I do like Graham Norton, I’ve always loved his irreverence. No guest is entirely safe. On a recent Star Wars-centric episode, it was fantastic to see Carrie Fisher. She looks naturally aged, I love her for that – irreverent and slouchy, just fabulous. Another guest, Kylie Minogue, shockingly didn’t look like Kylie anymore. Pop Princess with an immobile forehead. That’s sad.
The show included an appearance by David Beckham. Famous for football and for being quite a pretty bloke. Well don’t get me started there, football schmootzball. I actually think Mr Beckham is a decent fellow, but why he’s so famous I will never understand. Looks, pop star/fashion designer wife, loads of money. Maybe that’s it, maybe that’s enough.
Beckham was asked if his sons went to the Star Wars premiere. Well of course they did. And they were probably taken there in a private car, bless them. But I wondered just why these particular children had been given invites to the premiere, save for the fact that they are sons of ‘celebs’ and one of them has lots of followers on Twitter. Yay. I hope he has some real friends too.
How much nicer would it have been if invitations had been given to children who don’t have the privilege of wealth? Some kids who aren’t going to get thousands of pounds-worth of the latest must-have ‘stuff’ for Christmas, who aren’t able to borrow their dad’s Armani jumper.
I often mentally rant about the injustice of the division of wealth, usually while I’m walking the dogs in my leaky wellie boots and my socks have just got wet.
But there’s a recent thing I keep seeing on TV that’s causing my jaw to drop, in a most unsightly fashion. It’s called ‘Rich Kids of Instagram’ – all to do with how the young uber-rich like to flaunt their wealth. Buying a Birkin bag for £30,000 (seriously?) and ‘stuffing wads of cash in their pockets to show off’.
Apparently the rest of us are desperate to know about the lives of these people. Really? Are we? Or would most of ‘the rest of us’ actually prefer not to know that some young idiot pours himself a bath of champagne that costs the same amount of money as most people earn in a month, or horrifyingly, a year?
I know I’m ancient, old-fashioned and probably a little bitter, but I’m also principled, always have been, and this sort of thing, so blatant, worries me, it really does.
In fairness, I did ask myself the question if my children had been offered tickets to the premiere of Star Wars, what would I have done? Well I’d have probably agreed to them going, because for them it would have been the experience of a lifetime. And yes, the popcorn would have gone everywhere. It might even have bounced off Kylie’s forehead. Graham Norton would have been entertained.