Fairytale’s over for Corden

IN the meantime, spare a thought for poor James Corden. Until now, no celebrity has been more adept at sniffing the prevailing wind, or cottoned on faster how beneficial and cost-free it can be to espouse whatever this week’s fashionable cause is, top lip quivering, for the cameras.

Then his sitcom creation Gavin & Stacey attracted opprobrium for not censoring the word “faggot” from a rendition of The Pogues’ Fairytale Of NewYork in its Christmas special.

And last week it joined the heretical comedies currently being burned at the stake, for the crime of upsetting half a dozen Twitter users with its descriptions of two minor characters from the show as “Chinese Alan” and “Seth, the black fella”.

Such accusations would be laughed off in a sane world – but there’s a qualification that scarcely pertains at the moment. And, as Corden (above) has suddenly discovered, the revolution always ends up devouring its children.

ON the evidence of our trip to Leeds last week, Boris Johnson is nursing forlorn hopes of everyone rushing back to shop, shop, shop and save the economy now that restrictions are lifting. The elegant Victoria Arcade echoed to the footsteps of us and a handful of other visitors, outnumbered by the shop staff and security guards.

Who can blame people when confronted by the joyless prospect of queueing, social

distancing and generally being supervised for what should be a pleasurable experience?

One assistant told us that the city’s still closed biggest department stores were timing their reopenings to coincide with end-of-month paydays.

Very canny, I’m sure. But given the economic tsunami looming over so many jobs once furloughing is over, how many more of those paydays will they expect to bank on?