Bright Young Things

I have always suspected that Tatler, the house journal of the Sloane Ranger movement, is in fact a cunning spoof perpetrated by a contemporary Jonathan Swift or perhaps by the publishers of Viz magazine. As a self-parody it is too perfectly pitched and subtle. It’s not the more obvious fictional absurdities, such as feature writer “Ticky Hedley-Dent” (I know, I know – I’m not in a position to sneer at people with double-barrelled names). It’s the subtler, marginal satire - fashion assistant “Emily Thin”, for example, and film critic “Patrick Neate”? Plainly such people cannot really exist outside the novels of Evelyn Waugh.

Then there’s the rampaging political incorrectness (“Skilled designers are using fur this winter”), the lengthy profiles of cosmetic surgeons, and the pages and pages of party photographs, featuring radiant strumpets cavorting with hideous, gurning 45-year old “bachelors”. But in the January issue I have my final proof.

It is a dialogue between a Tatler reporter and the American actress, Brittany Murphy. At one point, the magazine raises the subject of Ms Murphy’s humanitarian activities. Here is an excerpt:

Tatler: You have entertained troops in Iraq. What kept your skin hydrated on the frontline?

Murphy: It was 130 degrees Fahrenheit in Baghdad and there were two vicious sandstorms. I used Guinot Serum Hydra Beaute, Johnson’s Body Cream and Lux Glowing Touch as a body wash. It’s our troops who are lacking the basics: deodorant, chapsticks, toothpastes, baby wipes. I try to send them what I can.

The thought of Ms Murphy at home in L.A. stuffing jiffy bags with khaki baby wipes and desert-strength deodorant is more than my little heart can bear. But none of it can possibly be real, can it?

Comments

[Anonymous bod]

Well, Ticky Hedley-Dent is real.

She is as absurd in real life as you could expect her to be in fiction