It seems that something happened last week: proof, at last, that Britain’s national identity has been lost for ever. What was it – has the Encyclopaedia Britannica dropped its second name? Is Rule Britannia no longer to be the rousing finale at the last night of the Proms? Of course not. A building society, The Britannia (a title I have always thought is much better suited to ships), merely decided to get rid of its logo, the woman warrior in classic pose with Union Jack shield and trident. So what?
After all, the Bank of Scotland is soon to produce a Star Trek bank card, which is a far cry from the bank’s traditional St Andrew’s Cross-festooned chequebooks, but nobody north of the border has raised so much as a squeak. The Britannia, too, needs to find a popular image that will help bring it the commercial success it needs.
If anything, I’m glad the old, anachronistic Britannia symbol is going. I spend a lot of time defending my country against accusations by north American friends that Britain is out-dated, jingoistic and isolationist. Now I will, at least partially, be able to prove them wrong.
Talking of Britannia, I am reminded of a yarn about the athletic Labour MP Kate Hoey, whose hearty enthusiasm once caused Neil Kinnock’s imagination to work overtime: he called her Ho Ho Hoey. Ms Hoey, a former Northern Ireland high-jump champion, has earned a few people’s disapprobation by landing various soccer bigwigs in the proverbial manure, as she did in the Commons last night.
Still, in Hackney they love her unreservedly. Many moons ago Ms Hoey, then a local councillor, founded a leisure centre, which she named the Britannia. She would not rest, however, until she won permission for a wave machine to be installed in the pool there – something that gave the councillors coronaries just to think about. (They wanted money spent on sensible things, you see.)
“They hated her for it,” says a friend, “but she didn’t care.”
Spotted by yours truly at the Royal Opera House on Friday night was the BA chief executive, Sir Colin Marshall, and his wife, accompanied by – you’ve got it – the former Saatchi’s director, Maurice Saatchi, and his novelist wife, Josephine Hart.
Theoretically, of course, the £60m BA account is still open, although if I were a rival ad exec I wouldn’t fancy my chances much.
I know that Valentine’s Day is a whole 15 days away, but is there a man in the country who has not already booked the flowers, the restaurant, the gifts?
Oh yes, there is. My fiance has a quite stunning record of forgetting about it every year, no matter how hard I scribble all over his diary in January, “Remember 14 Feb”.
Trouble is, boys, the longer you leave it, the harder it is to get in anywhere. Le Caprice, in London’s West End, and Albert Roux’s Quat’Saisons outside Oxford, are already fully booked. Further researches revealed a similar state of affairs elsewhere inthe country. Ah well. If you fail you can always copy my fiance, who says every time: “Of course I didn’t book anywhere – you’ve got far too much taste to want to sit in a restaurant with hundreds of gruey twoeys.” Humph.
Memo to Gary Lineker: Please would you consider moving to Essex? The brash reputation of that county was reinforced for me when I learnt that David Sullivan, the man who is bringing a soft- porn channel to our televisions, lives there – in the inevitableneo-Georgian mansion. As a former citizen of the county I wish fervently that we could produce one icon of decency to compensate for men such as Sullivan.
As it is, many people I know who live there still find themselves apologising for the fact. Only the other night I overheard a middle-aged couple greet another couple at a London theatre. “Where are you living now?” inquired one man of the other. “Essex,” replied the man. “Suffolk,” replied his wife simultaneously – treading, I noticed, rather hard on her husband’s foot.
Prince William is to have, it is reported, 18 bodyguards at Eton, should he go there – paid for by local taxpayers. Eighteen? Isn’t that rather excessive, given that the Thames Valley police force, from whom they are to be recruited, is likely to lose 150 officers in cuts this year?
Still, bodyguards have their uses – not all of them as obvious as you might think. A friend of mine who was at Cambridge with Prince Edward once commented on his popularity there. “No question the Prince was very amiable,” confided my friend, “but that wasn’t the reason for asking him to dinner,” he smirked. “The truth was that one of his bodyguards was bloody good company.”
Like all Anthony Powell fans, I’m sure, I can hardly wait for the publication of his diaries at the end of the month, having tasted a snippet at the weekend in the Indie magazine. One thing, however, perturbs me: Mr Powell’s unusual fetish for publicising the full addresses of all his friends – considered by most publishers to be a grave security risk. In these extracts alone, we learn precisely how the postman reaches the homes of Lord Thomas of Swynnerton, Jilly Cooper and VS Naipaul. I almost expected the Thatchers’ private telephone number to be mentioned, en passant. Was the author aware of the danger to which he was subjecting his friends? “The addresses are of interest in themselves; they tell you something about what type of house these people live in,” explained Powell’s wife, Violet. She added, in a tone which would surely terrify any burglar intending to enter the Powell family home – which I can exclusively reveal to you as the Chantry, Frome, Somerset – “As we all know, nobody feels very secure nowadays.”
Cecilia Bottomley, Virginia’s doctor daughter, is a model of discretion. I should know: I have known her since university and have plagued her ever since for quotes – which she has always, very charmingly, refused to give me.
Which is why I was annoyed when the Sunday Times ran a story at the weekend stating that she had been implicitly criticising her mother by complaining privately to friends “about her punishing schedule”.
Talk about gratuitous exploitation of family relations. Quite frankly it would be quite extraordinary if Lil (Cecilia’s nickname) did not mention her long hours in private. In my experience this is all that junior doctors talk about when they’re not working.
We can only be justified in writing about Lil if, like Victoria Scott, she chooses to politicise any disagreements with her parents. My bet is that she is far too busy saving lives to do any such thing. And anyway, my spies say that Sunday lunch chez Bottomley is a most harmonious affair.
Speaking of severe working conditions, it was a rare and unexpected pleasure to see a friend who works at Goldman Sachs over the weekend. Even more surprising was the fact that he actually told a joke – yes, a joke – about his place of employment. It seems that an article in this month’s Harpers & Queen has caused some capitalist brains there to work over-time. The piece states that the victim of the firm’s well-publicised sexual harassment case last year received £2.5m in compensation. “Some of us are now trying to negotiate deals with the opposite sex,” said my friend. “We offer to harass them, and then split the proceeds.”
So, it’s official, women drivers are the ones doing the overtaking in the fast lane, according to a report by a motorway study group. Can’t say I’m surprised, since I, for one, grind my teeth if my poor battered C-reg gets overtaken more than three timesin the hour-long trip up the M11 from my parents’ house to London.
But I wonder, though, how the news will affect you poor unsuspecting men. That it will affect you is beyond any doubt. I only have to listen to my fiance’s steady stream of expletives in heavy traffic to know that, unless you can see the sex of the driver who has either cut you up, zoomed past you and usurped your place in the queue, you assume they must be male.
“Bastard” yelled a friend of mine the other day, when a motorcyclist clipped his frontlights in an attempt to undercut him. Fists clenched, notebook at the ready, my friend got out of the car, looking, I thought, as if he might beat up the offender. He positioned himself in front of the cycle, legs spread, arms crossed.
“What the hell did you think you were doing, you oaf?” he bawled. A pause. The cyclist removed his helmet. My friend gawped, muttered an apology and ran for it, exclaiming to me with the reddest of astonished faces: “It’s a girl!”
Memo to Iain Sproat, MP, minister for sport. Please can we have some golf courses just for beginners? I speak as someone who has suffered. On a visit to the US recently, I was miserably dribbling the ball along, two inches at a time, looking more uncoordinated than a new-born baby, when a voice from the trees asked me if I was having a nice time. I looked up and recoiled in horror. There, when he could so easily have been on any other golf course in the world, was Jack Nicklaus.
The Church of England is worried about it; Leeds University students adore it; Milton Keynes council has just given in to it: witchcraft. After 300 years of persecution and 200 years of near-invisibility, it is all the rage again.
The maligned myth of the evil, ugly woman in a dunce’s hat (an image invented by the established church) is now being explored and exposed for what it is – a fallacy. In its place is emerging the picture of a pagan religion, full of mystical beauty and ancient truths, whose secrets have been passed down throughout the ages.
Increasingly Britain’s young, disillusioned by the inefficacy of the Church of England are flocking to it. There are no official records, but some number Britain’s witches at more than 1 million – and growing.
Abracadabra: Perhaps the most popular myth relating to witchcraft, now a favourite of magicians at children’s parties. Although witches did chant unintelligible rhymes to assert their superiority and supernatural powers, there is no record of witches ever using the word Abracadabra. which is based on an Arab word used in Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. They do, however, cast spell as part of a healing process.
Lois Bourne, author of Conversations with a Witch (Robert Hale), recommends the following spell to get rich: Use shortly after a new moon, no more than once a quarter Ingredients: 7 tsp dried parsley 1 tsp ground cinnamon 1 tsp ground nutmeg 1 tsp brown sugar 2 pints boiled water, cooled Method: Mix ingredients in bowl. Strain into half a tub of bath water. Bathe for seven minutes, while praying for an increase in finances.
Broomstick: Superstitiously considered to be the witch’s main method of aerial transport to and from her coven meetings; in fact, it was used to vault over puddles en route. Traditionally a symbol of fertility, broomsticks were reputedly used by witches as they danced around fields, encouraging corn to grow to the height of the broom’s brush. Today, the broomstick or besom is used to cleanse a sacred space and is just one of many magical tools used to create a mood or attitude. Other vital tools includea pentacle, a thurible of incense, bells, candles, bells and wands.
Coven: Derived from the word convent; a small group of witches, numbering 13 – six women, six men and a priestess, known as a magistrar. Under 18s will not be initiated. Before being admitted, novice witches must train for a year and a day. Covens meet regularly at midnight, “the witching hour”, in a consecrated, ritual space outdoors, marked out as a sacred circle, to perform rituals and worship. A designated room in a witch’s private home may also be used for worship.
Demons: Witchcraft is often erroneously associated with demonology and Satanism, both Christian concepts. Accusations of devil worship were first levied by the Christian church circa 1500 in a desperate attempt to impose religious conformity on Europe. Thereafter witches often confessed to demonoligical practices under torture. Modern witches ask to be carefully distinguished from such practices, not least because they do not believe in the Christian devil and the notion of evil. They belie v ethat evilrebounds three-fold upon the evil-doer, so taking away all motivation for evil.
Endor: The first witch to be recorded in print. The witch of Endor appears in the Old Testament to raise the spirit of Samuel at the behest of Saul. However both the Latin and Greek descriptions of the woman translate, literally, as medium or ventriloquist since, in those days the cult of witchcraft did not exist.
Feminism: There has always been a “witchy” tendency within the feminist movement, celebrating the secret power of women, women’s innate wisdom and the importance of women-only gatherings. High priestess of this tendency is Mary Daly, author of The First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language (Women’s Press). Virago, the pioneering feminist press, is a slang word for witch.
Garter: A traditional hallmark of a witch. Edward Prince of Wales (later King Edward III) once hosted a royal ball during which the Countess of Salisbury’s garter fell down half way through a dance. The prince stepped forward, picked it up and placed it around his own leg, defying anyone to brand the countess a witch with the words: “Honi soit qui mal y pense.”
Halloween: The New Year’s Eve of the witches’ world, it is also the Celtic “Night of the Dead” or year-end, when the worlds of life and death become as thin as veils, allowing the dead to walk among the living. It is one of the Craft’s eight festivals celebrating the seasons and lasting from sundown to sundown. Many traditions have been secularised, such as pumpkin pie and apple-bobbing.
Incantation: Spells and chants, such as the famous “Hubble, Bubble” verse in Macbeth, are indeed part of the coven ritual, although the words of worship today are thought to be far more lyrical – in the “Queen of the Moon, Queen of the Sun’ vein. Their
actual content, however, is a closely guarded secret.
James I: The only Royal demonologist, and the man for whom Shakespeare’s Macbeth was written. In the early 17th century James I wrote a book called The Demonology, calling for the punishment of all witches. (He had a particular grievance against the North Berwick witches, whom he believed had sought to achieve his death by conjuring a storm.)
Knife: All witches carry a knife called an Athame, which is black-handled and has magic signs on the hilt. It serves not only as a tool but as a holy object. It may be disguised to maintain secrecy.
Law: The Witchraft Act was repealed in 1951 when 20,000 British witches were left to live in peace. The most viciously anti-witchcraft law was the Malleus Maleficarum of 1486, under which hordes of people were executed without even the interrogation of witnesses.
Magic: Derived from the word Magi, meaning the wise; witches still believe they are capable of superhuman powers, especially when worshiping together in their covens. Many hint that the magic is derived from natural body rhythms.
Nudity: Covens perform their rites in the nude or “sky-clad” while others wear long white robes in Druidic tradition. The body’s natural powers are thought to be impeded by clothes. Modern witches play down this aspect of their gatherings, saying that the nudity is entirely spiritual.
Occult: From the Latin “hidden or secret”. Witchcraft has always been associated with the occult because witches believe in what might now be termed parapsychic and paraphysical power. People are not readily admitted into modern covens, unless they have a strong belief in the paranormal.
Pagan: Witches are – and were – pagans, from the Latin paganus, meaning country dweller. Witchcraft was originally the mystical religion of the fields, and christianity of the towns (though nowadays many witches are forced, by dint of circumstance to meet in rooms in towns). The focus of modern witchcraft’s worship is a goddess – who may not be named for fear her power should be weakened, but it is thought she is a Mother Earth figure. A priest or priestess leads the worship ceremony.
River-dunking: One of the better known methods of testing whether a witch was the genuine article. The suspect’s right arm was tied to their left leg and vice versa, and they were lowered into a river three times; if they sank on each occasion, they wer e innocent; if they floated, they were a witch. This was one of the more painless tests: truly terrible forms of torture included the lowering of a heavy weight on to a suspect crushing them into either admittance or death.
Sex: Witchcraft is a religion in which sex is seen positively as an expression of the forces of nature, not solely for sinning or procreation. The magical tradition of Tantra, studied by witches today, is designed to make women sexually dominant because,according to Shan, a 45-year-old witch living in south London, a “woman’s experience of sex is deeper and more powerful”.
Transvection: The term used by “witchcraftologists’ to describe the imagined magical practice of transporting oneself by broomstick or animal. Allegedly, the only thing that could bring a witch out of the air was the sound of church bells ringing, so so m e churches rang their bells all through the night.
Unguent: An ointment smeared on the body to aid flying. It was thought that witches used rub-on ointments as cures and poisons far more than brews.
Witch: Referred to in witches’ circles as the W-word, according to Dr Vivianne Crowley, a 37-year-old witch who works for a management consultancy, because it conjures up images of old hags, black cats and creepy graveyards. Recalling the persecution of witches over the centuries, they prefer to be referred to as Wiccans, after Wicca, the anglo-saxon term meaning the “craft of the wise” and the derivation for today’s “witch”.
X: Marks the cross for Christianity, witchcraft’s ancient enemy. The only way Christianity could eradicate witchcraft was by taking on board some of its properties – smells and bells, for example – and slowly diluting them before rejecting them altogether. Ironically, young people are now seeking the liberating, ritualistic side of witchcraft once again in the form of the ever-growing New Age movement.
Youth: The great majority of witches were sent to their deaths by the testomonies of young children. The Salem witchhunt of 1692 was started when two children claimed to have been possessed by the devil. Paranoia broke out and all those the children indicated were tried and, unless they admitted to witchcraft, executed.
Zoophilia: The practice of copulating with the devil in the form of animals or familiars, to which many of those tried in the witch hunt did confess. Modern witches would be appalled at the suggestion of the continuation of the practice.
Fingers crossed, hair brushed as neatly as it ever is, coat hanging casually on my right arm, handbag full of loose coins jangling on my shoulder, I approached the Clinique counter in Harrods. “Excuse me, I wonder if you have any free samples of y our moisturiser? As you can see, I have dry skin.”
The fake-tanned woman in her pristine white coat peered at me out of fake black lashes down her eagle-like powdered nose. Wearing jeans, polo-neck, Benetton cardigan and no make-up, I looked neat but scarcely a millionaire. “Nah, we don’t do samples,” she said, and turned away to examine her already immaculate nails.
My brief was to discover what it takes to get a free sample of the exfoliators, toners, bronzers, foundation, moisturisers et al that, in normal size, can be hugely expensive – sometimes more than £100 per item. Surely it is only reasonable to allow clients to take away a small sample to test the stuff before forking out for it?
No, it seems. Make-up consultants are picky about which of their clients are deserving. If you want a freebie, you need to learn how to go about it in the right way.
In Harrods, I wanted to test the efficacy of various chat-up lines, sans glitzy appearance (that would come later). I approached Estee Lauder and could scarcely get my query out before the woman with over-blushered cheeks riposted: “Nah, but we have a special offer of scent and bag if you buy two products.” Crestfallen (my brief did not allow me to spend any money), I walked on.
Putting on an expression of desperation and my best “air hellair” accent, I approached Christian Dior. “I’d like to buy some day moisturiser for my mother,” I lied. “She is fiftyish and has …” Before I could go any further, the woman interrupted, “Co m bination skin? Dry on the cheeks? Oily on the chin and nose?” Actually, I had been going to say, she has marvellous skin, but something told me that the path to success did not lie in that direction.
I smiled, dumping my bag on the counter, looking as if I was prepared to stay there all day if necessary. “Dooo tell me what you’d recommend.” Five minutes stretched into 10 as the virtues of cream against lotion, richness against lightness, day cream a g ainst night cream were extolled. I waited until the end of the spiel to put, nonchalantly, my two key questions: how much? (the answer ranged from £25 to £65 a pot) and, “Do you think I could take her a sample?”. By then I’d earned it. “Of course,” sher eplied, fishing out the cutest little pot.
The story of my mother’s facial ailments also did the trick at the Sisley counter, where I was recommended a moisturiser for £88. £88?! But it was crucial, I knew, not to flinch. “I don’t suppose you have a sample of that I could take her,” I asked airily, as if I spent £88 on a measly tub of moisturiser for my mother every day. “Of course,” said the girl. “This will last two to three days …”
So the mother story works, presumably, on the basis that the mother of 50 is likely to spend more on her face than her messy-looking daughter of 25, who is simply the marketing medium.
How, though, to get freebies for oneself? I approached Chanel looking, I hoped, totally bewildered. “Excuse me, I would like to look permanently suntanned but I’ve been told that it’s really bad for your face to wear foundation. Could you advise me please?” I sounded like a vain half-wit. “With pleasure,” said the girl, who then proceeded to test various creams all over my face and hands. “Ooh, I’m so confused,” I sighed vacantly. “I don’t suppose I could possibly take a sample?” The answer was yes. So the idiocy ploy works, too.
Now it was time to see how important appearance could be. I entered Harvey Nichols and, in the loo, changed into designer suit, jacket and pearls. I was careful to carry my coat so that my finery was clearly visible, and jangled my only expensive jewellery extremely loudly.
Back to Clinique with precisely the same query about moisturiser as before. To my horror I met with the same negative response. The woman (also an eagle-nosed type) was looking disdainfully at my hands. I followed her gaze … Cripes, I had some dirt wedged under the second and third fingernails on my left hand – and she’d noticed.
Big mistake. Make-up consultants test their wares on hands. A chipped fingernail, flaking nail varnish or, even worse, dirt … and they’re certain to notice.
On to Boots, where I casually looked at the Almay hypo-allergenic moisturisers. “I don’t suppose,” I said, trying not to sound as if I was saying it for the 100th time, “you do samples of this?” “But of course,” said the girl, seemingly amazed. She hand e d me two packets of the stuff. “Anything else?”
Essential tips for plying the counters Do… …clean your hands …clean your nails …wear expensive bracelets/rings …carry your coat so as to expose your clothes …invent plenty of skin problems …speak with an “air hellair” voice …mention Mummyif you are below 30
Nobody can doubt, neither his friends nor enemies (and there are plenty of those), that David Copperfield’s British premiere is an event that stretches credulity. We have never seen the like: Copperfield, 38, is an American illusionist on a scale, and wage-scale, that would make Mr al Fayed weep. He can fly. He can make a carriage from the Orient Express disappear. He can make the Statue of Liberty vanish. He made dollars 26m last year.
You can watch him being sawn in half by a circular saw whose diameter is at least twice his body-width. He escapes from a straitjacket whilst hanging upside down from a burning rope above flaming spikes. And he does all this live – in front of audiences who scream and howl with excitement and admiration.
Just in case this is not sufficiently spectacular, he is engaged to MegaMegaBabe Claudia Schiffer, who looks adoringly into his eyes at every possible photocall. This has transformed Copperfield into a sex symbol.
Where once a terrible haircut, huge collars and a bacofoil jacket sufficed, he now reeks of fake tan, his hair and eyebrows are blacker than Dracula’s and his black Levi jeans (he only ever wears black and white) are tight enough to make you wonder if he is in permanent agony.
Every year CBS releases a video of his tricks, and this year, his fifteenth as a performing magician, merely emphasises that he is a total control freak -ad absurdum. Schiffer is wheeled in to play a gormless reporter dressed in her lingerie who asks him banal requests along the lines of: ‘Tell me all about you and your magic, David’. Between excerpts of Walt Disney-style music, Copperfield answers her in mellifluous know-all tones and then the camera pans to a video showing one of his illusions.
Adulation, say his critics, is what Copperfield cannot live without. Even Max Clifford, probably PR’s biggest advocate of sensationalism, whom Copperfield employed to organise his current European tour, found him just too much to bear and left. ‘He asked me after a press show in San Francisco why I hadn’t joined the other members of his entourage – who must have seen his show 500 times – leap to their feet and scream with admiration. I told him that I had clapped – and that, had I got to my feet, it wouldn’t make any difference to his reviews; in fact the British press would have thought I was quite bats.’
Copperfield, however, does not speak that kind of language. His is the language of fairy tales: ‘I like my shows to be romantic.’ Even his hard-pressed childhood (he was, he says an ugly-looking misfit) is given a gloss: ‘I needed magic to communicate, to get girls.’
At the end of the video Claudia says to him: ‘Shall we go up?’ He takes her hand, leads her to the edge of the building, and like Peter Pan and Wendy, they disappear into the night.
It’s enough, frankly, to make you puke – but you might not want to miss it for the world.
David Copperfield is appearing at Earls Court next week. Tues/Wed 8pm, Thurs/Fri 5.30pm and 9pm. Sat, 8pm. Tickets, from pounds 15 to pounds 48, are available from the box office (071-373 8141).
(Photo omitted.)
Rosie Boycott: (a founder of the feminist magazine Spare Rib in the Seventies, now editor of Esquire) I’m a big Germaine fan; I think it’s great that she does not mince her words and that she’s not hung up by niceties.
She’s so funny and big on practical jokes. At a book launch recently she asked to be introduced to the poet Alan Jenkins.
The first words she said to poor Alan, who was completely mystified, were: ‘I hear you are absolutely fantastic in bed.’ She moved on immediately to a deaf elderly woman, with whom she talked all evening, about leaf mould.
Melvyn Bragg: I like Germaine; I think she’s temperamental though; she’s like a rocket; she reminds me, in fact of the Blackpool trams.
Intellectually she will stick to her tracks but every so often shoots off interestingly and provocatively. She’s quick to be generous, quick to flare up and quick to make amends and I’ve experienced all three. The only thing I fear about her chat show is that she will have to curb her tendency to drive and dominate the conversation.
A S Byatt: I don’t know her particularly except for her Shakespeare book which I quite liked. I feel that summaries will do as far as her feminist texts are concerned. She has a tendency to chastise authors for not having written what she thinks they ought to have written without paying much attention to the book that they actually have written.
David Lodge: ‘No comment.’
Martin Amis: ‘No comment.’
Enoch Powell: ‘Who’s that?’
Dame Barbara Cartland: Who is she. . .oh I see. . .well she’s not nearly as important as what is happening to the Royal Family then.
Alexander Chancellor: (magazine editor and columnist) She’s a friend of mine, I think. I haven’t seen her for ages but we used to see her in Italy. She’s a meticulous perfectionist – she became the perfect Italian peasant – mind you a very upmarket Italian peasant. She insisted on baking her own bread kind of thing and she had a roomful of essences of some kind. She’s very endearing; she lets you know exactly what she feels and there is something very engaging about that. She can be prickly – it’s possible to give her offence without having the faintest idea why.
Victoria Gillick: I don’t want to comment about her.
Michele Roberts: (novelist) I don’t know her personally but The Female Eunuch was a major book for me and my contemporaries then joining the women’s movement. We saw her for as a luminary. I don’t think she’s necessarily helped the movement right the way through but at least she’s gone and stuck her neck out. She’s remained fiery and I like that. And I think she has been given a rather hard time.
Jonathon Green: (author and lexicographer) I only know her very tangentially. She refused to be in my first book about the 1960s because she did not want to be associated with nostalgia. So, I didn’t dare ask her to be in the next two which were on immigrants and sex.
PD James: I think at 74 I’m perhaps to old to have been influenced by her books – they are more for a younger generation – but I have read them with interest and admiration.
Algy Cluff: (businessman, former owner of the Spectator) I’ve known her for years. She’s a formidable lady. I wanted her to edit the Spectator until somebody reminded me that I’d already offered the job to Charles Moore.
She needs a man more than anybody else I know. She is a very handsome woman; all this dressing down that goes on doesn’t suit her at all.
Clive James: Germaine is the best guest in the world, so her only problem as a host will be the guests.
Murray Sayle: (Australian journalist, worked in London in the Sixties and Seventies) Germaine is very nice; the sadness is though, that the world has lost a great academic scholar because of all this feminism; her book on the Taming of the Shrew is really excellent. Her feminism can be explained as a result of her Australian experiences; she came from an oppressive Catholic upbringing followed by a stint of Christian enlightenment in Melbourne to a very different environment in Sydney where there was a gang of intellectuals who modelled themselves on razor-carrying proletarian pioneer convicts, and were known as ‘The Push’; she soon realised that these men gave women a lousy deal – and I recognise them as the men she is always denouncing in her feminism; of course with her intelligence and outlook she was always going to have great trouble finding a husband in Australia – mind you she hasn’t fared much better in Britain – but none of the men she has ever dallied with have been Australian.
Christina Odone: (editor of the Catholic Herald) My one overriding memory of her was in fact from the pilot programme for her new series which was filmed in the summer. She had rows of female hacks lined up and I had genned up on topics such as unfair discrimination in the workplace, intellectual minorities etc but instead her first questions were: ‘So when you are in bed with your man. . . .’; ‘so we’ve all had lesbian experiences. . . . .’ I was completely horrified; I knew that if I answered those kind of questions, quite simply I would lose my job; and something of this must have shown on my face because when it came to me she smiled and moved on to the next person. What an amazing act of intelligence and generosity] She struck me then as a really big person.
Margaret Forster: (novelist and biographer) I think she is brilliant; as a speaker two things stand out about her; she is amazing at thinking on her feet; she breaks off into wild tangents and just when you think she has completely lost the thread she seems to realise this and yanks the conversation back quite miraculously.
The other thing is that when other people are speaking she puts on an expression of complete bewilderment even if the other speaker is talking complete sense so that the camera simply cannot keep off her; it is a look of pity. She has little curiosity about other people; she may be intellectually curious about them but you couldn’t have a mundane gossip with her.
Richard Ingrams: She is very clever which probably makes her life difficult -she’s much more clever than most people; and she is very kind.