FRIENDS can be unpredictable. Never more so than in Hollywood, where a man called Harvey Weinstein had as many admirers as he had film parts.
The Obamas describe him in this video as a good friend and a wonderful human being.
Other fans include Meryl Streep, who thanked him profusely in an Oscar acceptance speech.
I wonder how many of them will be visiting him in prison? ‘Hey, Weinstein, there’s some British guy called Colin Firth come to visit. Don’t try and smuggle any more sausages back into your cell, OK?’
Still, even with the support of those Hollywood Aces, the man they called The Good Feeler won’t have it all his own way in the penitentiary. Convicts take a pretty dim view of men who make unrealistic prison movies.
Talking of cancellations, our favourite think-tank, The UK In A Changing Europe, has had to cancel its ‘Beer & Brexit with John McDonnell’ event on Wednesday.
It was mooted for the old BBC enclave of Bush House in London, but a strike by the University College Union has stopped McDonnell from spreading goodwill to all men. I wonder if he will still trouser the fee?
Good news: The event is back on for Wednesday, March 18.
If you can’t wait for that, have you had the pleasure of seeing Ash Sarkar’s work? Here is a link to one piece where she talks negatively about ‘whiteness’ because, among other things, it’s a composite. She bases this view on the fact that if you add together all colours of the spectrum, you get white light, which is somehow a bad thing.
See for yourself.
Poor Ash. I fear that like many entertainers, she is in a very bad place. No, I don’t just mean Twitter. Imagine having – or wanting – to make a video like this. Surely she needs sympathy and psychological help, because something terrible must have happened to her, I say.
Nonsense, counters Twitterer @jackstone281
‘No, she makes money from this,’ he says. ‘It’s not a Freudian thing, it’s a dollar bill thing.’
The whole thing is horrible, I moan to Tweeters @jackstone281 and @dominiquetaegon
What sort of a business model is Ash employing? Is this way of making a living now a recognised trade with its own name and section in the business directories? A BroadGhastly perhaps. Maybe Ash, Owen Jones, Paul Mason, Katy Hopkins, Mehdi Hasan & Co should have their own show at Excel: Trollex
It might be wise not to waste any more of our precious lives on these people, if at all possible. Still, they are difficult to ignore.
Can you imagine how dangerous Ash Sourcream will be when she’s read ALL of the Ladybird Book of Science?
A man who has read all the Ladybird books on science, and I daresay a lot more, is Richard Delingpole. I never met the man, but he seems to share my despair of Private Eye.
‘Against some pretty stiff competition, this has to be the least funny Private Eye cover for several months,’ says @DickDelingpole. ‘Surely even the staunchest Remoaner would barely smirk?’
I had a different interpretation of the cover. I take it to mean that Ian Hislop & Co have sheltered in exclusive Anglo-Saxon institutions all their lives. Hislop was incubated at public school, then Oxford, then planted straight into his jobs at Private Eye and in BBC Comedy.
To divert attention from their own great fortune, people in those positions often project their guilt on to others. We have to suffer the accusations of bigotry because they feel bad about themselves.
Still, at least he’s not thankful to Harvey Weinstein for putting him where he is today.
