Friday, February 02, 2007
Nirpal Dhaliwal - Watch Part Ten.
Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight, Part Nine.
Sometimes the differing lead times for articles makes you wonder about in which order they were written. In The Mail on Sunday Liz Jones writes about how she's in New York and prepared to confront the latest woman Nirpal has been seeing behind her back. She has a long speech listing Nirp's various deficiencies as a husband and partner:
Then, of course, I might be tempted to tell her that she is welcome to him. That I hope she is looking forward to, ooh, five or six years of supporting him while he writes his second novel. And not to expect him to pay any bills, or buy anything useful, like a bath towel, although he might lose your best ones when he decides to take up swimming. Do not ever expect him to take the rubbish out, or to make you coffee in the morning, or to talk to you while you drink it. I so hope, Daphne, you are looking forward to him overheating your sitting room for his yoga sessions (he did, in order to perform headstands in tropical heat, finally, after six years, learn how to operate the central heating system), during which time you will not be allowed to speak to him, or call goodbye as you leave for your 14-hour day in an office. Oh, and Daphne, you will have to say goodbye to ever reading again in bed (he has to be up early for yoga).
And don't expect any sex, ever. Or support, should you ever be sacked from your job as a travel agent. (When I was ousted as editor of Marie Claire, a job I had worked 20 years to get, my future husband said, 'You were always moaning about it anyway,' and I spent my redundancy money not on paying off my mortgage but supporting him.) Oh, and if you have major gynaecological surgery, expect him to shout at you down the phone while you come round from the anaesthetic, and be late to pick you up.
Don't expect any flowers.
Only to find that Daphne isn't in the office. So it's time to fly home. She texts him on the way to the airport.
'I have had enough. I tell you I am unhappy and you say nothing. You are stony, impenetrable, like a wall. I want you to move out.' As I am boarding my plane, he still hasn't called me back.
So this was published on The Sunday, about events that presumably happened in the last week or maybe fortnight.
The previous Wednesday, the 10th, Nirpal writes this for the Standard.
Had a charisma bypass? Then you must be a fashionista.
FASHION is rubbish. Watch Ugly Betty and you' l l realise that fashion is so rubbish, that even programmes that lampoon the fashion industry can be nothing but rubbish. Fashion is the most mainstream preoccupation on earth, and no one is more middle-of-the-road and less original than those who give a toss about it.
The most amusing thing about London is observing the carnival of fashion-addicted clowns who abound in the capital. Neurotic and pretentious berks from across the country - indeed the world - make their way here, hoping they'll finally live the stupid glossy-mag dream they've always hankered for. Every type of narcissistic sap is here, from haughty Hoxton hussies in their trashy Eighties retro outfits to effete snake-hipped fops who'll starve themselves to fit into a suit by Richard James.
Despite their desperation to seem otherwise, the fashion- conscious are conspicuously lame. They are the antithesis of cool. Coolness is about nonchalance and indifference to what people think of you. But this is the exact opposite of how the fashionistas live, being obsessed with their appearance and what people think of them.
Hang out with the fashion-conscious and you realise they think they're being watched and appraised all the time. Talk to one at a party and you'll see their eyes flit across the room comparing their look to everyone else's, trying to see if there's anyone hipper they should be speaking to. They consider themselves to be highly refined aesthetes, but are, in fact, just self-regarding aesholes.
For many people, trendiness has come to replace sexiness as their most desired quality. Empty-eyed Kate Moss might be the most styled woman in Britain, but she's nowhere near the sexiest. The vacant, near-dead look in her face suggests she's the most boring lay on earth. Give me a Plain Jane with a twinkle in her eye any day. But most women would rather look like her than cultivate the self- assured sauciness that really turns guys on.
Fashion has become a substitute for charisma, and its rise in popular culture has coincided with the death of cool. Blase icons of cool like Marlon Brando just don't exist any more. When a Brylcreemed, squeaky-voiced ditz like David Beckham is regarded as a role model, you know that society no longer has any idea of what to look up to.
It's cheesy and unmanly for a guy to be concerned with his looks. All the guff about "metrosexuality" was just a smokescreen for selfloathing straight-acting homos who wanted to keep their wives but enjoy their facials without being forced out of the closet.
Fashion is the pits. It's a tapestry of lies that's a camouflage for those who lack innate charm and personality. And it's time we all wised up to this.
Hah hah! Which came first?
Other than Big Brother and the death of his gran Nirpal has had a quiet January. Liz has spent the rest of her time writing about fashion so we'll have to wait and see whether she stuck to her guns when she returned to London or whether Nirpal managed to play on her pathological fear of ageing and being alone to keep his feet under the table.
This is fun. I'd feel some guilt about reading these articles if someone was ever able to convince me that Liz and Nirps were real people.
Sometimes the differing lead times for articles makes you wonder about in which order they were written. In The Mail on Sunday Liz Jones writes about how she's in New York and prepared to confront the latest woman Nirpal has been seeing behind her back. She has a long speech listing Nirp's various deficiencies as a husband and partner:
Then, of course, I might be tempted to tell her that she is welcome to him. That I hope she is looking forward to, ooh, five or six years of supporting him while he writes his second novel. And not to expect him to pay any bills, or buy anything useful, like a bath towel, although he might lose your best ones when he decides to take up swimming. Do not ever expect him to take the rubbish out, or to make you coffee in the morning, or to talk to you while you drink it. I so hope, Daphne, you are looking forward to him overheating your sitting room for his yoga sessions (he did, in order to perform headstands in tropical heat, finally, after six years, learn how to operate the central heating system), during which time you will not be allowed to speak to him, or call goodbye as you leave for your 14-hour day in an office. Oh, and Daphne, you will have to say goodbye to ever reading again in bed (he has to be up early for yoga).
And don't expect any sex, ever. Or support, should you ever be sacked from your job as a travel agent. (When I was ousted as editor of Marie Claire, a job I had worked 20 years to get, my future husband said, 'You were always moaning about it anyway,' and I spent my redundancy money not on paying off my mortgage but supporting him.) Oh, and if you have major gynaecological surgery, expect him to shout at you down the phone while you come round from the anaesthetic, and be late to pick you up.
Don't expect any flowers.
Only to find that Daphne isn't in the office. So it's time to fly home. She texts him on the way to the airport.
'I have had enough. I tell you I am unhappy and you say nothing. You are stony, impenetrable, like a wall. I want you to move out.' As I am boarding my plane, he still hasn't called me back.
So this was published on The Sunday, about events that presumably happened in the last week or maybe fortnight.
The previous Wednesday, the 10th, Nirpal writes this for the Standard.
Had a charisma bypass? Then you must be a fashionista.
FASHION is rubbish. Watch Ugly Betty and you' l l realise that fashion is so rubbish, that even programmes that lampoon the fashion industry can be nothing but rubbish. Fashion is the most mainstream preoccupation on earth, and no one is more middle-of-the-road and less original than those who give a toss about it.
The most amusing thing about London is observing the carnival of fashion-addicted clowns who abound in the capital. Neurotic and pretentious berks from across the country - indeed the world - make their way here, hoping they'll finally live the stupid glossy-mag dream they've always hankered for. Every type of narcissistic sap is here, from haughty Hoxton hussies in their trashy Eighties retro outfits to effete snake-hipped fops who'll starve themselves to fit into a suit by Richard James.
Despite their desperation to seem otherwise, the fashion- conscious are conspicuously lame. They are the antithesis of cool. Coolness is about nonchalance and indifference to what people think of you. But this is the exact opposite of how the fashionistas live, being obsessed with their appearance and what people think of them.
Hang out with the fashion-conscious and you realise they think they're being watched and appraised all the time. Talk to one at a party and you'll see their eyes flit across the room comparing their look to everyone else's, trying to see if there's anyone hipper they should be speaking to. They consider themselves to be highly refined aesthetes, but are, in fact, just self-regarding aesholes.
For many people, trendiness has come to replace sexiness as their most desired quality. Empty-eyed Kate Moss might be the most styled woman in Britain, but she's nowhere near the sexiest. The vacant, near-dead look in her face suggests she's the most boring lay on earth. Give me a Plain Jane with a twinkle in her eye any day. But most women would rather look like her than cultivate the self- assured sauciness that really turns guys on.
Fashion has become a substitute for charisma, and its rise in popular culture has coincided with the death of cool. Blase icons of cool like Marlon Brando just don't exist any more. When a Brylcreemed, squeaky-voiced ditz like David Beckham is regarded as a role model, you know that society no longer has any idea of what to look up to.
It's cheesy and unmanly for a guy to be concerned with his looks. All the guff about "metrosexuality" was just a smokescreen for selfloathing straight-acting homos who wanted to keep their wives but enjoy their facials without being forced out of the closet.
Fashion is the pits. It's a tapestry of lies that's a camouflage for those who lack innate charm and personality. And it's time we all wised up to this.
Hah hah! Which came first?
Other than Big Brother and the death of his gran Nirpal has had a quiet January. Liz has spent the rest of her time writing about fashion so we'll have to wait and see whether she stuck to her guns when she returned to London or whether Nirpal managed to play on her pathological fear of ageing and being alone to keep his feet under the table.
This is fun. I'd feel some guilt about reading these articles if someone was ever able to convince me that Liz and Nirps were real people.
Labels: journalists, Liz Jones, Nirpal Dhaliwal
