain of office his looks have gone - and with them our fickle infatuation. A lot of us only voted for him because he was fresh-faced and handsome. Now the Tories are pulling the same trick. Some are distracted by David Cameron's cycle-riding displays of boyish vigour. Others nod sagely and wait, wearily, for him to wither on the vine.
By electing the paternal (some would say cadaver-like) Menzies Campbell, the Lib Dems have outfoxed the other parties: of course their new leader doesn't have the twinkle-eyed allure that Blair had, and Cameron currently offers us, but we're disillusioned with that. We want more than surface glamour. The jauntily nicknamed "Ming" has intelligent eyes and a mature answer for every inquiry. He is clearly still a goer because he has a wife called Elspeth who wears psychedelic coats. Power, it seems, wears out the young, but rejuvenates the old.
Rory Bremner will be writing next week
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