Some flotsam and jetsam

Hoorah for Princess Beatrice!
Showing the judgment and humour that has sadly eluded her parents all their life, Princess Beatrice has sold her much maligned RW hat on eBay, to raise money for charity. Could it be that Beatrice is going to show common sense and realism, in spite of her parents? Only a few days ago, Sarah, Duchess of York, was still spouting incomprehensible psycho-babble. "If I had a brand identity, it would be as a global mother." ??? Beatrice said she hoped whoever bought the hat would have as much fun with it as she had.

And hoorah for Twitter while we're about it
So many amusing tweets about the Premiership footballer and his affair with a Big Brother wannabe. There was talk that Ryan Giggs' solicitors were going to sue the 30,000 people on Twitter who had breached the Super Injunction (yep, that includes me). Another wag wrote that Ryan Giggs appears to be the only celebrity not being sued by the "mystery Premiership footballer".

I can't imagine the US owners of Twitter are quaking in their boots knowing that a few plummy English lawyers are apoplectic about their new cash cow, the Super Injunction, being proved worthless.  What can they actually do? They can hardly force the closure of Twitter. I for one am laughing at the way we, the good old British public, is having a laugh at the foibles of a foolish man who tried to cover up his folly by splashing the cash.

The unpredictable nature of cosmetic surgery
No wonder Sarah Jessica Parker has said she won't have cosmetic surgery because she doesn't want to end up looking mad. This week's photos of Marie Helvin, who has always maintained she's had nothing done (yeah, right) show her starting to look somewhat deranged. You'd think that with access to the best plastic surgeons that California has to offer, some of the maturing filmstars wouldn't look quite so dreadful. Faye Dunaway, for example, or Melanie Griffith  (although thankfully she is a little more restrained these days). It seems a bit of a lottery. You can either look wonderful, like Jane Fonda, Sharon Stone or Demi Moore, or rather weird, like Madonna, Cher, the Bride of Wildenstein and Ivana Trump. It's a pity they don't have a ratings system, like guest houses or Trip Advisor. Maybe that's a great idea for a new website.

119/365: Sore Misgivings about Sex and The City II

I have always loved Sex & The City. I have the boxed DVD set of the TV series and the film. When  the first film opened, I scuttled off to Leicester Square to see its inaugural showing. There were lots of corsages on some very highly excited women, and a huge cheer went up when it turned out dear Dame Vivienne supplied the wedding dress.

But I have Sore Misgivings, to quote Mrs Fussey from Carry On Camping, about the latest film, due out on May 28th.

From what we have seen, the odd photo here and there, the fab four end up somewhere that's either Morocco or Abu Dhabi. Somewhere hot with camels. Kim Cattrall on a camel?? And I'm thinking: all too improbable. 

I could understand how, in the first film, they dropped everything to be with Carrie on her wrecked honeymoon. But for four busy women, how easy would it be to do that again?

Plus, I hear Aidan is back. I always thought he was totally unsuitable for Carrie and long gone, married with a baby etc. Yet we hear that he's back. Does this mean her marriage to Big has run into problems? Or is Aidan's reappearance just a red herring? There was a story that Big falls for Penelope Cruz. Well, after all the fuss about the wedding in the first film, and our notion that at last Carrie and Big were together For Good, this would be a crushing blow.

I'm afraid it's all sounding a bit silly. When you look at the first TV series, it was really quite edgy and ahead of its time. Now it's increasingly becoming like Golden Girls. And there's no reason why we won't still be watching it in 30 years' time, with Carrie and co talking about zimmer frames and rest homes. There would be nothing wrong with that provided it still remained edgy and current. Challenging.

By the way I had to laugh at the photo published today by the ridiculous Daily Mail. They chose the most unflattering picture of Sarah Jessica Parker they could find so that they could slate her as "too thin!" A female celebrity is only ever too thin or too"curvy". This is nonsense. In any batch of photos of any women, there will always be one or two where you look odd or have your eyes shut. So why do they always choose the worst one? Why do we let them get away with it?

Sex and the City - don't do it

I have, in the words of Mrs Fussey from the immortal film "Carry On Camping," got sore misgivings about the forthcoming film of Sex and the City.

It's three years, though it seems longer, since we last saw Carrie and co. Now I was a great fan of SATC, but I'm less than enthusiastic about the prospect of The Film. The photos we've seen so far, which are apparently dream sequences of weddings to throw us off the scent (though they probably really are wedding scenes) just show how the girls are ageing, badly. Carrie, in a wedding dress, looks so thin her bones are jutting out. Ewww. I can't help thinking the whole thing is going to be a pale imitation of the original series, sadly played out but played by the girls to get one last crack at the dollars.

I can write the story of the film now. Carrie, reunited in Paris with Big, finds out he really is a shallow shmuck and ends up marrying someone else very quickly (Aidan?). Samantha probably dies (I read someone does). Miranda gets her long awaited happy ever after. Not sure about Charlotte. More of the same I suppose, with her solicitor husband and adopted children.

When has the film of a series ever been any good? I can't think of any instances. Star Trek? Noooo. Bewitched? Definitely not. Dr Who? (Has there been a film of Dr Who? Oh - I read that's another one in the making).

Still, there's always the possibility the SATC film may still get shelved. Apparently Sarah Jessica Parker and Kim Cattrall are at each other's throats again, so one of them may have a hissy fit and walk out. Or, I suppose, the rushes could be so bad it goes straight to DVD.