Londoner's Diary: ’Ello, ’ello, ’ello: Paxo mocks Met over grammar

In Today's Diary:  Jeremy Paxman takes on the police | Euan Blair steps out from the shadows | Howard Jacobson holds Pussy party | Will Oakeshott's shots make Michael Gove hopping mad?  | Dawn O'Porter milks book launch 
(Photo by David M. Benett/Getty Images for Debrett's and Audi
Getty Images for Debrett's and A
7 April 2017

Jeremy Paxman could be in trouble with the law. The Idler magazine is bringing back its Bad Grammar Award, and the ex-Newsnight host has been recruited as chief judge. He shows unsurprising ambition in his nomination: the Metropolitan Police. Will he be led away in handcuffs?

Yesterday an email landed in our inbox from Tom Hodgkinson, editor of The Idler, announcing the return of the prize. “Mr P has nominated the Metropolitan Police for ‘multiple offences’”, Hodgkinson writes, citing “routine barbarisms”. “We’re not interested in nailing small businesses and individuals, as The Apostrophiser does. We’re more interested in attacking tyrants.”

Paxo has a reputation for being strictly intellectual — a scornful dismissal on University Challenge is the stuff of nightmares — so it’s no wonder the boys in blue have got his back up. Reports previously suggested officers were wasting valuable hours correcting their colleagues’ paperwork errors.

Previous winners of the Bad Grammar Award include the new director of the V&A Tristram Hunt, for the redundant phrase “ongoing continuing professional development”. Another culprit was a primary school which had the poster “We all wash are hands after playing in the sandpits”.

The Londoner approached Paxman himself to ask which mistakes got his goat this year, to no reply. He has previously responded to our e-mails, only to correct our punctuation. The Met declined to comment this morning. “We are quite busy, as you can imagine,” said a spokesperson, “and do not have the time to provide a comment around this”. The Londoner is forwarding the message to Paxman — and The Idler for inclusion.

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Corbis via Getty Images

TO Hatchards of Piccadilly last night for the launch of Antonia Senior’s new novel, The Tyrant’s Shadow, set in Oliver Cromwell’s time. “I thought Oliver Cromwell was a monster,” she said. “And it turns out he was a nice bloke.” Senior is the head judge for Endeavour Ink, a new historical fiction prize, but her own book is out a month later than the cut-off point. “I’d be really good at judging my work as the best,” she shrugged. Maybe next year.

Blair and Mair get down to business

AFP/Getty Images

IT SEEMS that Euan Blair is finally stepping out of his father’s shadow. Yesterday he gave his first-ever broadcast interview to BBC Radio 4’s PM show, discussing his company White Hat, which places high-calibre apprentices in leading businesses.

Host Eddie Mair got to it: “Forgive the cheap family shot which you could see coming a mile off,” he said. “But do you think the drive to get 50 per cent of young people into education is that counterproductive to what you’re doing now?” Blair questioned his father’s policy. “University has become more expensive. The offer needs to be really good. We need to ask is sending 50 per cent of people to university right?” Don’t tell Tony.

Quote of the Day

(Photo credit should read AUNG HTET/AFP/Getty Images)
AFP/Getty Images

‘I’m no Mother Teresa. I never said I was’

Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto leader of Burma and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, says she’s more stateswoman than saint after claims of ethnic cleansing in her country.

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More Pussy power to your elbow

Pussy power: Simon Jenkins, Hannah Kaye, Howard Jacobson and Stephen Fry (image: Alice Lubbock)

Comic novelists collided at Fortnum & Mason last night, as Howard Jacobson launched his new novel Pussy. His publisher, Dan Franklin, toasted “this country’s most brilliant comic novelist.” Then in came Stephen Fry. “Just as I got here,” he quipped.But the guests were there for Jacobson — his latest book is a satire on Donald Trump. “He’s the most ludicrous person I’ve ever seen,” Jacobson told The Londoner. Does Jacobson fear legal repercussions? “Can you imagine being sued by the President of the United States for having written satire?” he said. “Bring it on.” He’s no pussy.

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(Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
Getty Images

WITH biography Call Me Dave, journalist Isabel Oakeshott forever connected David Cameron with pigs. Now she has moved on to Michael Gove and rabbits. After Gove today condemned Labour’s proposed school meal policy, she responded on Conservative Home: “This particular furry animal has a variant of myxomatosis. Like the bunnies deliberately infected with that disease to control the population in the 1950s, Gove’s animal is spreading its own virus.” Will he be hopping mad?

Dawn milks book launch

(Photo by David M. Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images)

DOWN to The Marylebone Hotel last night for the launch of Dawn O’Porter’s frank new novel, The Cows. Actress Ophelia Lovibond and DJ Gemma Cairney sipped Perrier- Jouët but The Londoner was most surprised to see Lionel Shriver, the author of acclaimed novel We Need To Talk About Kevin.

She and O’Porter, pictured, used to be neighbours in Bermondsey. “I was incredibly obsessed with her and would wait for the opportunity to meet her,” O’Porter told us. “Then a piece of Lionel’s post got delivered to my house and I got to take it round — she had no idea I was a stalking fan who lived two doors down.”

The Cows features a woman who is caught masturbating on the Tube and suffers dire consequences. “I just want the book to show that society can’t cope with women being overtly sexual,” she said. “It’s held against her because she’s a woman and because she’s a mother: that’s why the book is called The Cows, because their only function is to reproduce milk.” Udder books pail in comparison.

Tweet of the Day

“Michael Caine’s biggest film: a gang of British conmen try to get millions out of Europe, fail, drive a bus off a cliff instead.”

After The Sun parodies The Italian Job for a pro-Gibraltar front page, a reminder of the plot from writer Jack Bernhardt.

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Grime is the talk of the town

Dave Benett/Getty Images for Cal

180 Strand hosted the launch of the Dazed 100 in collaboration with CK One, last night, the magazine’s list of the next generation shaping youth culture. Grime artist Skepta was among the guests, wearing a green velvet jacket and a question-mark necklace. Perhaps he was hoping an eye-catching ensemble might push him up the list.

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Review of the day: Jeremy Corbyn met children in Leyland, Lancashire, to crack eggs and talk jam, to publicise his school-meal plan. His review? “Nice kids, terrible taste in jam.”

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