Virginia Blackburn: Perhaps one day Russell Brand will end up a national treasure
AT FIRST glance they look like any young couple: casually dressed wandering through a market in the South of France.
Closer inspection, however, reveals the duo to be none other than Russell “bring on the revolution” Brand and his pregnant girlfriend Laura Gallacher.
It’s quite a departure from his attacks on bankers, politicians and anyone he can think of in the establishment but since Russell’s dabble with political activism last year brought him ridicule rather than anything else, he has become quite the conventional middle-class Brit.
Home these days is a £3.3million cottage in a very desirable area overlooking the Thames, where Russell now plans to spend £1million installing a home cinema and swimming pool. Anarchy clearly pays.
But this should be no surprise. The world is full of firebrands who eventually grew up. It’s hard to remember now but the late Tony Benn was once actively feared for what many saw as his attacks on capitalism but by the end of his life he had come to be viewed as a cuddly tea-drinking, pipe-smoking grandpa.
David Bowie spent his youth as a promiscuous drug-taker and ended as a faithful husband and father. Rupert Everett, after a youth in which he openly admitted taking drugs and selling his body, has settled down into a grand old man of the thespians, albeit an entertainingly camp one (and not that old).
It must be said Britain in particular has a tendency to treat various sadistic criminals as loveable eccentrics: a sprinkling of Krays, Great Train Robbers and Mad Frankie Fraser have all been the subject of a fond chuckle and the reflection that while they might have been brutal at least they wore a tie.
Alan Bennett once observed that in Britain, if you live to be 90 and can still eat a boiled egg, you’re called a national treasure. Could Brand one day attain this status? Stranger things, as they say.
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THE Conservatives are often spoken of as the “natural party of government” and in the space of about a week they have given a masterclass in why.
From a sense of chaos after the referendum they have, with a speed that is awe-inspiring and terrifying, picked themselves up, briskly got down to a shortlist of two for the party leadership and the main challenger then withdrew on the grounds that while she was popular with activists she didn’t command a majority of MPs.
I hardly need draw the parallel with t’other side. Meanwhile we have ended up with the strongest candidate winning and it’s back to business as usual. On the Labour benches they have comprehensively proved that they couldn’t organise a party in a gift shop. What a farce.
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JENNIFER ANISTON has said she is “fed up” with the reports constantly speculating that she’s pregnant. I’m not surprised.
For a start it only happens after she has had a good lunch and the poor woman should surely be allowed to eat and, secondly, Jennifer is 47.
There’s been a good deal about child-free women in the past week but for pity’s sake this is downright cruelty. Have we lost all sense of tact?
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MUCH debate over this picture of Victoria Beckham kissing her five-year-old daughter Harper on the lips. Many think it’s sweet but a fair few felt an instinctive “yuck”. I’m afraid I fall into the latter camp.
Yes, Harper is still only tiny but, even so, kissing on the mouth is for many of us reserved for our significant other and while I embrace my family and friends it is always on the cheek.
Some people have accused Victoria of sexualising Harper, which is surely going too far. But still.
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THERE is a new formula doing the rounds for finding your “Tory” name: it is the first name of a grandparent plus the name of the first street you lived on hyphenated with your first head teacher’s surname.
Mine is Elsie Judson-Blake. It works, does it not?