M an of the week was that brilliant ha-ha merchant, Craig
Brown, who declared on television that the BBC's ludicrous attempt to discover the nation's 'favourite' 100 books was a complete sham. A hit, a palpable hit! The week's buffoon was a theatre bud called Dominic Dromgoole, who wasted two pages of the Sunday Times with a wet essay on Chekhov, about whom he clearly has not the foggiest. According to Dim Dom, the Russian master has been poorly served by English actors and directors. Is there nothing we can do for the poor chap?
But the saddest sight was surely Phil Tufnell talking to Jonathan Ross on the box, It might have been worse, mind. He could have been talking to the wretched Ross on his infantile radio show. Only in a country that has embraced philistinism so enthusiastically could a self-satisfied, poorly spoken 'broadcaster' like Ross be considered worthy of his hire.
Alas, poor Tuffers. He has ceased to be a human being, and has been designated a celebrity. By virtue of winning a ghastly television programme, the sort that rewards prurience and the loss of self-respect, he has achieved a fame, or infamy, that was beyond him on the cricket field, even when he was playing for England. His life is no longer his own, and he is welcome to the highly paid distractions that now await him.
Tufnell is not a bad man. He is a more intelligent and sensitive chap than his public profile allows, though it is fair to say that he has spent his adult life trying hard to disguise his better qualities. Having acquired a laddish reputation in his greener years. he has done his best to justify that image, to the point where he doesn't really know who he is any more.
Financially, it pays. Tufnell, apparently, will spend the next year coining it. There will be radio shows, further television exposure, and personal appearances where he can draw on a fag, grin and gum a bit, and grunt a few earthy sentences. It is an act, and it suits our credulous times, when the counterfeit is king.
Tufnell has even convinced some folk who should see things more clearly. Mike Soper, the chairman of Surrey, thinks he has done more for cricket by appearing on junk TV than anything that has happened on the field in recent seasons. Evidently the seven Test centuries Michael Vaughan has made in the last year slipped his mind. How can anybody think that what Tufnell has done reflects on anything other than his own ambition?
'Celebrity'; how awful it all is, and yet how stealthily it has infiltrated public life. The same week brought the spirit-lowering spectacle of Nelson Mandela being introduced to David Beckham, who told him he had 'bought' along an England shirt as a gift. As a photo-opportunity, more like. Beckham, incidentally, has taken to sporting another batty hairdo. Next season, apparently, he will play in a lion's tail.
Tufnell's playing days are behind him. He was a decent slow bowler, who contributed to a couple of notable Test victories, yet he may well reflect on his career as a tale of talent only partly fulfilled. Too often Tuffers the character got in the way of Tufnell the cricketer, and that can never be good for a professional sportsman. In the giddy world beyond, however, it has proved the making of him, if you like that sort of thing. He is a likeable man, Tuffers, but I wouldn't want the life he has chosen for all the tea in China.
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