Celia Walden

It’s time we stopped using ng the word ‘snowflake’

There’s only one man I’ve idly fantasised about “turning” over the years – if it’s not a cancellable offence to have such thoughts… – and that’s Rupert Everett.

He’s beautiful. He’s witty. He’s a great writer (his new book, To the End of the World: Travels with Oscar Wilde, single-handedly ndedly got me through last ast weekend). ).

But really ally it’s that he comes omes out with comments ts like these, made de at the Cheltenham enham Literary Festival on n

Sunday: “We “We’re in such a weird new ne world – a kind of S Stasi, it feels like to m me – and if you do don’t reflect exactly the right attitud attitude, you risk everyth everything being destroyed destro for you by th this judg judgmental, sanctimonious, intransigent, intractable, invisible cauldron of hags around in the virtual world…”

I first met the actor in 2012, when in the course of our interview, he managed to redefine vanity (“thinking you’re hideous when in fact you’re good-looking”), explain what “dribble drains” are (the two lines leading down from an ageing mouth), call Cheryl Cole “supernaturally untalented” and brand the Duchess of Cambridge “a tigress”.

He then told The Guardian that he’d always imagined my husband – with whom he’d fallen out on Comic Relief Does The Apprentice – “to be hung like a budgie”. From there, we progressed to long lunches.

I was almost sad when they made up, having liked the idea of keeping him to myself. When I told our mutual friend Dame Joan Collins about my fantasy to “turn” him, she laughed. “Oh darling,” she said, drying her eyes, “that’s never going to happen…”