The time is coming when I must pay a visit to Rigby & Peller. It's around five years since I last went – in the days when walking into such a 'posh' shop, in posh Mayfair, was still an intimidatory experience.
Rigby & Peller are no less than the royal corsetieres. The company, founded by a Mrs Rigby and a Mrs Peller in 1939, received its royal warrant in 1960.
They're famed for their quality, to be sure, but they're perhaps best known for the fact that they do not measure customers with a tape, but judge size simply by looking.
It's impossible not to wonder how this process came about – perhaps because the royal boobies must not be touched?
My boobies, on the other hand, have been touched many times by supposedly trained staff, in Selfridges and John Lewis in particular, in my eternal search for a bra that managed to combine comfort and support.
There is nothing worse than an uncomfortable bra. Okay – ill-fitting shoes are bad too. And I utterly loathe underwiring, but received wisdom always seems to be that the larger bosom requires such scaffolding.
I have vague memories of that awful experience that every girl undergoes as a sort of rite of physical passage: the trip to buy the first 'training' bra. I didn't have much to train at the time and found the whole thing embarrassing – followed by the realization that the discomfort of being strapped into something that felt simply restrictive was going to be a life sentence.
As my boobs grew, so did the embarrassment. In my early twenties, I did a bit of running, and tried to restrict it to night time so that I could decrease the number of 'be careful – you don't give yourself a black eye!' comments from passing motorists. I hated them – not the motorists, but my own tits. I very seriously considered trying to get a reduction done.
When I was playing scheming, predatory tart Janey Jenkins in Walter Greenwood’s wonderful Lancashire comedy, The Cure for Love, our director (a former regimental sergeant major) found himself having to regularly boom at me: "If you've got it, flaunt it!” Such an attitude was not second nature for me.
Later, he used to say that that production was his greatest achievement: getting a Methodist minister's daughter and a male nurse to present reasonable facsimiles of a tart and a soldier.
It's a mystery why, in those days, I was cast so often in strumpetty roles. Another memorable occasion saw me play Constanze, Mozart's wife, in an award-winning production of Peter Schaffer's Amadeus. Every night, after being strapped into a corset that took my cleavage to new heights, I faced a scene where I attempted to win work for hubby by offering myself to the court’s favourite composer, Salieri. I sat on a chair, untied the ribbons at the top of my low-cut dress, and spread my legs suggestively.
Salieri nearly gives in to temptation, then refuses. Constanze leaps up and goes to slap his face, only to be pushed away, falling to the floor, where she stays, stock still, while he addresses the audience.
Only after the production ended was I told that, every night, without fail, I fell out of that corset. And then, when I got to my feet, fell back in – hence my never realising what was happening. But a photograph, taken at dress rehearsal, proved quite clearly that nobody was kidding me. The audience never laughed either – I’m proud to say that the scene was far too dramatically intense for that.
My father's objections to my theatrical ambitions were primarily because he was convinced that 'actress' was a synonym for 'whore'. My mother was less against the idea, but would ask, with a worried expression, as if I were contemplating crime: "What would you do if you were asked to do ... nudity?" After all, is there anything worse?
Well, Mother – unconsciously perhaps, but been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Well, got the picture at any rate.
Mind, my mother’s ideas about nudity mean that she finds it astonishing that I can quite comfortably go into a communal shower in the altogether – even in women-only environments – without being struck down by total mortification. It’s an example of the total illogicality of the obsessive British fear of the human body.
But I digress: back to the subject of the purchase of over-the-shoulder-boulder-holders.
I tried the lingerie departments in both Selfridges and John Lewis a number of times over the years. If you want mortification, that was it. Snooty, unpleasant women poking and pulling at you and then instructing you in what you required. I wonder if the attitude was jealousy?
I spent a small fortune trying to find something that offered support AND comfort. To little avail. And then, at one point when I was reasonably in funds, I remembered Rigby & Peller from a programme I’d seen at some point.
I swallowed hard, summoned up some courage, and headed to Mayfair.
It was a revelatory experience. First, it was relaxed and friendly (does one do “relaxed and friendly” with the Queen when one’s fitting her for a brassiere, I wonder?). It’s strange to be ‘measured’ by a visual assessment alone – but goodness, it worked.
And after you reach a certain size, the whole underwired thing ceases to have any great impact.
I ended up with bras that were comfortable, actually gave me superb support and looked good.
It wasn’t cheap. But at almost five years since that visit, the four bras that have given me brilliant service have worked out as far better value for money than those that were purchased over the years – and then thrown out because the underwiring snapped or because they were just uncomfortable.
The fear that I might require something so vast that I couldn’t wear low-cut tops was also misplaced. Now I can do some serious décolletage – and love the impact.
Only a short while after that first purchase, I was striding confidently down a street, wearing a rather low-cut top, as a man on a bike cycled toward me. Women have better peripheral vision than men, apparently. It certainly makes unseen lechery rather easier. This cyclist couldn’t take his eyes off my chest, head swiveling as his angle of sight changed.
I was tickled pink. Thank goodness I never gave in and had surgery!
Some years ago, TV makeover duo, Trinny and Susannah (who are generally pretty unbearable) took on comic Jo Brand for charity. The first thing they did was cart her to Rigby & Peller.
Since I went there, I’ve met other women who have ‘given in’ (which is how it feels initially) and tried them. Not one has regretted becoming an R&P woman. And a return visit will be a pleasure in itself.
Wednesday, 21 October 2009
Tuesday, 20 October 2009
Letting the dark in
The nights are pulling in and the temperature is dropping. After almost six years of never dreaming of doing such, Boudicca has started clambering into bed for brief snuggles, and is also clearly stocking up on food for the winter to come.
In just over a week, we’ll hit Halloween, with Guy Fawkes shortly after on 5 November.
I may put on Mussorgsky’s Night on a Bare Mountain or the fifth movement of Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique – the deliciously evocative Songe d'une nuit de sabbat (Dream of a witches’ Sabbath.
Or perhaps it’s time to pull down MR James’s ghost stories or some Stephen King – or even scour my DVD collection for something to make the spine tingle pleasantly.
Winter days might be shorter, but autumn nights seem to be the darkest in other ways.
I always loved autumn. It was the time when the football season started again, when the new school term finally ended lonely summer holidays and when the darkening, cooling days made it easier to hide beneath layers of clothing.
Brought up, as I was, in a religious environment, it almost goes without saying that we had no Halloween celebrations. Indeed, for many years, I really believed in witches. One summer, holidaying in Cornwall, the entire family visited the Boscastle witch museum. I remember finding the atmosphere dreadful. My father gave me his little olive wood cross to hold – because I was threatening not to go much further than the threshold and my entrance fee had been handed over.
Not, of course, that there were any spectacularly horrible exhibits or anything particularly sensational that I can recall. The sensation that day was my being allowed to have a half pint of scrumpy – proper Cornish cider – with my lunch after our visit.
It was a childhood – in theory at least – dedicated to keeping us in the light and away from the shadows. The dark was the devil, witchcraft – sin. But the dark, as the last decade has revealed to me, can be fun. And without the dark, the light becomes unrelenting and boring.
Come to think of it, ‘sin’ is rather fun too.
After spending so long trying to keep the dark at bay, I embraced it. Sometimes it can be a forbidding place inside me; even a little disturbing – but that is, as much as anything, I think, the result of that process of thinking. And when there was nothing but trying to keep the dark at bay, I hardly thought at all.
But often it’s a velvety darkness. The pleasure of ‘unconventional’ desire, say. Of wanting to whip or be whipped. Of wanting to hide in the shadows and watch.
And autumn seems to bring an itch for that. Or rather, the darkening seems to increase the itch that is always there.
I want to dip my toes in the darkness. No. I want to dive into it. And every time I do, I swim further and further from the shore that was my parents’ idea of light and dark, sin and goodness. And in doing so, the guilt of years spent in fear of not being good enough is washed further away.
Welcome autumn. Welcome the dark.
In just over a week, we’ll hit Halloween, with Guy Fawkes shortly after on 5 November.
I may put on Mussorgsky’s Night on a Bare Mountain or the fifth movement of Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique – the deliciously evocative Songe d'une nuit de sabbat (Dream of a witches’ Sabbath.
Or perhaps it’s time to pull down MR James’s ghost stories or some Stephen King – or even scour my DVD collection for something to make the spine tingle pleasantly.
Winter days might be shorter, but autumn nights seem to be the darkest in other ways.
I always loved autumn. It was the time when the football season started again, when the new school term finally ended lonely summer holidays and when the darkening, cooling days made it easier to hide beneath layers of clothing.
Brought up, as I was, in a religious environment, it almost goes without saying that we had no Halloween celebrations. Indeed, for many years, I really believed in witches. One summer, holidaying in Cornwall, the entire family visited the Boscastle witch museum. I remember finding the atmosphere dreadful. My father gave me his little olive wood cross to hold – because I was threatening not to go much further than the threshold and my entrance fee had been handed over.
Not, of course, that there were any spectacularly horrible exhibits or anything particularly sensational that I can recall. The sensation that day was my being allowed to have a half pint of scrumpy – proper Cornish cider – with my lunch after our visit.
It was a childhood – in theory at least – dedicated to keeping us in the light and away from the shadows. The dark was the devil, witchcraft – sin. But the dark, as the last decade has revealed to me, can be fun. And without the dark, the light becomes unrelenting and boring.
Come to think of it, ‘sin’ is rather fun too.
After spending so long trying to keep the dark at bay, I embraced it. Sometimes it can be a forbidding place inside me; even a little disturbing – but that is, as much as anything, I think, the result of that process of thinking. And when there was nothing but trying to keep the dark at bay, I hardly thought at all.
But often it’s a velvety darkness. The pleasure of ‘unconventional’ desire, say. Of wanting to whip or be whipped. Of wanting to hide in the shadows and watch.
And autumn seems to bring an itch for that. Or rather, the darkening seems to increase the itch that is always there.
I want to dip my toes in the darkness. No. I want to dive into it. And every time I do, I swim further and further from the shore that was my parents’ idea of light and dark, sin and goodness. And in doing so, the guilt of years spent in fear of not being good enough is washed further away.
Welcome autumn. Welcome the dark.
Monday, 19 October 2009
Epic and true to the spirit of Brecht
Mother Courage and her Children by Bertolt Brecht
National Theatre, London
The Thirty Years War might not sound like the perfect setting for a night’s entertainment, but Bertolt Brecht’s 1939 play, Mother Courage and her Children rises to the challenge.It tells the story of Anna Fierling – Mother Courage – a businesswoman who, with her cart, travels around the battlefields of the 17th-century conflagration with her sons Eilif and Swiss Cheese, and her mute daughter Katrin, acting as a merchant to the various armies.
But in her desperate desire to make money from the war, Mother Courage loses all her children as it drags on and on. The prospect of peace is not one that this one-woman military-industrial complex relishes: there is no commercial promise beyond war.
It’s too easy to simply describe the play – which was written on the eve of WWII – as an anti-war one. One of the few uplifting moments comes when a moment of self-sacrifice warns a sleeping town that is about to be attacked, and the townspeople rise.
But Brecht was very sure about the commercial benefits of war and his protagonists all wearily and cynically reflect that belief.
The play is superbly served here in Deborah Warner’s new production. Using Tony Kushner’s 2006 translation, Warner restores the life to Brecht.
The writer himself, before a 1956 production of the play in London by the Berliner Ensemble, warned his company of two things: first, that very few in the British audience would understand German and second, that “there is in England a long-standing fear that German art (literature, painting, music) must be terribly heavy, slow, laborious and pedestrian.”
Indeed, in Theatre in Britain (1984), influential critic Harold Hobson noted that “the poverty of British productions of Brecht, heavy, sententious, and void of life, was exposed by the Berliner Ensemble when it came to one of Peter Daubney’s World Theatre Seasons and played The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui with verve, vigour, and regard for theatrical effect as well as doctrinal orthodoxy.
“To the Berliner Ensemble had been revealed a truth hidden from their British rivals, namely, that Brecht and entertainment are synonymous.”
I first saw Mother Courage way back in 1990. It was at the now sadly departed Mermaid Theatre and starred Glenda Jackson, in her final stage appearance before going off to become a Member of Parliament.
Little of that production has stuck in the mind – apart from the iconic final moments as the eponymous heroine drags her cart around after her, and that it was long and ‘traditionally’ costumed.
It would be easy to say that there is nothing remotely traditional in Warner’s production – but that would be wrong. The staging is pure Brecht; stripped back as far as possible, with stage crew visible and subtitles, hand painted on white sheets that are lowered at various times from above.
But from Mother Courage’s opening entry, atop the cart, vast skirt ballooning around her, helmet on her head and microphone in hand, there’s something thoroughly rock and roll about this production.
A new score, written by Northern Irish indie songster Duke Special sees most songs sung by him, together with various members of the cast. He weaves in and out of the action, looking for all the world like a lost little drummer boy with dreadlocks (which is, admittedly, how the Duke looks all the time). His choirboy voice provides a marked contrast with the violence around him.
The script crackles, the laughter comes, the energy carries the audience through three hours plus without ever flagging. And at the centre of it all is Fiona Shaw, a magnificent Courage. Pragmatic to the last, keeping her emotions just beneath the surface – although only barely – she deals with each new disaster by wrapping herself in the belief that she has to carry on, that commerce demands it.
And at the end, as she pulls her cart singlehandedly into an everlasting night, you realise that, for all the laughter, the knife has been well and truly twisted, and your heart is breaking.
As noted above, Brecht wrote this in 1939, and it’s been said many times that WWII is comparable in many ways to the Thirty Years War.
But recent history leaves the audience with other points of reference – the Balkans and Iraq in particular. And whilst the religious aspect of the Thirty Years War might not have been Brecht’s dominant idea when he was writing, here it comes into greater focus in terms of modern conflicts.
There’s a nice touch in the subtitles being read out when they descend: by Gore Vidal, the US writer and political commentator. Quoted in the programme, Vidal notes: “Why do governments pursue wars? Loot. They want to balance the budget.”
One could, thinking of Halliburton in particular, note that they also like to give themselves and their mates a share of the loot too.
This is truly epic theatre. And it is magnificent.
Sunday, 18 October 2009
It takes the biscuit
Today was the first time this autumn that the cool permeated the flat. The weather forecast was for bright skies – and temperatures as low as 6˚C by as late as 10 o'clock this morning.
There's been a little more cloud, so it might have been warmer than that, but a chill was still evident.
I had a moment yesterday when I suddenly wanted to bake. It started with a random thought about biscuits: there I was, ready to make a cup of tea and wishing suddenly that I'd bought some biscuits when shopping earlier in the day. From that it was an easy step to: 'why don't I make some?' followed by a musing on the notion (read or heard somewhere recently) that biscuits are often the first thing that children learn to make.
I had no such experience, but pulled out Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess from the shelf instead and sat down to educate myself.
To be honest, I'm not much of a Nigella fan – my tolerance of her took a major dent when she presented a whole programme about cooking beetroot, while wearing a white denim trouser suit, for goodness sake.
Anyhow, the book in question gave me no major suggestions – and certainly there was nothing to be found that I had all the ingredients in the house for. So I left it.
But then earlier today, The Other Half mentioned ginger biscuits. Aware that I have some very good quality ground ginger in a cupboard, I surfed for a recipe and, in short order, found one for which everything was available to hand.
So off I went to bake.
The instructions started with creaming together equal measures of soft brown sugar and margarine (125g each). Now, I draw the line at the latter, so replaced it with decent butter. What on Earth is the point of making indulgent food if you cut quality corners with artificial rubbish?
Then beat in an egg yolk and a tablespoon of Golden Syrup. A bit of indulgence really is good for the soul.
Then sift the ground ginger (a good teaspoon at least) and some flour (180g) into the mix. Combine gently (or it'll get hard, apparently) and if it doesn't hold together, add a very little milk.
Then put walnut-sized dollops onto a lightly-floured baking tray, pat them flat with the floured back of a spoon and pop the tray into an oven that's been pre-heated to 180˚C.
And at that precise moment, I had a thought.
'What flour have I just used?'
Yes. Plain flour. I'd simply reached in and grabbed the most generic flour I have in.
And the recipe said self-raising flour.
Bugger.
But the more that I thought about, the more I found myself wondering just why you'd use self-raising flour to make biscuits anyway. After all, you want them fairly flat – not blown up and fluffy; more like a cake.
They had 12 minutes before I checked, then about another four or five until nicely golden and getting a little crisp around the edges.
Then, after a brief rest, they were carefully transferred to a cooling rack.
I might have made a clumsy error in terms of reading the recipe – but I promise, there's nothing whatsoever wrong with this first effort at biscuits. And they're not going to last very long either!
There's been a little more cloud, so it might have been warmer than that, but a chill was still evident.
I had a moment yesterday when I suddenly wanted to bake. It started with a random thought about biscuits: there I was, ready to make a cup of tea and wishing suddenly that I'd bought some biscuits when shopping earlier in the day. From that it was an easy step to: 'why don't I make some?' followed by a musing on the notion (read or heard somewhere recently) that biscuits are often the first thing that children learn to make.
I had no such experience, but pulled out Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess from the shelf instead and sat down to educate myself.
To be honest, I'm not much of a Nigella fan – my tolerance of her took a major dent when she presented a whole programme about cooking beetroot, while wearing a white denim trouser suit, for goodness sake.
Anyhow, the book in question gave me no major suggestions – and certainly there was nothing to be found that I had all the ingredients in the house for. So I left it.
But then earlier today, The Other Half mentioned ginger biscuits. Aware that I have some very good quality ground ginger in a cupboard, I surfed for a recipe and, in short order, found one for which everything was available to hand.
So off I went to bake.
The instructions started with creaming together equal measures of soft brown sugar and margarine (125g each). Now, I draw the line at the latter, so replaced it with decent butter. What on Earth is the point of making indulgent food if you cut quality corners with artificial rubbish?
Then beat in an egg yolk and a tablespoon of Golden Syrup. A bit of indulgence really is good for the soul.
Then sift the ground ginger (a good teaspoon at least) and some flour (180g) into the mix. Combine gently (or it'll get hard, apparently) and if it doesn't hold together, add a very little milk.
Then put walnut-sized dollops onto a lightly-floured baking tray, pat them flat with the floured back of a spoon and pop the tray into an oven that's been pre-heated to 180˚C.
And at that precise moment, I had a thought.
'What flour have I just used?'
Yes. Plain flour. I'd simply reached in and grabbed the most generic flour I have in.
And the recipe said self-raising flour.
Bugger.
But the more that I thought about, the more I found myself wondering just why you'd use self-raising flour to make biscuits anyway. After all, you want them fairly flat – not blown up and fluffy; more like a cake.
They had 12 minutes before I checked, then about another four or five until nicely golden and getting a little crisp around the edges.
Then, after a brief rest, they were carefully transferred to a cooling rack.
I might have made a clumsy error in terms of reading the recipe – but I promise, there's nothing whatsoever wrong with this first effort at biscuits. And they're not going to last very long either!
Saturday, 17 October 2009
Taking stock of autumn menus
Back to the weekend and back to Broadway Market.
List-making – or put another way, creating menus – seems to get easier. I'd pretty much sorted out my ideas by last night, even with a little after-work Friday inebriation.
But that's not to say that I didn't spend my usual time sitting up in bed with a coffee and various cookbooks. Soup remained a question for the day – what was I going to make? I settled on an idea from River Café Easy: an artichoke and potato soup.
Now buying fresh artichokes – even if it were the season – would not be considered. Like soaking and boiling beans for hours, life is just too short for some things, so I bought artichoke hearts.
Cut them up and then cook gently in a little oil. Add some chili flakes, chopped flat leaf parsley and some garlic, then some chicken stock. This was a first – the first time I've used some of my own home-made stock in a soup. Cook for around 15 minutes and then add a diced potato and some more stock. Cook until the potato is cooked, then mash a little with a potato masher and serve, drizzled with virgin oil and topped with crostini – toasted slices of ciabatta, rubbed with garlic and drizzled with more oil.
I was completely wowed, but it was certainly okay and made a change.
Tonight gave me the chance to use yet more chicken stock in a way I haven't before – this time, as part of a sauce for salmon. This is a dish of my own creation and I'm rather proud of it, even though its getting refined every time I do it.
Chop a couple of shallots and a couple of sticks of celery and soften them in some olive oil. The add some very good quality cider and reduce. Add around the same amount of chicken stock and reduce further. Strain. Make up some beurre manié (half and half of plain flour and softened butter, mixed together). Drain and rinse some green peppercorns, and then crush them a little. Add to the strained sauce. Whisk in the beurre manié to thicken.
In the meantime, poach salmon fillet in more cider. Serve the salmon with the sauce.
To accompany this, I boiled some swede, celeriac and carrots together, then pureed them, mixed in a little butter and added plenty of black pepper. I also served some mixed mushrooms that had been very gently cooked in a little olive oil, with a squeeze of lemon juice.
Great, earthy tastes – perfect autumn fodder. Very comforting and also pretty healthy: oily fish and three portions of fruit & veg.
List-making – or put another way, creating menus – seems to get easier. I'd pretty much sorted out my ideas by last night, even with a little after-work Friday inebriation.
But that's not to say that I didn't spend my usual time sitting up in bed with a coffee and various cookbooks. Soup remained a question for the day – what was I going to make? I settled on an idea from River Café Easy: an artichoke and potato soup.
Now buying fresh artichokes – even if it were the season – would not be considered. Like soaking and boiling beans for hours, life is just too short for some things, so I bought artichoke hearts.
Cut them up and then cook gently in a little oil. Add some chili flakes, chopped flat leaf parsley and some garlic, then some chicken stock. This was a first – the first time I've used some of my own home-made stock in a soup. Cook for around 15 minutes and then add a diced potato and some more stock. Cook until the potato is cooked, then mash a little with a potato masher and serve, drizzled with virgin oil and topped with crostini – toasted slices of ciabatta, rubbed with garlic and drizzled with more oil.
I was completely wowed, but it was certainly okay and made a change.
Tonight gave me the chance to use yet more chicken stock in a way I haven't before – this time, as part of a sauce for salmon. This is a dish of my own creation and I'm rather proud of it, even though its getting refined every time I do it.
Chop a couple of shallots and a couple of sticks of celery and soften them in some olive oil. The add some very good quality cider and reduce. Add around the same amount of chicken stock and reduce further. Strain. Make up some beurre manié (half and half of plain flour and softened butter, mixed together). Drain and rinse some green peppercorns, and then crush them a little. Add to the strained sauce. Whisk in the beurre manié to thicken.
In the meantime, poach salmon fillet in more cider. Serve the salmon with the sauce.
To accompany this, I boiled some swede, celeriac and carrots together, then pureed them, mixed in a little butter and added plenty of black pepper. I also served some mixed mushrooms that had been very gently cooked in a little olive oil, with a squeeze of lemon juice.
Great, earthy tastes – perfect autumn fodder. Very comforting and also pretty healthy: oily fish and three portions of fruit & veg.
A little update on the Hate Mail story
A brief update on yesterday's events, inspired by the delightful Jan Moir and the Hate Mail.
It appears that the Press Complaints Commission site actually broke for a time. Around 1,000 complaints have reportedly been received.
Over 1,000 comments follow the story on the Mail's own website – the overwhelming majority of them condemnatory.
It's made the news in most papers today (certainly the serious ones) and Moir is being described as having her career in tatters.
The Hate Mail itself took the unprecedented decision to publish a comment last night – with Moir claiming that it wasn't fair and she was being terribly misunderstood in a campaign led by ... well, a load of gay people.
Yes, Jan. Right.
We believe you.
Not.
If you've been that misunderstood, dear, then you seriously need to take some lessons in how to put your real point across coherently so that nobody (inside or outside the gay community) can ever misunderstand you again.
It's also deliciously poetic justice – the Hate Mail has spent years stirring up shitstorms against anything it doesn't like – the BBC for screening Jerry Springer: the Opera and the BBC (again), together with Russell Brand and Jonathon Ross for some prank phonecalls are just two examples – so it's impossible not to feel that this serves them damned well right.
But I doubt that's the last we'll hear of this little story.
It appears that the Press Complaints Commission site actually broke for a time. Around 1,000 complaints have reportedly been received.
Over 1,000 comments follow the story on the Mail's own website – the overwhelming majority of them condemnatory.
It's made the news in most papers today (certainly the serious ones) and Moir is being described as having her career in tatters.
The Hate Mail itself took the unprecedented decision to publish a comment last night – with Moir claiming that it wasn't fair and she was being terribly misunderstood in a campaign led by ... well, a load of gay people.
Yes, Jan. Right.
We believe you.
Not.
If you've been that misunderstood, dear, then you seriously need to take some lessons in how to put your real point across coherently so that nobody (inside or outside the gay community) can ever misunderstand you again.
It's also deliciously poetic justice – the Hate Mail has spent years stirring up shitstorms against anything it doesn't like – the BBC for screening Jerry Springer: the Opera and the BBC (again), together with Russell Brand and Jonathon Ross for some prank phonecalls are just two examples – so it's impossible not to feel that this serves them damned well right.
But I doubt that's the last we'll hear of this little story.
Friday, 16 October 2009
The Hate Mail oversteps the mark (again)
I was going to post a review today, but then, by accident, I happened to see this article.
There are reasons to hate the Daily Mail. Plenty of the them. It’s a nasty piece of rubbish that is xenophobic and misogynistic – the latter has a tragic irony, since it claims to be very much a woman’s paper and does, indeed, have a very large female readership.
It has a basic editorial policy of trying to give its readers a ‘daily hate’ – a diet of scandal and shock. Yet it is dangerous because it is perceived to be a ‘serious’ voice of ‘Middle England’ – politicians remain terrified of it.
I avoid it wherever possible, having grown up with the rag. But earlier this year, my new editor made the point that we should ‘know our enemy’, so to speak.
If ever there was an example of a really vile piece of bile, masquerading as journalism, then this is it. This is a new low even by the Mail’s very low, low standards.
Its author, Jan Moir, snidely suggests a number of things:
The use of the word “natural” here has nothing to do with its real meaning in the phrase “natural causes”. Quite apart from the (obviously inconvenient) fact that the coroner has ruled that Gately did die of natural causes, it’s about suggesting that homosexuality is not “natural” and that gay relationships – in particular, civil partnerships – are not “natural”.
Even if – and this is not remotely certain – Gately and/or his partner had sex with the friend they took home – so what? It’s nobody else’s business; they were all consenting adults. And sex did not cause Gately’s death.
But even if they did, to extrapolate from that that civil partnerships are somehow doomed or wrong, is staggering. Moir has penned no comparable article suggesting that, because some people in heterosexual marriages have sex with other people outside that marriage – sometimes together with their spouse – then the institution of marriage itself is doomed or false.
Facts are noticeable from this piece only by their absence. For instance, unfortunately, seemingly healthy young men do die suddenly.
Gately did not die from smoking cannabis – although this is something else that the article implies (along with the suggestion that drugs are part of that gay lifestyle that is not “natural”). He didn’t die because of sex, because of sexuality or because he might have had the temerity to have been enjoying himself.
This is, quite simply, a piece of utter bigotry.
And only yesterday, a report elsewhere described a recent homophobic hate crime in the centre of London that has left a man dead, after “police warned that homophobic crimes in the capital are on the increase. They have gone up by almost 14% – an extra 39 offences – since April in the Metropolitan police area, and there has been an increase nationally.”
Particularly in that context, such an article, which seeks to demonise gay men and gay relationships, is even more irresponsible and reprehensible, giving succour and a false, grasped-at sense of justification – as these things always do – to the writer’s fellow bigots.
If there is anything positive to be gleaned from this, it’s that the overwhelming majority of those responding to the article online have done so in terms of disgust at what the Moir has written.
But there are things that people can do. We can, of course, complain to the Mail. We can complain to the Press Complaints Commission And best of all, we can absolutely refuse to buy this despicable rag.
• 4.45pm update: In the last few hours, most of the advertisements on the page have disappeared. A Facebook group has been started to target advertisers and point out that any connection with the rag could damage them.
The headline of the piece has also been changed, from "Why there was nothing 'natural' about Stephen Gately's death" to "A strange, lonely and troubling death."
There are reasons to hate the Daily Mail. Plenty of the them. It’s a nasty piece of rubbish that is xenophobic and misogynistic – the latter has a tragic irony, since it claims to be very much a woman’s paper and does, indeed, have a very large female readership.
It has a basic editorial policy of trying to give its readers a ‘daily hate’ – a diet of scandal and shock. Yet it is dangerous because it is perceived to be a ‘serious’ voice of ‘Middle England’ – politicians remain terrified of it.
I avoid it wherever possible, having grown up with the rag. But earlier this year, my new editor made the point that we should ‘know our enemy’, so to speak.
If ever there was an example of a really vile piece of bile, masquerading as journalism, then this is it. This is a new low even by the Mail’s very low, low standards.
Its author, Jan Moir, snidely suggests a number of things:
- that Boyzone star Stephen Gately and his partner were having sex with other people;
- that all gay men are promiscuous and have relationships like that;
- that such behaviour is “sordid” and “sleazy”;
- that that proves that civil partnerships in general are doomed and 'false';
- that in some way, Gately got what he deserved, as it was an inevitable outcome of his sexuality.
The use of the word “natural” here has nothing to do with its real meaning in the phrase “natural causes”. Quite apart from the (obviously inconvenient) fact that the coroner has ruled that Gately did die of natural causes, it’s about suggesting that homosexuality is not “natural” and that gay relationships – in particular, civil partnerships – are not “natural”.
Even if – and this is not remotely certain – Gately and/or his partner had sex with the friend they took home – so what? It’s nobody else’s business; they were all consenting adults. And sex did not cause Gately’s death.
But even if they did, to extrapolate from that that civil partnerships are somehow doomed or wrong, is staggering. Moir has penned no comparable article suggesting that, because some people in heterosexual marriages have sex with other people outside that marriage – sometimes together with their spouse – then the institution of marriage itself is doomed or false.
Facts are noticeable from this piece only by their absence. For instance, unfortunately, seemingly healthy young men do die suddenly.
Gately did not die from smoking cannabis – although this is something else that the article implies (along with the suggestion that drugs are part of that gay lifestyle that is not “natural”). He didn’t die because of sex, because of sexuality or because he might have had the temerity to have been enjoying himself.
This is, quite simply, a piece of utter bigotry.
And only yesterday, a report elsewhere described a recent homophobic hate crime in the centre of London that has left a man dead, after “police warned that homophobic crimes in the capital are on the increase. They have gone up by almost 14% – an extra 39 offences – since April in the Metropolitan police area, and there has been an increase nationally.”
Particularly in that context, such an article, which seeks to demonise gay men and gay relationships, is even more irresponsible and reprehensible, giving succour and a false, grasped-at sense of justification – as these things always do – to the writer’s fellow bigots.
If there is anything positive to be gleaned from this, it’s that the overwhelming majority of those responding to the article online have done so in terms of disgust at what the Moir has written.
But there are things that people can do. We can, of course, complain to the Mail. We can complain to the Press Complaints Commission And best of all, we can absolutely refuse to buy this despicable rag.
• 4.45pm update: In the last few hours, most of the advertisements on the page have disappeared. A Facebook group has been started to target advertisers and point out that any connection with the rag could damage them.
The headline of the piece has also been changed, from "Why there was nothing 'natural' about Stephen Gately's death" to "A strange, lonely and troubling death."
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