Monday
Since I was a child I’ve been going to the same beach on the south coast and never given a second thought to its safety. Swimming in the US, you have the occasional panic about sharks. In South Africa I got stung by a jellyfish. But the English seaside, give or take the odd riptide and the constant threat of hypothermia, has always seemed benign in its outlook, a dull, unthreatening sea.
Well, those days are over. Much as the release of Jaws in 1975 changed the relationship of Americans to deep water, the three-part docudrama Dirty Business, which started on Channel 4 on Monday and concluded midweek, has made the notion of going into the sea in the UK terrifying – and unlike Jaws, this story is real.
It is an example of what good drama can do that even the best reporting can’t quite achieve. David Thewlis and Jason Watkins, both brilliant as the real-life amateur detectives on the trail of industrial-scale polluting, drive home in a visceral way a complicated, shattering story. Namely: the absolute scandal of this country’s privatised water companies dumping untreated effluent into its rivers and sea, and the utter disgrace of the Environment Agency in failing to prosecute them.
This is what the show does; forces you to become someone who uses phrases like “utter disgrace” and “absolute scandal”. The first episode is organised around the death from E coli of an eight-year-old girl after a trip to the beach in Devon (the cause was not identified and a verdict of misadventure was ruled by a jury), where her family saw untreated sewage pumping out of a waste pipe. After the final episode, I freaked out and downloaded one of the water-monitoring apps that tracks sewage-pipe activity countrywide. There was my beloved beach on the south coast with a big red dotting pulsating over it. “Please be aware there is currently a situation at this location,” it read. “Sewage pollution alert. Southern Water is responsible for this discharge.”
Tuesday
I have been half waiting for the tide to turn on Sarah Ferguson and someone to suggest that sympathy for the disgraced former duchess is due. Various reports this week claim sightings of her at retreats in Switzerland or Ireland. First thought out the gate: how is she paying for that? But no sympathy, so far, is forthcoming. Meanwhile, as the Epstein files continue to burp forth grim content, the emergence of a photo of Stephen Hawking flanked by bikini-clad young women on a Caribbean island feels like this story’s natural shark-jumping end point. His family has since said the women were Hawking’s long-term carers. Thank God Mahatma Gandhi is no longer with us; per the current news cycle, there’s no question he’d have turned up in the files trading chipper messages with Epstein or in a photo sitting next to Woody Allen at a dinner.
Very much still with us, on the other hand, is national irritant turned something darker and more odious, Russell Brand, who showed up at Southwark crown court on Tuesday to face one count of rape and one of sexual assault while wearing a leopard print shirt open at the chest. It’s a curious wardrobe choice to settle on for a hearing before one’s rape trial; a cheeky take on accusations of serious sexual assault from a man who apparently continues to find himself – despite all evidence to the contrary – intensely, immensely charming. Brand denied the charges and has previously insisted all of his sexual relationships have been consensual.
Wednesday
The sun comes out for a whole day on Wednesday and everyone promptly loses their minds. Over the course of the day I mention the sky, the sun, the temperature, the flowers, the air, my mood, my joints, the future, the thrill of being alive, the wonder of nature’s renewal phase, how much I love birds and trees and grass, the smell of spring, the fact it’ll be “light soon” after 6pm, the coming of Easter, how great this coffee is – I mean, actually, maybe, the best flat white I’ve ever had – and the fact that everything in life is likely to turn out OK on a rotational basis for eight hours solid. Giddy with spring, I then brazenly leap off my low-cholesterol diet and in a state of absolute sun-drenched hysteria eat six sausages and have a lie-down. Happy day.
Thursday
It’s slightly painful to watch the rollout of Liza Minnelli’s publicity tour for her new memoir, Kids, Wait Till You Hear This!; not because the icon is any more eccentric than she ever was – the word “disorienting” is frequently used to describe her – but because the stories from her showbiz bloodline keep coming: the marrying of terrible men, the financial boom and bust, the health scares, the comebacks. In the middle of the week, People magazine runs its exclusive interview with the legend, opening with the line: “At 79, her humour remains intact.” Which sounds very much like code for: “Ugh, this interview was nuts.”
Meanwhile, the Times runs an extract from Minnelli’s book, in which she writes of David Gest, her fourth husband: “What in God’s name was I thinking? I clearly wasn’t sober when I married this clown.” They fought. They sued each other. Gest accused her of striking him with a stiletto. She accused him of holding her prisoner. And then, one day he went too far. “Gest was coming for my Warhols!” writes Minnelli, breathlessly. With the help of friends, she spirited the art work out of her apartment and Gest went away empty-handed. “Loser,” she says. Minnelli, of course, has always been in on the joke. It’s just that, occasionally, the joke is exhausting.
Friday
Anti-theft boxes in supermarkets are increasingly being installed to stop thieves from sweeping entire shelves of chocolate into their bags and the Metropolitan police are having a crackdown. Accordingly, new data emerged this week about the most stolen chocolate brand in London, which is, wait for it, Ferrero Rocher! A stunning discovery given that the unsatisfying waifer-based orb is very much on my list of supposed treats I’m convinced nobody actually likes – alongside Christmas cake, pumpkin pie and, of course, the big one: macarons.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: theguardian.com
