Short Cuts
Anne Robinson
With regret, I intend to start the Notme! movement. Enough is enough with the Metoo lot.
Here are some random facts. A QC friend who is head of his chambers tells me young female barristers are hired for their looks, as they need to appeal to the judge and the jury. I didn’t ask, but I presume they also keep a few ugly ones in a spare drawer in case there is an important case in front of a female judge who is not, as John Inverdale would say, ‘a looker’. Given these guidelines for employment, should newly qualified young women boycott his chambers? What do you think?
Uma Thurman reports having a shocking and terrifying time with Harvey Weinstein in a hotel bedroom in Paris. So shocking was her experience that she met him alone again in a bedroom, in London at the Savoy. I mean, you need to be sure, don’t you?
Emmeline Pankhurst said that when it comes to a meaningful protest, you need to be prepared to win or die. So how death-defying was it for those Hollywood women to dress up in sexy black outfits to mark their displeasure?
After the Presidents Club dinner, several women Ocado customers cancelled their account in disgust when they discovered that Tim Steiner, its boss, had attended. There was no evidence he had been caught behaving badly. However, two years ago, the very same Tim Steiner left his wife and four children and then took up with a twentysomething Polish lingerie model. No Ocado customers were reported to object.
David Walliams was at the same dinner and there was a move to get his children’s books banned. How long before women need proof of clean living from any man they see on television or hear on radio, or whose company they give business to?
Oxfam workers have been revealed to use prostitutes in countries where their mission was to save lives. Officials – including women – who should know better covered this up. This is wilful blindness.
The suffragettes brought about change. So did the fishermen’s wives in Hull in the late Sixties who protested about the treacherous conditions endured by their husbands and sons on the trawlers fishing in Icelandic waters – and the hundreds of lives lost because the boats contained not even basic safety equipment. The women lost their jobs at the fish-filleting factory and were attacked not only by the trawler owners but also the fishermen.
Unbowed, a delegation, led by the redoubtable Lillian Bilocca, came to London and demanded to see government ministers and insisted on new legislation. They achieved all they asked for because of their courage and fearlessness. They were prepared to win or die. And not a sexy black gown in sight.
What is the penalty for cheating at an important, life-changing exam?
Oxford Boy is a charming memoir of growing up, post-war, in the university town but on the Cowley workers’ side of the fence. Then very slowly moving from working class to middle class. It’s by the urbane, upright former managing director of the BBC Will Wyatt. The last person that you would imagine behaving dishonestly.
Yet, in the book he admits that, after taking his eleven plus, later that day he received a summons to return to school, bringing with him the same pen he had used in the exam. The headmaster of SS Philip and James Primary then produced his exam paper and proceeded to dictate the correct answers to several question in the maths and intelligence sections.
As a result, Wyatt moved on to grammar school and subsequently achieved a place at Cambridge. Other doubtless cleverer boys missed out.
I strongly disapprove. The nuns at my convent school lacked any such entrepreneurial skill. This being the only reason that I failed my common entrance exam.
There is a rumour that Mick Jagger is looking to buy a manor house somewhere near me in the Cotswolds. I do hope he does.
Through death, retirement, old age or dementia, the number of local showbiz residents available to open garden fetes this summer is quickly dwindling.
We need you, Mick!
Prince Harry’s fiancée looked stunning when she turned up for her first official evening engagement. She wore a black tuxedo suit, a fabulous silk blouse and black suede high heels.
This outfit was reported to have been chosen in order not to outshine Princess Kate, who wore mostly eiderdowns on her Swedish tour. Maybe.
Anyway, so taken was I with the silk blouse, I wasted no time in ordering the same from Net-a-porter. It didn’t disappoint. It is as beautiful as I had hoped.
But sadly and astonishingly, when I wear it, I end up looking nothing like Meghan Sparkle.