Winter draws on, and the nation’s thoughts naturally turn to… I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! Well, not really, of course – but that hasn’t stopped speculation about this autumn’s line-up for the ITV reality show.
At one point Boris Johnson was being mooted, but that turned out to be rampant, false speculation.
More realistic bets include Made In Chelsea’s Sam Thompson, Coronation Street actor Alan Halsall, former Big Brother winner Josie Gibson, ex-rugby heart-throb Danny Cipriani, TV star Denise Van Outen, Olivia Attwood (no, me neither), RuPaul’s Drag Race UK winner The Vivienne and recently unretired superstar jockey Frankie Dettori.
I love Frankie. When asked what his biggest fear about life in the jungle would be, the idea of cockroaches and kangaroo testicles didn’t seem to bother him. Instead, he’s said to have confessed he was more worried about who would do his hair.
You can take the boy out of Milano…
Weirdly, I, too, was approached to do this year’s show. Not for the first time – the producers ‘reached out’ a few years ago, around the time of Brexit. Back then, as now, my response was: not on your nellie.
Hallie became the third housemate to be evicted from this series of Big Brother
Henry (left) and Jordan (right) on this year’s series of Big Brother
This time, a very nice lady (an intermediary for ITV) called.
She actually did a rather good job of selling it to me, promising that it was a lot more civilised behind the scenes than it appears on screen.
They would even fly one of my relatives out to Australia and put them up in a five-star hotel.
A diet of maggots and fish eyes: small price to pay for someone else’s dream holiday.
I don’t think so. Number one, I’m not a celebrity, so it would be presumptuous of me.
It’s true, I sometimes get recognised, but it’s more in that odd way when people look at me twice, convinced they’ve met me before, except they can’t for the life of them remember where. My level of fame is a bit like when you get to that stage in pregnancy where your belly starts to show – but you don’t yet look properly pregnant, just a bit pudgy and fat around the middle. More embarrassing than anything, and often requiring a lengthy explanation.
Number two, I’m the ex-wife of a prominent Tory Cabinet Minister and Brexit campaigner – and I work for The Mail on Sunday and Daily Mail. The chances of my not being nominated for every single Bushtucker Trial are literally zero.
Hugh Grant and his chums at Hacked Off would probably start an online petition to make sure I was subjected to the maximum humiliation: ‘Punish the Daily Mail Witch.’ Fox-clubbing barrister Jolyon Maugham would be quivering with excitement at the prospect of rallying his Remainer armies to the cause. I know I can come across as pretty feisty, but I’m not tough enough for that level of abuse. I am riddled with enough doubts and anxiety as it is, without inviting more.
Paul (left) and Kerry (right) are housemates on this year’s Big Brother
AJ Odudu and Will Best are the presenters of ‘Big Brother: Late & Live’
That’s why, despite everything, I have a lot of respect for Matt Hancock – who as well as doing last year’s I’m A Celebrity is back on our screens on SAS: Who Dares Wins. One of his fellow contestants, former Love Islander Teddy Soares, has said it felt ‘amazing’ to break two of the former Tory Minister’s ribs in a sparring contest. ‘Amazing.’ Wow. Teddy sounds like a lovely guy.
And that’s the real reason I won’t do Celebrity. Like SAS: Who Dares Wins, like Big Brother, like Love Island – like all these popularity contests engineered by skilled TV producers to generate maximum drama and emotion from the contestants, it’s just bear-baiting, cruelty dressed up as entertainment. If there was any real element of anthropological rigour involved, I wouldn’t mind so much.
It’s always interesting to see how people from different walks of life react when thrown together under certain conditions. But the way the shows are cast (I’m assuming the reason they got in touch with me was because they still hadn’t found their ‘villain’) and manipulated means they are designed to encourage a culture of vindictiveness and bullying, giving the online hate mobs another outlet for their viciousness, encouraging the kind of abusive behaviour that, quite frankly, is making the world a thoroughly miserable place. Lord Of The Flies, but for clicks.
If I wanted to get paid to have people abuse me, I’d run for Parliament and at least try to do something useful along the way.
So a final note to the producers: thank you for your interest, but please don’t ask me again.
Taylor-made wealth
As a loyal Swiftie, I congratulate Taylor, left, on her elevation – aged just 33 – to the Billionaire Babes club.
Just shows where real talent, dedication and guts can get you in life.
All the more so since hers is an industry that chews up young women and spits them out (see Britney).
Taylor Swift is seen in the West Village on October 27 in New York City
Watching footage yesterday of pro-Hamas slogans in London’s Trafalgar Square, I wondered if the time has come to ban face coverings at such events. I thought the hijab was meant to be an expression of modesty and faith – not something to hide behind as you scream your hatred for Jews.
It’s so annoying when fashionistas talk about something being ‘worth’ X amount. For example, ‘a pair of sparkly gold Miu Miu pants worth £4,500’. ‘A pair of Bottega Veneta jeans worth £500.’ No. That’s what they cost. What they’re worth is what some fool is prepared to pay for them.
Have you taken an ice bath in your wheelie bin? I only ask because this is apparently the latest viral trend, named the ‘bin hof’ method, after Wim Hof, the Dutchman who’s an enthusiastic advocate of the benefits of freezing cold water.
Videos under the search term ‘wheelie bin ice bath UK’ on TikTok have amassed 686 million views so far. Blimey.
For once I’m rather grateful that my local authority only empties the bins once a fortnight.
Not all Iranian tyrants are men
Another innocent young victim succumbs to Iran’s vicious morality police: 16-year-old Armita Geravand has died after sustaining severe injuries while being dragged from a train for not wearing a headscarf. What’s doubly awful about her tragic death – well, murder, actually – is that the ‘officers’ involved were female. What kind of a woman does such a thing to another woman?
There is a special place in hell…
I was getting a little worried about Kate Moss’s reinvention as a ‘wellness guru’: she really is the last of the great party girls. So I was relieved to see her photographed with a friend looking somewhat over-refreshed with a bottle of Grey Goose vodka peeping out from the top of her handbag. In an unstable world, it’s nice to know that some things never change.
At last, Mandy!
Peter Mandelson, 70, has finally married the ‘love of his life’, Reinaldo Avila da Silva, 51, after 27 years together.
I remember meeting them as a couple two decades ago. Da Silva was utterly charming, Mandelson less so. Still, I found the news of their wedding rather touching.
For most of us, marriage is a leap of faith: we enter into it hoping for the best but not always succeeding. But, after 27 years together, tying the knot is more of an affirmation of your love for each other. Congratulations to both.
My ghost story has an Italian twist
I was gripped by Jeanette Winterson’s chilling tale of ghosts in her Spitalfields townhouse in yesterday’s Mail, her account of icy fingers touching her wrist and unfamiliar footsteps on the stairs.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve also seen and heard ghosts.
As a child I would hear footsteps walking up and down outside my bedroom window. It was always the same time: 3.20am. Once, a friend and I plucked up the courage to investigate. Buried beneath the undergrowth on the hill behind the house, we found two old wooden doors connected by a tunnel which ran a few hundred metres along the side of the hill.
Inside, we found remnants of food and clothes: some kind of hiding place.
The Italian resistance was very active in that part of northern Italy: perhaps those footsteps were the ghostly echoes of a long-ago patrol?
