While some of us may claim to be totally unaffected by celebrity – the blunt fact is that the vast majority of people are influenced by it.

Tell me you wouldn’t be even slightly giddy at the prospect of being introduced to Ed Milliband (or whomever your political idol is) ?

When bidding for contracts, it isn’t just what is written on the paperwork that wins the deal, but the relationship between supplier and customer. After all, these people are going to be working together, so they need like each other.

The Duke of York is a really quite useful tool for British businesses in smoothing the social side of winning a contract, and I doubt you’ll find many companies turning down the opportunity to have him along to help.

Yes, he costs the taxpayer money – but so do a myriad of other “industrial subsidies” (and lets not even go near the billions wasted in nationalised industries), but the contracts he helps win more than cover those costs in the taxes and jobs they create.

I am not suggesting that the Duke of York is the only person who could do that role – far from it, but lets not ditch a useful tool before we have a replacement ready to step into the breach.

Can we replace him with Colin Firth?

After all, more people probably would identify him as a member of the royal family than would identify the Duke of York as such…

Highly attractive woman though Angelina Jolie indisputably is, I do sometimes wonder what it is about thespianism that makes her especially suitable for her role as goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

I agree that it’s unpleasant that celebrities do all this propaganda work but, tell me, who’s more likely to inspire goodwill: the delightful Ms Jolie or some balding, bespectacled, pot-bellied berk who kissed enough rump and passed enough tests from Eton to Oxford and through UN bureaucracy that he’d worm into the position?

@2

Quite so. I doubt many people would’ve been able to pick out Andrew Windsor from a crowd until this recent coverage…. which I guess gives the positive spin of brand recognition for his Dukeness.

Agree with the OP, for the most part, although the reference to “posh birds” made me raise my eyebrows slightly bearing in mind what day it is (and I don’t mean pancake day).

Yeah, slagging off female celebrities and reducing them to their looks in the topline of an article on fucking international women’s day. STAY CLASSY.

@5 – “Yeah, slagging off female celebrities and reducing them to their looks in the topline of an article on fucking international women’s day. STAY CLASSY.”

Not to mention reducing the duke’s “ex-missus” to the role of “pimp” and bizarrely sexualising the NotW episode (“posh birds talk dirty”)…

Ha – that’s a bit like objecting to gambling and drinking ON A SUNDAY. Either it’s wrong all year round or it’s not.

It’s normally tiresome when people respond to feminist complaints by saying ‘can’t you take a joke’ – but in this instance I honestly see nothing to complain about. The joke has nothing to do with Angelina Jolie’s gender – it’s about her eminent lack of qualifications to carry out her peace & harmony role or whatever it is. Marina Hyde publishes the same kind of thing all the time.

Arguably the ‘posh birds talk dirty line’ was a little off, mind.

Laurie,

To be fair to Dave, if mentioning never invading a country to which you are now a special envoy is slagging off, then fair enough, you are right that he was slagging off female celebrities. Otherwise you are an idiot who can’t read (sorry, but can’t resist slagging you off for that) – since mentioning that Angelina Jolie is attractive may or may not be appropriate in your opinion, but is clearly not negative (and calling her a thespian is either a very bad lisp or a compliment (after repeating one of the world’s worst jokes, this didn’t set out to be my most offensive post ever, but it’s heading that way…)).

Also, surely the point of International Woman’s Day is to treat women as equals, so surely we should slag female goodwill ambassadors off (if deserved) as much as male ones?

J,

I think you might find pimp as a verb (as in this case) is correctly used (if rather too vernacular for my highbrow tastes…). As that whole paragraph is written in tabloid lingo, appropriately considering the subject matter, I’d suggest you missed Dave’s deliberate irony (and excellent postmodern writing style).

Of course I could be wrong, and Dave could be an unreformed sexist, but bluntly I doubt it. I think this is a wonderful example of people not bothering to read properly before they post (probably in their anger that someone is departing from the accepted line in their mind, which might be an excuse or a condemnation). Note that the original ‘complaint’ by S.Pill was much more light-hearted (albeit also apparently missing what Dave seems to have done there with tabloid language). Maybe because he can recognise humour in writing?

@ Laurie

on fucking international women’s day

That could have been better phrased itself,unless there’s a whole other dimension to today that’s not been so well publicised.

I didn’t appreciate the “posh birds” line but am I being obtuse in saying that “attractive” needn’t mean appearance so much as the whole package of beauty, charisma and rhetorical skill? All of which are, let’s face it, along with mere showbiz clout, the reasons why Jolie has got the job.

(And, of course, the same goes for George Clooney or Brad Pitt.)

Grammatically correct? She ended a sentence with a preposition.

@9 – “Maybe because he can recognise humour in writing?”

The humour in Dave’s post is limited to “ex-Punk and ex-Trot” – but I suppose it’s a matter of personal taste.

Pimp may or may not be “correctly used” in this instance but when paired with the “posh birds talk dirty” line the effect is to needlessly sexualise the subject.

Then Angelina Jolie the “highly attractive woman” (shouldn’t that read, in hilariously postmodern style: phwoar!) is questioned in her role as goodwill ambassador for the United Nations.

“Highly attractive” might not be especially offensive, but it is when it is voiced as the default response to any action a woman (and it is usually a woman, hence the political point) might take, or anything she might have to say for herself.

… and the anonymous “scantily-clad teen masseuses” etc. It doesn’t come across as clever or witty, just sleazy.

I’m sorry, but the last time Andrew Windsor had any credibility, I was wearing short trousers and I don’t mean last summer!

He and the woman formerly known as “Princess” have been wading in sleaze for years. This all just more of the same.

Bollox to trade ambassador (the British Council is a well funded jaunt too) but the lad’s President of the Royal & Ancient golf association. For those of us stupid enough to have got addicted to golf at an early age he is the most inappropriate goon to have in charge. Sure, it’s an honoury role but it’s still an absolutely amazing gig.

It may not be true but I heard he liked golf, mentioned it to some dude and later that same day he’s been president for about the last 5 years at least. FFS but what’s wrong with Peter Allis, Sam Torrance, Woozy, Faldo – I dunno, but some gimp who can walk up to a course and say to some young kid, ‘nah buddy, your left hand’s too tight there man, slacken it up’.

He knows nowt about golf and it’s a fucking brilliant gig. Fuck ‘im – piss off.

It seems very appropriate to me that The Queens son is reduced to acting like an upper class Spiv.

“Hey girls want to buy some nylons”

Just another example of corporate welfare.

@Sally. The amount of corporate welfare at golfing events would make your eyes pop out. Football money is nothing compared to golf.

It does amuse me when the so called masters of the universe are telling us that govt should “keep out of our business” Except when they want the state to act as salesman for them.

@ 13

A preposition is a perfectly valid thing to end a sentence with.

I think the problem is that Andrew doesn’t know what the state is. I genuinely do blame the FCO. William Hague is presiding over squirrels out of hibernation and they’re fucking up.

Golf is the universe and everything and stuff

@20

Reading that sentence made me want to ring my old English teacher and weep. I’m not sure if I should thank you or not.

@9 Watchman

I think irony – especially on the internet, and even more especially in a blog post, and even more especially when using sexist terms on IWD – should be used as sparingly as posible to avoid clouding the (well-intentioned, in this case) point. As appears to have happened here. It’s a fine tool to use if one can use it well but there is always the risk that one falls into Frankie Boyle territory. Hence my “complaint”, I suppose – it nudged itself into that bracket, in my opinion, with the “posh birds” reference.

“Prince Andrew has spent most of his life on benefits, after being born into a family which exemplifies the crisis of intergenerational joblessness”

A bit harsh seeing as how the full time job he did have was as an FAA helicopter pilot, including active service during the Falklands conflict.

@20 Chaise and @23 Mr S. Pill: “A preposition is a perfectly valid thing to end a sentence with.”

The sentence is correct but the closing preposition is ugly. Thus we (especially Pill’s English teacher) try to avoid such things when the sentence can be rephrased without loss of clarity. And sometimes, there are expressions that we just have to live with.

Oh dear, once again I find myself agreeing with you lot.