Celebrity culprits
Petronella Wyatt
Ithink we should institute two new annual awards. The first would be entitled The most infuriating non-Brit in London' prize. There are an embarrassment of candidates. Mad mullahs, would-be suicide bombers, Madonna, who has reinvented herself as often and to as little effect as Marks Sz Spencer, and a host of other irritating immigrants.
But were the first award to be bestowed this year it must surely go to Gwyneth Paltrow. She has pointless good looks without sex appeal and is relatively pointless as an actress. It is beyond me how she won an Oscar for Shakespeare in Love, one of the most insubstantial films of the past decade. Miss Paltrow, who moved to London to live with her British husband, has now started to criticise London. Doesn't Miss Paltrow know that it is bad etiquette for anyone but Londoners to complain about London? It is our privilege to criticise the rain and traffic wardens and black taxis, not that of visiting American celebrities. Miss Paltrow's conduct is that of a guest at a dinner party who moans loudly about the food, the dining-room and the hostess.
The other annual award I would institute is for the most infuriating pregnant woman: the woman who speaks most volubly about the awfulness of gaining weight. Speaking as someone who often attempts diets — and finds them extremely incom
patible — I would be only too glad to have the excuse to eat pasta, bread, chocolate and other fattening foods; as, J suspect, would most women. These include the millions of women who go through tortures trying to conceive a child or those who can't conceive at all.
Perhaps plastic surgeons should pioneer a new service to really silly women — pregnancy liposuction. Your stomach reduced with no ill effects.
Numerous celebrity culprits regale us with details of their pregnancies. I do not want to hear such details any more than I want to learn about their lavatorial habits. But it seems that nothing is personal or private these days particularly anything pertaining to bodily functions.
These women give lengthy, self-indulgent interviews to newspapers and magazines, talking about their fear of stretch marks and whether London's hospitals — which they seem to regard as pre-20th-century workhouses — possess suitable maternity services.
All this fussing is not only irritating to ordinary women but also an insult to those who are genuinely ill. Pregnancy has not been life-threatening for over a century, yet celebrities behave as if they were likely to succumb to the scourges of the mediaeval and Tudor childbed.
Do they ever think, one wonders, of people who are truly suffering? What of cancer victims, of whom I know a distressing number? They are uncomplaining, discreet, brave and rarely talk publicly of their travails. Likewise those with Parkinson's disease or heart problems. Do pregnancy-whingers believe that the most inconvenient thing that can happen in their lives is a large stomach? Heaven help the lot of them if they ever become really sick.
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