Platell’s People
Wednesday, 13 May 2009
I was going to stop blogging about Amanda Platell. I was starting to feel guilty. I was thinking, you know, she’s just a hack trying to make a living like the rest of us, her opinions differ from mine, that’s fine, don’t want to be attacking fellow women in the press, doesn’t seem right, besides how awkward if we met at a party. So, when I read her item in this week’s “Platell’s People” which said
“FLAKE OF THE WEEK: Paris Hilton says she’s the busiest person in the entire world and has to Google herself to check what she’s been up to recently. You have to admire someone who presumably must work so hard to come across as being so stupid.”
- I WASN’T GOING TO write about it, I wasn’t going to point out that Paris Hilton was obviously making a joke that Platell has completely missed - a good, self-aware joke - and laugh about the irony in the second sentence.
But then I read another item in the same column, about Alex Mosley, the son of Max Mosley who died of an accidental drug overdose last week. Platell wrote this:
“Any parent who has lost a child to suicide [sic] is haunted by thoughts of what they could have done to prevent such needless deaths… [Max] Mosley has consistently blamed the red-top newspaper that exposed his sordid secret for causing his family distress, but never once accepted any blame for the way he deceived his wife and sons for so long. Is it too much to hope that his son’s tragic death should be the cue for a little honesty and humility?”
And now I realize that if there is a Hell, Amanda Platell is going there, and if we do ever meet socially then I should have absolutely no interest in being polite to her anyway. I think this is the most twisted, poisonous, immoral thing I have ever read in a newspaper, and that’s saying a beakful.
HUMILITY? She hopes this man is HUMBLED by his son’s death? She hopes that he will find a way to blame himself? She is a truly evil woman.
I think what I hate most is the phrase “Is it too much to hope…” There’s something absolutely disgusting about the use of that phrase in the context of what she is hoping for. She is hoping for the further suffering of Max Mosley. He has lost his child. She hopes - HOPE! That most beautiful, tender, human, poignant of emotions - that the savage loss itself is not enough, that he will also be suffering self-blame and “humility”. How dare she hope anything, in relation to this man she’s never met who is mourning his son? How dare she connect the recent exposure of a father’s embarrassing sexual habits with a son’s drug problems which long preceded the tabloid story? Yes, I would guess that Max Mosley’s grief, at the moment, also includes a terrible sorrow that Alex had to find out about that embarrassing personal stuff only a few months before he died. But what kind of person is PLEASED to imagine that? What kind of person hopes that he goes even further, connects the two and BLAMES HIMSELF? Only a person with no kindness, gentleness or humanity in her at all.
God, I hate her.
Comments
Sam at 4:34 pm on May 13th, 2009
She is definitely one of the bigger twats in the media today, and that’s saying something. I am not sure the logic of admitting this, but last week I was leaving a pub in the earlier hours after drinking too much scotch and noticed a van delivering all the papers had stopped outside the newsagents. Me and a friend stole an entire batch of the Daily Mail. Ahh, I still don’t know if I should have done it…felt great though.
David Young at 7:22 pm on May 13th, 2009
There’s something about the inclusion of sex into a story that makes some people lose their heads. Right after I read this piece, I chanced upon this in the Indy:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/craigslist-dropping-erotic-services-ads-1684349.html
The story is that the online directory Craigslist won’t run ads for escorts any more. We are told that:
“Pressure to remove the category increased this spring after a Boston medical student was charged with killing a masseuse who authorities say he met through Craigslist.”
I’d like to know whether they would be as quick to shut down a category if he’d killed a plumber or a manicurist. What is it about some people that they have to turn everything into a morality tale?
joeking at 9:41 pm on May 13th, 2009
I rather fancy Platell. Maybe her mind is less gorgeous.
LC at 12:59 am on May 14th, 2009
According to Wikipedia, Amanda Platell is 51!
Clearly spitting her bile has done wonders for the aging process. Who needs moisturisers when you’ve got a column in the Daily Mail to vent those frustrations (and wrinkles) away?
Dave P at 3:36 am on May 14th, 2009
I’m wondering whether the wrinkle free face owes more to botox or to a portrait in the attic.
I tend to think the former as the devil would have no need to make a deal for Platell’s soul.
John at 12:36 pm on May 14th, 2009
Why is twat a wildflower meadow of a word whereas **** is a fly-blown unmentionable? It can’t simply be down to the Countdown consonants… and vowel. You could have slipped one into your blog, but would the seas have boiled if you’d chosen the ‘wrong’ one? Exactly: there is no ‘wrong’ one.
[MODERATOR’S NOTE: APOLOGIES FOR ADDING ASTERISKS AND, THEREFORE, IRONY]
Keith at 6:54 pm on May 14th, 2009
I’m going to try to defend the indefensible.
The only explanation for this article is Ms Platell hates her job and each column’s deadline is put off as late as possible while she does enjoyable things.
Then with 15 minutes to spare she picks up a 2 day old newspaper and just writes the first thing that comes into her head about it.
Anyone with even one ounce of compassion or love in their life could not have written this if they spent just a moment to ponder it.
J*hn at 7:10 pm on May 14th, 2009
Hey, no apology necessary. Thank you for adding the fucking irony.
David R at 2:38 am on May 15th, 2009
Imagine if the word “asterisk” became a swear word. Now that would be ironic.
rog at 1:28 pm on May 15th, 2009
Amanda who? Typical hack.. Although as you seem to mention her frequently… perhaps a supressed desire to take her to dinner and propose a civil wedding!
In life there are more important issues, such as is there going to be a Shrek 4…Will balderdash and piffle be back on TV and will you finally decide to become a celebrity chief, aka Nigella Lawson… Top ten poker meals…
John at 2:01 pm on May 15th, 2009
I won’t go on and on about this, BUT… I’m still none the wiser: why is only one of these words worth four stars… twat, ****, fuck? Who makes up the rules? Maybe it has something to do with the old four star petrol and the person who asked for a gallon of ****. When in doubt, mash the motorist.
[MOD: NOT SURE ABOUT F***, SHOULD PROBABLY ASTERISK BUT NOT SURE, THE IDEA IS THAT VIEWERS OF BALDERDASH OR ONLY CONNECT MIGHT FIND THEMSELVES HERE, AND THAT GROUP MIGHT INCLUDE PEOPLE WHO WOULD BE OFFENDED BY CERTAIN WORDS USED ‘UNNECESSARILY’, AND DON’T REALLY WANT TO CAUSE OFFENCE.]
AndytheDealer at 10:25 pm on May 15th, 2009
Who’d be a moderator, eh?
Man goes into a garage, petrol pump attendant says,
‘Can I help you sir?’
‘Yes, I’ll have 4 gallons of ****, you **** petrol pump attendant’ replies customer.
‘That’s very kind of you to say so sir. That will be 3 shillings and 6 pence, you **** customer!’
Ah, the good old days, when petrol cost less than 5p a litre and when calling someone a **** didn’t start a fight.
After her superb performances on Heresy I’m looking forward to seeing Vicky on Have I got News for You. Have I got a seconder?
Sam at 10:46 pm on May 15th, 2009
I guess I would join the group that would enjoy the freedom to refer to Amanda Platell as a complete f****** **** without the fear of having my carefully crafted insult reduced to just an asterix or two.
Not that I really care.
[MOD: STOP, STOP, PLEASE!]
Dave P at 11:43 pm on May 15th, 2009
Perhaps as MOD you need a list of banned obscene words from each blog owner. Might I suggest that Vicky starts with A***** P******.
LC at 11:44 pm on May 15th, 2009
It exists, Sam!
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?sid=04eadc01833618f905810110af10460f&gid=27286805422&ref=search
Go right ahead on there and call her a vile bigoted hack. Or a fucking horrendous right-wing twatbag. Or a poisonous bitchatron.Whatever takes your fancy.
(Apologies Mod, sometimes the sheer fun of being awful and sweary is too hard to pass by.)
Sam at 11:20 am on May 16th, 2009
Apologies to anyone it offends. Also to the Moderator for increasing their workload.
Like I say, I really don’t care and if it’s a problem just delete or edit it.
Sam at 2:58 pm on May 16th, 2009
Thanks LC. I’ve joined of course. Though I feel like my life will be incomplete now if we don’t also get Vicky to join.
Poisonous bitchatron is brilliant by the way, I’m stealing that.
LC at 4:06 pm on May 16th, 2009
Sorry for the swearing here as well. Are there not automatic filters and stuff for this sort of thing. Like they have on internet forums. It just instant “asterisks” every banned word. Though i’m not sure if these are available one blogs.
There’s that…
OR people like me could just mind their language… the second option is probably easier for the mod and more courteous of people commenting.
joeking at 10:02 am on May 17th, 2009
I think you are using wordpress for your blog.
This plugin might help the ‘bad words’ problem.
http://www.village-idiot.org/archives/2007/04/18/wp-noshit
Or even write your own ...
http://mu.wordpress.org/forums/topic/5591
(maybe too technical)
Brian at 12:50 pm on May 17th, 2009
I love the totally ad feminam comment on your Observer piece today: “Brilliant - you write like a young Amanda Platell”. I nearly left a supporting comment there, but found the company a bit disturbing. Some of those folks are genuinely deranged.
Paul at 10:16 pm on May 19th, 2009
@Victoria - wonderful to see something so eloquently written about the vile Platell. I can barely stop screaming obscenities when I see her on TV or read any of her vicious bile.
Good job :-)
Jeremy Rees at 6:50 pm on May 20th, 2009
I didn’t see AP’s typical spew of bile and vitriol in the first place, but i did read a touching obituary from one of Alexander’s friends.
The text of it can be read at http://tinyurl.com/qu4lpe
It reveals a brilliant but very troubled man, so in my book that makes it even more reprehensible to lay into the bereaved.
And incidentally, the sins of parents should never be visited on their offspring - thought that was established in the Nuremberg Trials ...
Thank you for bringing AM’s odious opinions to my attention!
joeking at 7:06 pm on July 8th, 2009
How Amanda does it
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-387700/A-fresh-face.html