The scene was last Tuesday. It was a clear night in winter, with the stars brightening and the scent of mulled grapes in the air.
It was a wonderful opportunity to attend a pre-Christmas party in Hampstead Heath in North London.
It’s the season for joy, with children playing, light shows, and a lot of people around. I was able to feel a genuine sense of joy, after two miserable years. As my friends and me walked along the beautiful lit streets, it felt like Christmas.
Who should we bump into but ITV’s Jonathan Ross and his wife Jane Goldman, their daughter Honey and her boyfriend Zane Saz?
It was a wonderful opportunity to join a pre-Christmas celebration at 17th century Kenwood House, Hampstead Heath. Who should we bump into but ITV’s Jonathan Ross and his wife Jane Goldman, their daughter Honey and her boyfriend Zane Saz?
As we stood outside the burger bar, Ross turned to me and said: ‘They don’t allow dogs in here, Amanda.’
If it was meant to be funny, it wasn’t. It hurt, but it was my job as a columnist. It was quite humiliating.
Amanda Platell has more to say about the Daily Mail…
My friend’s husband had to restrain himself from launching into Ross, which was also my natural instinct.
What gives any man — any person — the right to describe a woman as a ‘dog’, let alone a very public figure and star presenter on ITV.
This is someone who boasted in 2019 on Loose Women that ‘as the youngsters say, I’m fairly woke’. Well, it’s not very woke to deride a woman like that, is it Jonathan?
Am I really surprised? Perhaps not. This week, one of Ross’s guests on his ITV show, Sheridan Smith, said her treatment was nothing short of misogynistic — her word. The social media tsunami that ensued was dominated by people who agreed with her, saying that she was ignored while Ross entertained his male guests Gary Barlow (Jeremy Clarkson), Riz Ahmed, and Stephen Merchant.
And let’s not forget that, when it comes to casual insults, Ross has shocking form. He and Russell Brand made those unforgivable prank calls to Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs, leaving disgusting messages on his phone, one with Ross shouting ‘he f***ed your granddaughter’.
Ross joined ITV after both were removed from BBC.
Ross could have felt compelled to speak out against me as a protector father on Tuesday. Certainly, I have written critically of Honey in the past, questioning whether she was wise to post pictures of herself, size 18 in a G-string, in an attempt to shame a ‘fat-phobic’ world.
She’s also denounced her parents for trying to make her diet during her adolescence into a ‘normal’ size.
Whatever the reason for Ross’s vile insinuation that I was a ‘dog’, perhaps he should have stopped and thought how he would feel if some stranger had said that to his wife or daughter.
Am I the only woman to feel that mandatory mask-wearing — after fewer than 30 cases of Omicron — is rather misogynistic? If we all wear red lipsticks this holiday season, it will take us 30 minutes to get from one place to another.
Amol may have marred the BBC, I am afraid
‘I’m about to throw a brick at Kate and Wills’, ‘Must we endure endless sycophantic and shameless monarchist propaganda?’ and Prince Philip is ‘a racist buffoon’.
An anonymous and idiotic internet troll? No, a selection of the publicly-stated historic opinions of the BBC’s golden boy, the gold jewellery-sporting Amol Rajan, a proud republican given the job of presenting the now discredited pro-Sussex two-part documentary The Princes And The Press.
BBC insiders say he’s a shoo-in to replace Andrew Marr on their hitherto unbiased flagship political show. The royal brickbats are ready!
Charles, Rihanna, and a Royal Flush
Rihanna (33) was stunning in her golden gown as she accepted her National Hero of Barbados Award as the Caribbean island became an independent republic. She also showed off her beautiful, feminine stomach and full breasts when she hugged Prince Charles. Let’s hope he had some smelling salts to hand.
Rihanna (33) was stunning in her golden gown as she accepted her National Hero of Barbados Award as the Caribbean island became an independent republic. She showed off her beautiful, feminine stomach and breasts while hugging Prince Charles. Let’s hope he had some smelling salts to hand
Through to the quarter-finals and tipped to win the glitter ball, Strictly’s deaf dancer Rose Ayling-Ellis says she turns down lucrative deals to endorse hearing aids, refusing to promote any devices not provided by the NHS which has cared for her since she was a child. Rose could not be more charming.
In her brazen statement after the court verdict against The Mail On Sunday, Meghan declared: ‘This is a victory not just for me, but for everyone who has ever felt scared to stand up for what’s right.’
This is not a duchess of Cambridge who has a millionaire husband and was born into the Royal Family. She’s not in any way like the rest of us.
And I’d have more respect for Meghan if she’d seen her father even just once after she got married to Harry, who himself has never met him. Doing ‘what’s right’ is a daughter behaving respectfully to her devoted father.
This is no excuse to wear high-fashion!
This is one of the creations of new, must-have designer Nensi Dojaka, who says of her £1,500 plus ‘frocks’ that she ‘doesn’t like anything too pretty or too exposed, I have an eye where to stop’.
Crikey, if a bit of gossamer thrown over your undies is what she thinks is fashion, I’d say it IS time for her to stop!
This is one of the creations of new, must-have designer Nensi Dojaka, who says of her £1,500 plus ‘frocks’ that she ‘doesn’t like anything too pretty or too exposed, I have an eye where to stop’
Harry has lost all hope
On World Aids Day, Prince Harry said Covid was like HIV, that ‘corporate greed’ and the ‘political failure’ to provide vaccines have caused the unnecessary deaths of millions of people.
Three of my dearest friends died from Aids in the 1980s, 1990s. No treatment, no vaccine was available. As tragically proved by Freddie Mercury’s premature death 30 years ago, it didn’t matter how rich you were, Aids was a death sentence.
To conflate medicines for Aids with vaccines for Covid just proves Harry really doesn’t have a clue.
Of all the contraband confiscated from the stars on I’m A Celebrity, — including Oxo cubes, Nescafe Gold and Fruitellas — most surprising was DJ Naughty Boy’s nail file. Given that he threatens nightly to flee the set, Mummy’s Boy should have smuggled in a hacksaw to help him escape . . . and put the series’ dwindling number of viewers out of their misery.
Airbnb is offering a holiday season rental of the home where Home Alone was shot. Why would anyone want to stay where the then ten-year-old Macaulay Culkin’s character was abandoned by his parents and tormented by two robbers?
Languishing in the polls ahead of next year’s election, France’s Brit-bashing President Macron says of our PM: ‘It is very sad to see a great country led by a clown.’
Yes, a clown with an 80-seat maj-ority, the fastest growing economy in Europe (while France’s tanks), and consistently ahead in the polls over Sir Keir Starmer. Here’s guessing Bojo the clown will have the last laugh.
Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey, 50, wants to ban ‘snogging under the mistletoe’ this Christmas. In your dreams, dear.
Five words of advice to the Foreign Secretary Liz Truss after shamelessly copying Margaret Thatcher’s famous photo-pose riding in a tank: naked ambition is very unattractive.
Even if her fashion empire is struggling, it’s a bit crass of Stella McCartney to launch a Beatles fashion line to coincide with the new documentary of the Fab Four. Her Strawberry Fields jumper costs £895. Time to stop milking your dad’s fame and let it be, Stella.
The inspiration of a Londoner winning the prize to the oldest iron working (a Morphy Richards purchased by his grandmother in 1940s), is unsurpassed. So I’m hanging on to my Sony bedside clock radio, bought in 1985 and still going strong, in the hope I’ll one day win a prize for the longest ever bedside companion. It’s seen me through one marriage, four engagements and various romantic entanglements. Thank goodness these antiquated clocks can’t talk.