“Hello and welcome to Woman’s Hour, the show that makes women wonder whether they have more in common with episodes of Star Trek, than some of the women that they hear on our cosy little show.
It’s Thursday September 17. I’m Jenni Murray and instead of Disease of the Day, being condescending to a wafty young singer-songwriter, or flirting with a male chef in a rather terrifying way, we’ll be sounding a little different today because our guest editor is new Tory peer, and Scottish businesswoman Michelle Mone.
You may be wondering what we were thinking when we decided to call in Michelle as a guest producer of Woman’s Hour, alongside a best-selling author like Dame Jacqueline Wilson, Kim Cattrall, star of the globally successful Sex and the City, the Church of England’s first female diocesan bishop Rachel Treweek, or Nimco Ali, who has campaigned tirelessly against female genital mutilation.
Someone was even rude enough to suggest that Michelle fitted into that lineup like a kipper in a tankful of koi carp. You can bet I gave him my patented Jenni Murray Deathray Stare.
Actually, we put a lot of thought into our choice at the production meeting. And there were a lot of compelling arguments in her favour. “We need a Tory woman to balance up the politics a bit” “She’s got an accent, we need an accent” and “The Scots won’t mind — after all, we made Nicola Sturgeon one of our women of the year” And of course the clincher: “if we wrap this one up by 5pm, we can all be home in time for Great British Bakeoff”
And Michelle has brought lots of exciting items to the show, such as a discussion about dating when you are over 40, a terrific topic that we have never done before, and certainly won’t make us sound like desperate women whose main priority is mooning after men.
Michelle has also offered to discuss her diet secrets, after famously losing six stone. I’m hoping that will mean we get to talk about Trim Secrets, the brand of diet pills Michelle helped develop and which were once described by a professor as “no better than chalk pills”.
I haven’t brought that up with Michelle yet, but I’m sure we’ll both enjoy that. Actually, we were also hoping to discuss bullying in the workplace, and in particular, a startling story of an employee who says his female boss bugged his office. Michelle didn’t seem keen.
I suggested that we might still go ahead with the bullying discussion by looking at impertinent threats for personal gain, like saying you’ll leave the UK if Labour raised income tax on the wealthy to 50%. Or declaring you’ll leave Scotland if it voted for independence. But Michelle reminded me that she’s really here as the UK’s “start-up czar” Or at least I think that’s what she meant when she said “Don’t you start, Jenni”
So instead, she’ll be coming in to show off her party piece of being able to guess a cup size at a glance, by measuring up Lord Sewel for a bra.
Sadly no time in the programme to discuss Scottish business entrepreneurship, and whether it’s more smoke and mirrors than solid accounts. But don’t forget to join us tomorrow, when I’ll be asking Alice Feinstein, the editor of Woman’s Hour whether she’s been duped into booking a woman who is a self-promoting personal brand, rather than a serious businesswoman.”
OOO
The head of NHS England wants to offer Zumba classes to staff to boost health, reduce stress and cut down the cost of sick days. Judy Murray thinks it should be on offer to girls who don’t like getting hot and sweaty doing team sports.
Of course everyone knows that NHS staff deserve less stress, a payrise and healthier working hours, not latin american dance classes. Or should we set up vogueing for the police? Riverdance routines for firefighters? Or Morris dancing for dentists? And Judy: I would rather play rugby against the All Blacks than test my co-ordination and humility with any Zumba, or Strictly Come Dancing moves. I love music, I love dance — but, like you, I move like someone trying to deliver a wheelbarrow filled with bricks.
OOO
Highlight of our sunny weekend was spending Saturday down at the second Ayr Air show. Along the beachfront, planespotters and the plain-curious gathered to watch the Red Arrows zoom in to throw multi-coloured formation loops and birls above the Atlantic and Carrick hills.
But even an aircraft ignoramus like me was impressed when the mighty Vulcan XH558 took to the skies for one of its final appearances before being decommissioned. One of the last designs by Roy Chadwick, who also created the Lancaster Bomber, the Vulcan looks like something that Sleeping Beauty’s Maleficent might hitch a ride on. More than fifty years on, it remains a stunning looking — and sounding — aircraft.
Down on Ayr’s low green, they were selling Vulcan posters, dvds, bags and badges. An oddly fabulous day, where a British bomber got the same treatment as a member of One Direction
OOO
SpongeBob SquarePants and Ziggy Stardust could be twins. They’re both been icons for the very young, they both have dazzlingly rococo taste in clothes, and soon both will have songs written about them by David Bowie.
The simple sea sponge hero of Bikini Bottom gets his own stage show next year, with Bowie lined up to provide music for Life on Krabs. This column is hoping for “Ground Control to Major Sponge, take your coral bits and put your squarepants on.…”
OOO
A BRIEF and much-welcomed moment of levity in the otherwise porridge-like proceedings of the legal challenge to Orkney MP Alistair Carmichael, came when Roddy Dunlop, QC, suggested that the case being considered would mean politicians being ‘strapped to a lie detector’ during elections’.
The judges’ bench shot back: ‘Is that a bad thing?’
OOO
Alan Yentob demonstrating his personal magnetism (polarities reversed)
I won’t miss BBC Three and its devotion to dumbed-down Channel Four-style shock docs. But now they are planning to shut down BBC Four, it’s time to get angry. Maybe we could close down Alan Yentob instead? Just a thought.
OOO
Yesterday Fiona Hyslop announced that £45.2M was spent by films in Scotland last year. That’s a big, bland statistic that needs digesting. Most of the money comes from Outlander, and most of the spend was on hotels, transport and infrastructure. That’s great news for purveyors of portable cludgies on distant locations, but there are no Porsches being bought in Cumbernauld, and most of the actors and crew will still head home to London or LA.
So where’s the real longterm benefit for Scotland? And does it advance the chatter surrounding a Scottish film studio? The debate about building a local studio has been running so long that they should make a movie about it.
It’s an expensive toy, and with so many other film studios on the go — London, Belfast, Cardiff and now Yorkshire — the mere presence of a film studio isn’t enough to draw in big overseas productions any more. Other incentives are expected to be chucked into the pot — taxbreaks, or, like Braveheart, a loan of the local army as extras, for free. Worse, Pinewood studios recently managed to get Wales to pay THEM £30m for their studio.
And a film studio won’t help most Scottish filmmakers, because most low-budget Scots movies couldn’t afford the rent. The Scottish government has just announced a film fund of £1.75k, and while our film industry certainly needs investment, it’s important that the money is applied intelligently.
Despite holding the post of arts minister for years and years, Fiona Hyslop has yet to prove her financial acumen. After all, her most recent act was to hand over 150k of our money to T in the Park, an in-profit music festival, after being prodded by Angus Robertson’s girlfriend.
We need wiser heads, more transparency, and greater scrutiny. Especially when we have businessmen making big claims that a Scottish film studio complex will be a sure-fire moneyspinner, yet hope taxpayers will subsidise it, and may want the government to give away one of our precious greenbelt sites to it.
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