Giddily elated

The latest controversy to involve the Royal Family is a splendid example of how irresponsible and sensationalist the media can be.
 
We’re told that in an excerpt from his new book, Diana’s brother Earl Spencer claims that after Diana’s death Prince Charles seemed “giddily elated”, sounded like a lottery winner and said “We’ll forget her soon enough”.
 
Apparently this was part of a conversation that Earl Spencer had almost thirty years ago. Can a thirty-year-old memory really be reliable?
 
This damaging claim has been splashed all over the media as if it’s the truth, but nobody has confirmed his account and the media aren’t pointing out that it’s highly contentious and possibly total nonsense.
 
Presumably the media are splashing this dubious accusation because they know their readers love this sort of wild gossip, especially if it concerns the Royal Family. Personally I have no time for the Royal Family but I don’t see why they should be subjected to such casual slander.
 
People may say Oh, but if you’re a member of the Royal Family you have to expect abuse and vilification and you just have to suck it up. Well, I disagree.

Fame? No thanks

I value my anonymity and my privacy. I value being able to wander around with nobody paying me any special attention. I value not being a recognisable public figure.

I wonder why so many people want to be famous. Do they have any idea what fame actually involves? Do they have any idea how it disrupts any form of normal life or normal friendships?

Being recognised as you walk down the street might be fun for a while but it must soon get tedious. People stare at you, follow you, make comments about you, try to talk to you. You can't just walk around in your private reverie, enjoying the scenery or the sunshine. You have to be always prepared for other people's attention. It must be a constant nuisance.

Your photo is regularly in the media, accompanied by details of your every move and activity, most of it idle gossip and rumour. Hundreds of dubious stories are circulating, mostly depicting a totally bogus person with little resemblance to the real you.

If you're interviewed for TV or the media, you'll be asked plenty of idiotic and trivial questions, like what's your favourite food or how do you stay so thin or what was your most embarrassing moment.

If you're desperate for some privacy, you have to plan it well in advance, working out how to avoid the paparazzi, keep your movements secret and stay well away from the general public.

Of course you might say this is all sour grapes, that really I'd love to be famous but I'm not, so I make out fame is horrible and not at all glamorous or fulfilling. But no, I love my anonymity. I certainly wouldn't want to be gawped at all day like an animal in the zoo.

Always a journo

Kylie reckons I'm "ever in journalist mode". Which is surely an awful thing to be, but she might be right. After all, I spent six years as a journalist, so some of the journalist culture must have rubbed off on me, like it or not.

Jenny thinks there's still a bit of the journalist in me. I like inventing spoof tabloid headlines ("Refund joy for tearful Belfast couple"), and I do tend to over-react to a dramatic piece of news.

But despite the residual journalistic quirks, I'm still very critical of journalism and the way it distorts, trivialises and sensationalises important issues. I've never regretted leaving journalism for bookselling, even though many people thought I was crazy.

Apart from anything else, journalism nowadays is hard work. Long hours, low salaries, unpaid internships, constant redundancies. It's a far cry from the well-paid, leisurely, drunken activity it was in the sixties.

But I've never properly explained why I left journalism. Just a few of the reasons:

• So often it never gets to the heart of an issue. It trots out a few basic facts and seldom digs deeper or asks awkward questions.
• It spreads rumours and gossip about celebrities and public figures, much of it malicious and untrue.
• It encourages prejudice of all kinds - racism, sexism, xenophobia, hatred of welfare "scroungers" etc.
• It turns minor incidents into huge controversies (famous actress has wardrobe malfunction)
• It's hypocritical. For example, it laments climate breakdown, but welcomes consumerism and long-distance travel.
• It runs with every fad and fashion, however absurd or irresponsible or pointless.

In the end I just felt uncomfortable as a journalist. There were so many dubious practices I simply couldn't buy into. Bookselling by comparison suited me down to the ground. All I had to do was sell interesting books to interesting people. Nothing uncomfortable there. It kept me happy for 23 highly enjoyable years.

But I still admire a clever tabloid headline.

Thoroughly endearing

Okay, that's enough of the introspective burblings. Yes, I'm full of neuroses but I have plenty of normal, healthy traits as well. In fact I have some highly laudable ones. I uncovered an old blog post in which I listed all my charming and endearing qualities. I think it's about time I dusted them off and gave them another airing:

1) I don't harbour malicious thoughts about friends, loved ones or workmates.
2) I don't hurl anonymous abuse on Twitter.
3) I'm not interested in porn.
4) I'm not misogynistic or homophobic.
5) I'm deeply disturbed by all the poverty, violence, misery and oppression in the world.
6) I've never had an extra-marital affair.
7) I like fluffy kittens and cupcakes.
8) I mind my own business and try not to judge other people's lives.
9) I don't gossip, and I'm good at keeping secrets.
10) I don't annoy the neighbours with loud music or all-night parties.
11) I deplore machismo, male posturing and the rape culture.
12) I've never been to a prostitute.
13) I do my share of the housework.
14) I'm a good listener.
15) I don't hide my emotions.
16) I'm not easily offended.
17) I'm not the jealous type.
18) I like teddy bears and ice cream.
19) I'm not an angry or bad-tempered person.
20) I do all my own laundry.
21) I take off my high heels on delicate parquet flooring.

The first person to accuse me of being smug and boastful will get a clip round the ear.

Trust me

I'm good at keeping secrets. I'm good at being tight-lipped. You can trust me with your most private thoughts, your worst fears, your most emb-arrassing moments, and they'll be safe with me. Far from talking too much, I'm more likely to be saying nothing at all.

Over the years I've been privy to all sorts of odd secrets, and I've never divulged any of them. I'm not a gossip, not an attention-seeker, not a rumour-monger. I appreciate that people have trusted me with something very personal and I'm not going to betray their trust.

I've heard about all manner of things - devastating panic attacks, social anxiety, agoraphobia, strange sexual habits, over-large breasts, breast reduction surgery, illegal drugs, gun ownership, excessive body hair, heavy periods. Only once have I heard about an affair, even though affairs are commonplace. And nobody has confessed to a violent husband. Perhaps I just move in very ethical circles where such things simply don't happen. Yeah, right.

Likewise I've revealed my own deepest secrets to other people, trusting they won't go any further. On the whole my trust has been justified and very seldom have I been betrayed. Which is just as well if I've moved on and I now think of whatever it was I blurted out ten years ago as mortifying idiocy.

I'm amazed at those people who merrily spill out absolutely everything to absolutely everybody. People who seem to be embarrassed by nothing and happy for the entire world to peer into their soul. It's all very entertaining and eye-opening but how can they do it? Are they pioneering a new form of total openness, or are they just unremitting narcissists?

Of course there's not much you can keep secret from your partner. Sooner or later they'll uncover all the weird and tawdry aspects of your character. And then you'll find out if they really love you warts and all. Or whether they run for the hills.

Short of chums

It's curious how some people have a natural talent for friendship, making friends effortlessly wherever they go, while others just never get the hang of it and potential friends come and go like ships in the night.

Being one of the latter, I'm always bemused by the friend-makers. I study them carefully, trying to work out what they're doing right and what I'm doing wrong, but I'm none the wiser. They just have an instinctive way of connecting with others that I seem to have been born without.

There's been no shortage of possible friends-to-be, people who on first encounter I seem to hit it off with. But after a few promising chats, the initial spark flickers out and it goes no further. If a friendship lasts six months, it's a miracle. Is it their fault? Is it my fault? Who can say?

It still bothers me that I'm so crap at making friends*. In a society where virtually everyone seems to have an impressive retinue of devoted buddies, my visible lack of them is embarrassing. I could of course fake a gang of bosom pals I'm gossiping away with every night of the week, but I don't think I could keep up the pretence for long. Why would I want to anyway?

I can tell myself a lack of friends has its advantages. Plenty of peace and quiet. Nobody ringing me in a state of hysterical despair at 2 am. Not having to sympathise with some course of action I secretly find idiotic. Not being expected to explain every domestic row to a dozen people.

But it's not very convincing. The fact is I'd quite like to soothe someone's hysterical despair or share my latest marital upset. I'd quite like to be that close to someone. It's not going to happen though.

"There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate" - Linda Grayson.

*With the notable exception of my long-time partner, of course.

The secret's out

Over the 66 years of my life, I've confided some very intimate, very personal thoughts and feelings to other people. Mainly to Jenny but also to other close and trusted friends.

Have I ever regretted such confessions? Strangely enough, I haven't. I can't recall anything that had damaging consequences or made me feel a reckless idiot.

Other people seem to do it all the time. Those familiar phrases - "Me and my big mouth", "I open my mouth and put my foot in it", "Did I say that out loud?"

Well, I don't use them myself. Have I, for example, ever been unfair to someone, shocked or horrified someone, diminished myself, exposed my weaknesses and frailties? Yes, I've done the last. But I'm happy to do that with people I trust.

Have I revealed things that are simply too private and personal to be shared? I don't think so. Someone can only get to know me properly if I tell them everything that goes on inside me. And that means everything.

There are people I haven't seen for decades who know quite mind-boggling things about me, but I'm not bothered. I doubt they've abused my trust in them, and even if they have, even if they've gossiped shamelessly, it'll be to people I don't know who can't do me any harm.

Then again, I don't need to have confessed to anything. There are glaring shortcomings I've revealed simply in the course of everyday life - sexual hang-ups, social ineptness, nasty habits, chronic self-doubts. But so what? Why be embarrassed that people have stumbled on awkward faults? They have just as many themselves.

I've got nothing to hide. My only worry is what others will do with the information. But by and large my trust hasn't been misplaced.

Under wraps

You know those new super-injunctions that are all the rage? The ones the celebs take out, banning any mention of anything in their private life, especially that sultry affair with the nanny and the pittance they paid the gardener?

Well, I've taken one out myself so my sordid private life is now safe from media exposure and backstreet gossip. From now on, if any of you breathe a word about those tawdry, squalid episodes in my past you'll be facing the sharpest lawyers in town and a huge bill for damages. So watch what you say.

You can reveal as much as you like about my unflagging work for charity and my devotion to the Sacred Order of Divine Bliss. You can refer constantly to my tireless support for stray cats and the Association of Real Spaghetti Eaters.

But any unsavoury allusion to my friendships with the glamorous supermodel Veronica Trinket, the renowned conceptual artist Tanzi Twitch or the legendary footwear designer Binario "Bino" Biscotti will lead straight to the courts.

Any suggestion of over-indulgence in relation to alcohol, drugs, sexual perversions or gambling, any insinuation that I'm a secret admirer of the Royal Family or Morris Dancing, any mention of botched plastic surgery, and you'd better have your cheque book ready.

You can demand the truth as much as you like, but I'm not interested in truth. The only thing that matters is my glittering public image, and if it has to be built on a dungheap of lies, evasions and fantasy, so be it. The masses don't want truth, they want to be lifted out of their barren lives into a shimmering utopia of human perfection.

What d'you mean, there's nothing left to write about? I'm sure you could work up a few paragraphs about my passionate love of goldfish....

Read all about it

I fail to see why the entire private life of a murder suspect is seen as public property as soon as the finger of suspicion is pointed at them.

Why do the media feel entitled to dig all this stuff up and linger on all the colourful details as if they are of huge importance?

We've had columns and columns of titillating gossip about Chris Jefferies, landlord of the flat rented by the murdered landscape architect Joanna Yeates. His eccentricities, his blue-rinsed hair, his confirmed bachelorhood (nudge nudge, wink wink), his love of discipline.

Of course I'm as fascinated by all this tittle-tattle as everyone else. I won't pretend I ignore it all. I love to read the intimate details of other people's lives and draw dodgy conclusions from them.

But why should Mr Jefferies' life be laid bare and spread out before us in page after page of newsprint, as if he no longer has any right to privacy or common decency?

He is a suspect in a murder case. He may be guilty, he may be totally innocent. He hasn't yet been charged or taken to court. But because the police have taken an interest in him, he is somehow assumed to be ripe for a no-holds-barred journalistic striptease.

All we need to know is that he's a suspect, the police have questioned him, and he was Joanna's landlord. The rest is just gratuitous prattle.

Perhaps when the journos have finally scoured the bottom of the barrel, and told us what kind of underpants he prefers, how often he picks his nose, and where he buys his toilet rolls, boredom will set in and they'll be on their way, sniffing out someone juicier.

They just don't know where to stop.

Pic: Chris Jefferies

PS: Joanna's boyfriend, Greg Reardon, has said: "The finger-pointing and character assassination by social and news media of as yet innocent men has been shameful. It has made me lose a lot of faith in the morality of the British Press."

PPS: Monday morning. Police have said Joanna's killer is still "on the loose" and have effectively admitted that Chris Jefferies is innocent. Mr Jefferies is now considering legal action against the police.