Nigella contretemps

Let me start this by saying that I don't know whether Nigella was assaulted by her husband. If he did, then I have absolutely no fucking time for him whatsoever and he deserves whatever's coming to him after due process.

I do not condone domestic violence, I despise anyone who picks on someone unable to defend themselves. I despise the mental abuse that accompanies the physical violence in these situations.

And yet, I have to say that I don't really think ANYONE has enough evidence based on the pictures to form an opinion.

Let me just say this: a Labour-supporting newspaper publishes a set of photos depicting someone who helped the Tories in an unflattering light. We don't know how many photos there are, the person who could have submitted only some of the photos or the paper could have chosen the photos to fit a certain narrative. The article is full of irrelevant bollocks, disparaging innuendo passing as comment and "onlookers said". The assaultee seems to have carried on living with the assaulter and seems perfectly happy. There have never even been rumours of marital

Based on the photos, the body language for an assault is entirely wrong. I've seen similar role-playing behaviour between consenting adults.

I'd have absolutely no trouble believing that Saatchi was a dom and that Nigella was a sub. And if you didn't know what goes on in the world of BDSM, you would quite likely freak out if you saw it being enacted in public. But the key difference between kink and domestic violence is the issue of consent. And if two consenting adults choose to do things that you or I find incomprehensible, does this mean that the police need to be involved?

So I'm not going to say that it's not assault, but I'm not immediately convinced that it is. I'm certainly not going to rush to judgment on the basis of those photos.

If it was a bit of hanky-panky, I'm bloody sure they both regret it; if it was assault, it's surely her decision to make something of it, or not.

I'm unsurprised that feminists have been jumping up and down about this, immediately calling it domestic violence, demanding police action and making snarky remarks about anybody with a contrary opinion.

However, I've been fucking horrified by "anarchists" calling for the police to get involved in the private affairs of a successful, powerful, adult woman. It's almost like they don't think she's capable of cutting his balls off with a deft twitch of a kitchen knife or, you know, going to the police herself.

The whole thing is profoundly depressing to me.

Update: I spoke to a professional domme about this. She says that the body language is not fully the language of someone who's enjoying it. But even she isn't sure that it's not a bit of roleplay. She thinks that Mr Saatchi may be a bit unpleasant. The jury is still out on what happened, but no matter what the truth is, it's none of our fucking business unless they choose to make it public.

Second update: Apparently Mr Saatchi is a cunt who has accepted a police caution for assault. So that's me told.

Third update: I believe a divorce is in the offing. So I was completely wrong.

No change there, then.

In praise of the Z-list celebrity

They are the bane of our lives, aren't they? An endless parade of nonentities and makeweights who are famous, merely for being famous, in a kind of Möbius strip of incomprehensibility. And yet, there seems to be an endless supply of complete nobodies who are willing to line up and subject themselves to eternal scrutiny, people rummaging through their bins, deals with devils, etc., in exchange for the dubious benefits of celebrity.

But for the right person, those benefits are not at all dubious. I've previously blogged about how Jade Goody parlayed no obvious talents or skills into a huge sum of money before her untimely demise.

And then you read the bald life story of someone like Kerry Katona and all you can do is respect someone that has overcome all that and still stand up and make a life for themselves and for their kids.

And perhaps we have to wonder about the kind of society we have, where the only way for these broken, damaged people to make a living for themselves is to prostitute their souls to the world of media. Why is it that in the caring, considerate, decent society we have after decades of social justice and welfare, this is the only way these people can make a decent life for themselves?

Why is it that after so many years of welfare, social justice, every child matters, and every other bullshit piss-money-against-a-wall bit of socialist meddling, people are still in a place like this?

Why are socialist advocates so sure that channelling more money from one group to another is the way forward, rather than a society where there is genuine interdependence, where people have to rely on each other, rather than faceless bureaucrats, to make things happen and get through life?

As ever, I regard the welfare state as the cause of dreadful stories like this, rather than the solution.

Torn

I know it's Amy Winehouse who's dead and not Natalie Imbruglia. But I do feel torn, because part of me feels that we all have responsibility for our own lives, while part of me understands very fucking well indeed what it's like to lose control of your life and everything spirals out of your reach and to reach for something that will take the pain away, even if it's for a while.

I don't mind mentalist jokes and abuse, indeed, absolutely nothing matters to me any more, and I suspect Amy felt the same. Yes, it's sad for those left behind, but they were unable to feel Amy's pain and there was nothing they could do to help her.

It's a shit crumb of comfort to take away, if you actually knew Amy, but at least she has peace now.

I can't tell you how much I crave that myself. Peace. No more pain. No more despair.

But equally, if she was anything like me, I don't expect or want some well-meaning, better-knowing cuntwaft to come in and sort it out for me. It can't be done. The damage is all inside me, nothing outside can touch it, let alone heal it.

I'm standing at the top of the same staircase she was. I've take a few tentative steps down in to the comforting darkness. I'm on my own. No-one can hold my hand and lead me out. The damage is done and the only person who can decide which way I'm going to go, every day, is me. All the love, all the pills, all the money in the world can't drag me up again.

It's all in my head.

Either I escape, or eventually, the pain gets too much and I get my peace.

Either way you win.

Celebrity overdose

I was tickled to find out about the huge demand for the Pope's visit over at the Bristolian:

Thousands of tickets remain unsold for events during the visit of the Pope, who arrives in Scotland on Thursday.

The largest organised event is an open-air Mass at Bellahouston Park in Glasgow on the opening day of Pope Benedict XVI's trip to the UK.

The capacity has been reduced to 80,000 after a slow take-up of tickets.

I wonder if the root cause of this isn't anything like what Dave thinks: he believes it's because fundamental Christianity (or indeed any Christianity) is increasingly irrelevant in our modern society.

I'm not so sure. Back when JP2 was Pope, there were many fewer celebrities than their are now. Many, many people would have gone to see the last Pope speak, not because they were fervent Catholics, but because it was a chance to see someone famous. Marginal Catholics would have gone to see the Pope for much the same reason.

But we are so inundated with "famous" people nowadays that the genuinely famous are reduced to mere high points in a wall of noise.

I was stuck in the doctor's surgery the other day and flipped through some or other "sleb" magazine, featuring the earth-shattering news that some former Big Brother "star" went and banged her equally "famous" co-star and ex-husband.

People were clearly willing to pay good money to read this tawdry drivel about two people who were not actually "has-beens", but rather "never-weres". And they pay this money on a weekly basis to find out more of this important and world-changing news.

Given that it's so easy and cheap to get a fix of "sleb", and given that most slebs have happily reduced the presentation of their lives to the same vacuous low standards, is it a surprise that no-one is happy to pay big money and expend any effort to go gawk at someone who really is famous*.

*This does not imply any kind of endorsement of Popes, Catholics, paedophiles or skyfairy fuckwittery.