Claudia, the TV queen of glitter – and the dark arts
IDON’T get the appeal of The Traitors, the newest TV sensation. But then I didn’t get Love Island, so it’s lucky that I’m not in charge of commissioning programmes. However, I am transfixed by Claudia Winkleman and so for her alone I am dipping in to watch.
She’s surely the only host on TV who can get away with wearing fingerless gloves and jeggings. Winkleman has brilliantly created her unstoppable CW persona. Many famous people have developed a trademark style – for example, Anna Wintour, the late Queen Elizabeth and Grayson Perry. Winkleman’s is dense, orange skin and a fringe that conceals any wrinkles as effectively as a balaclava.
Who knew such a look would work? But not only has Winkleman constructed this appearance and
NEW year, new fitness gizmo. This time an Oura ring, a gift from my son which promises to tell me much about how my body is behaving – sleep patterns, heart rate, paces etc.
My record with fit tech is spotty. I still have a beautiful Apple watch in its box with limited edition Hermes leather strap that never made it on to my wrist. And I always think heart monitors give wrong readings, so remove them.
Last year, like many others, I subscribed to the Zoe app which is meant to improve energy levels and also to possibly lose weight. I religiously logged meals and checked my personalised eating scores, learning that in my case cheese is the devil and lentils are angelic – surprise, surprise.
But it felt like doing Veganuary, urging me to a fat-lowering diet of spinach and chickpeas which I already knew.
So Zoe’s gone the way of all such improvement apps, to be replaced by the wisdom of the Oura ring. Watch this space.
managed to look rather wonderful (helped by black hair as smooth and shiny as an oil slick) but she happily admits to the deliberate creation of a recognisable style. Not for her the trap of people suspecting that she might be manufactured and not in reality just like she appears on TV. Indeed, she’s the first to admit to it.
She knows a good line is always worth repeating. So we learn in every interview that as a youngster she had no mirrors and her only ambition is to have grandchildren.
Additionally, although she’s a Cambridge graduate and like
many of us a nepo baby (with her mother the equally fabulous exnewspaper editor Eve Pollard), she attracts none of the envious vitriol often attached to such personalities.
WITH her warm, democratic voice that veers between posh and matey, she seamlessly scoops up all the gigs from the glitter of Strictly to the steely mistress of the dark arts in The Traitors and, until recently, a radio show, to become the Queen of Reality TV and one of the most well-paid women in broadcasting.
I don’t know Winkleman and though I once sent her a copy of a book I had written, it was never acknowledged. Still, who am I to bear a grudge?
Long may she reign.