Sweary’s Jaw

Surreptitiously voting for John and Edward, so you don’t have to.

There. With the X-Factor reference out of the way, we can get down to the high-and-mighties.

Oh yes. I’ve been feeling a little inconsequential this week, a little frothy, like the Matey residue in the empty bath of life. Yes, that bad. So this week you lot are getting Highbrow Jaw. I am aware that Jaw naturally belongs on the southern end of the face, but sometimes you’ve got to do a little reconstruction for the good of your career. Isn’t that right, Ashlee Simpson? Not that I know who Ashlee Simpson is, being highbrow and all. Moving on.

“To where?” you might scoff. “To where could you possibly move us, if not to the most-certainly-not-highbrow world of celebrities making absolute doughnuts of themselves? That is your brief, is it not?” And yes, it is. But if you think that only the talentless are capable of serious self-prannetisation, you are deluded; even the most worthy wonders slither into stupidity from time to time. Behold! It’s Salman Rushdie!

Mr. Rushdie has been in the papers this week (perhaps not a shocking move for a man nearly named after a fish); what’s especially alarming about such a distinguished scribe appearing in the gossip columns is that he put himself there. After Pia Glenn, an actress with whom he had a five-month fling, bitched about his being non-committal, the petulant novelist contacted Page Six to put forward his side of the story/kick the poor deluded dear while she was down/make a complete twat out of himself [delete none; they're all applicable]. “She’s an unstable person who carries around a large, radioactive bucket of stress,” he stated, and while this does make Ms. Glenn sound alarming and dangerous, I can’t help but ponder whether her stress was radioactive, or merely the bucket she carries it in. Perhaps a better wordsmith could clear this up for me? I can’t ask Salman; he’s too busy bawling to the tabloids about how difficult it is for a fat, balding geezer to deal with all these leggy imbeciles.

Someone who considers himself less likely to wash his dirty linen in public is the very highbrow Edward Norton, who is creeped out by the idea of engaging with fans. The actor has described the notion of admirers using social networking sites to connect with him personally as torturous. “It’s absolutely the last thing that I’m looking for. It seems to me to be really just about social chatter,” said the unfriendly monkey, who, true to the Highbrow Code, intends to keep his person and his talent separate. He also has over 120,000 followers on Twitter, and would much rather use the platform to rid himself of his single mates.Tip from the top, kids. It’s only social chatter if you’re not doing yourself a favour at the same time*.

Doing himself a favour this week in a much less cynical manner is Russell Brand, who proved that there’s more to him than tight trousers and Fraggle hair when he described the B.N.P as “prats peddling rhubarb” in his column for The Sun.

Yes, I mentioned The Sun in my highbrow post, and should toady accordingly, but when it’s responsible for publishing Russell’s description of the B.N.P’s manifesto as “chuckle-brained hate-broth”, it bloody well deserves a parade. “The more people who witness Nick Griffin equivocate on myopic loathing the better it is,” said Russell, who summed up with “Right-wing views can be seductive and toxic in troubled times when astutely rendered by Machiavels, but belched out by that tit Griffin, I’m sure it’ll just be an amusing bit of irrelevant TV.” Be still my over-heating GHD, it’s a man after my own heart - hyperbolic, snippy and rich! If he wasn’t currently engulfed in the cascade of pointless kookiness that is Katy Perry, I’d campaign for his deification. What a world it would be, if all celebrities took as much care in the composing of gibes! I’d be far less likely to run over that mouthy twit Lily Allen in a combine harvester, that’s for sure.

Should you pluck inspiration from all these highbrow shenanigans, you’ll need to think about how you can maintain that newly-engorged forehead. And if Jennifer Aniston’s opinion means anything to you, you won’t be using Botox. She believes that it makes women’s faces appear harder and colder, and a healthy diet is a better path to staying a viable leading lady and not becoming one of those nasty character actresses, who loaf around, gorging on battered Mars bars, rather than doing any real work.

“If I eat burgers and fries every day I won’t get the parts I’m offered. I’d become a character actress, that might be fine one day but not right now,” said the romcom spacefiller, one finger to Arthouse and the other to Angelina Jolie. Now, I know the whole point of an actor is that they can mimic a life that they don’t actually have, but Jennifer Aniston waffling on about how she might one day stoop to aping “character” is a stretch too drastic in the pulled-muscle direction. Someone should wedge the reminder of Bruce Almighty down those upturned nostrils.

And lastly, from snubbing the highbrow to missing its exit yet again on the neverending scooch up and down the Crazy Highway, it’s Lady Gaga! She’s predicting that her latest tour will be “a truly artistic experience that is going to take the form of the greatest post-apocalyptic house party that you’ve ever been to”. Culch.ie would like to know … What’s the greatest post-apocalyptic house party you’ve ever been to up to now, even taking into account a possible showing at the good lady’s latest sub-Spice-Girls howlerama? Because I don’t think swaying through the bubblegum pop of Poker Face quite meets the requirements for an artistic experience, even if you’ve doused yourself in L’Ironique and have your favourite post-modern pants on.

This highbrow dingdong isn’t all it’s made out to be, Gaggles. Ask Salman Rushdie’s exes; they’ll tell you the same thing.

*Edward is mostly using Twitter to raise funds for the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust, which is a much more worthy cause than getting investment bankers laid. Just so’s you know.