Contains the white lies that leave Trump without Hope, a splash at the Oscars, Leith TV show that is no Shore fire hit, and the councillor content to strike poses on child poverty, provided someone else pays her bills
A version of this appeared in the Scottish Daily Mail on March 6 2018
Most of us, in the course of our working day, tell the odd little fib.
Life often forces us to lie.
The first fib occurs around birth, when the midwife says that the baby is beautiful, when the unpalatable truth is that most new-borns look like angry beanbags made from sausage meat.
These fibs are basically well-intentioned, designed to protect, to console or to make someone shut up for a bit.
You pretend you’ve nearly finished something when we’ve barely started it, or claim someone is in a meeting when they just want to dodge the call, or embellish your career track record - a friend of mine powered up the job ladder with a bit on his CV that declared that when he was in his twenties he “provided nutritional assistance to deprived urban areas.” This was actually an imaginative reparsing of his stint as a biker, delivering pizza.
Others are holding pattern fibs: if you are a jetlagged director sitting down with me to discuss an action movie that consumed five years of your life, you probably do want to hear an insincere “you look great”, and you probably don’t need to hear that your new picture is like watching buildings and cars and fighter jets endlessly smashing around inside a gigantic washing machine for two hours, interspersed with bad puns. Why not wait for my review, at the end of the week?
Some lies are begging for you to get wise and move on, like “it’s not you, it’s me” or “I was just about to call, I am just five minutes away”.
The most threadbare is: “I have limited access to email right now” because there is literally nowhere on earth that email cannot reach, except the North Pole or your seat during a child’s long and boring school concert.
Most fibs have a shelf life, and after that you’d better come clean because as Morrissey from The Smiths once said about white lies: “There is always someone, somewhere, with a big nose, who knows.”
Take Hope Hicks, the fourth communications chief to quit President Trump’s staff. The former model became Trump’s most trusted confidant, until she admitted last week that she told “white lies” on behalf of her boss.
What were these white lies: “You should definitely tweet that, Mr President” or “of course Melania, didn’t vote for Hillary”? This sounds no more convincing than her claim to have opted to leave pursue new job opportunities, which implies that working for the president of the United States of America is a dead end job for an ambitious 29 year olds nowadays. Also, it’s a tough job market right now, and Hope will have to compete against all those other out-of-work Trump communications directors out there.
The Donald Trump White House has been shedding characters faster than a wedding in Game of Thrones, except with Game of Thrones you can get attached to the people involved.
Now Donald looks officially Hopeless, but don’t worry: I’m five minutes away, I was just about to call you, you look great, and we’re all very sure that there was no collusion with the Russians.
Barking mad Barbra Streisand has admitted she has had her favourite dog cloned twice. This may be an argument for capping Hollywood earnings. It may also explain why Babs doesn’t seem that worried about James Brolin’s health….
In the year of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, discussions about diversity and inclusion in Hollywood, plus a bundle of jokes directed at Mel Gibson, the real star was whoever thought of offering a jet ski to the shortest speech, showcased by Dame Helen Mirren in full Sale of the Century mode. Phantom Thread costume designer Mark Bridges wound up taking it home, although if Best Supporting Actress Allison Janney had walked off the stage after her first line — “I did it all by myself” — it would have been the best Oscars speech ever, and she could have been bouncing across Loch Lomond by now.
Fools who argue that River City’s glottal-stopped miserablism is somehow unexciting may be cheered by plans for The Shore, a possible new drama series centring on a group of friends who live in a trendy warehouse in Leith and work as political researchers in Holyrood.
You’re gripped already, aren’t you? Who would not relish a scottish Borgen, with Josh, Jayne and Adam discovering in episode 1 that no-one can afford a trendy Edinburgh warehouse on a researcher’s salary and immediately having to move out to Gorgie.
Admittedly, the character sketches are a bit thin.
Take “handsome, clever, kind” Steve, who “goes to the gym five days a week, works in finance and never seems to find Mr Right.” Maybe that’s because Steve’s description suggests he has the personality of gristle.
Meanwhile Jayne “firmly believes one day she will become First Minister.” Good luck Jayne — although you’ll have a job on your hands with your old workmate “Alex” constantly butting in and claiming he could do a better job
Unfortunately The Shore has pinned its hoped on flogging this to Netflix — and Netflix is only interested in local companies if they have big, deep pockets like the BBC, or the Murdoch company Shine.
A small independent company making documentaries where Elaine C Smith wanders the highlands and islands of Scotland cracking jokes about Millport? Not so much.
“Hoping to sell to Netflix” is like my mate Andy “hoping to play for Arsenal”.
Imagine how bittersweet it must have been last week when snowdays shut schools, and you were a teacher with kids. I’d probably have told my children their school was still open, then nipped off to the pub.
Snowmageddon has been remarkable for drawing out both heroes and villains. Hospital workers trekked to work through frozen tides, while stranded motorists got offers of help and hot drinks from strangers living nearby. The Glasgow Film Festival battled blizzards until powercuts forced the GFT to close on Wednesday, but staff slept on floors and sofabeds to get the festival back on track the following day: the woman shovelling snow off their red carpet turned out to be the festival’s hands-on co-director, Allison Gardener.
Meanwhile E.On chose the coldest day of the year to sneak out a rise in energy bills, and after the red weather warning, I watched a man wheel out a shopping trolley piled high with milk and bread. I hope he’s seriously fed up of bread and butter pudding by now.
Even last Sunday, milk never made it to the fridge shelves in my local supermarket — people were taking pints out of the hands of shop assistants. Pan white sliced bread was unavailable but the in-store ovens were cranking out fresh, warm artisan loaves. However not everyone fancied a fancy ‘piece’. One customer waving a sunflower seed bloomer at the information kiosk could be heard asking: “Is this proper bread?”
“It is Vital that we all stand together to tackle child poverty in North Lanarkshire” tweeted Nationalist Councillor Caroline Stephen, highlighting a project offering free meals during school holidays. Some intriguing showboating from Caroline there, given that the Coatbridge politician ran up a £4000 council tax debt, which had to be paid off by her SNP colleagues so she could vote. Both nationalists and non-nationalists must be asking: how many dinners could that have paid for?
