Vernon Kay pictured with Tess Daly
Here’s the thing. A TV presenter called Vernon Kay, married to a TV presenter called Tess Daly, has been caught sexting a glamour model called Rhian Sugden, and is in the soup.
When I say ‘caught’, I have no idea how. Presumably Vernon keeps his iPhone password- protected at all times, and it was not in the interests of Kay to have this story in the public domain, so ‘cui bono’, as any prosecuting counsel would ask.
Since The Sun dropped topless girls on Page 3, there’s been a bit of a downturn in the glamour industry and a girl’s got to make rent. Just as one thing leads to another, a saucy tabloid scandal leads to bookings…
Anyway, this is the second time Kay has been ‘caught’ sexting Sugden, a female of such impossible dimensions that the words ‘busty blonde’ (go ahead and Google-image her now) fail to do the 32E-25-34 pouter justice.
Kay claims there’s been no physical relationship with Sugden. He claims she initiated the latest exchange of all-too-friendly fire (which reveals that at one stage the pair were planning to meet in a private location), that his wife has seen all the leaked texts, and on it goes.
Rather than poke our noses into private grief, I think we should all take a moment, if we can tear our eyes from the gallery of images of Miss Sugden, that is, to consider the following:
Are mobile phones and instant and constant communication so much a part of life that sexting should be tolerated within the rules of modern marriage – or is a ‘virtual relationship’ a dealbreaker too?
After all, when God handed Moses the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai, He had no idea what was coming down the pike when He said ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery’ and ‘Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife/neighbour’s ass.’ He had no idea that His tablets of stone would soon – in only a couple of thousand years – be competing with smartphones and electronic tablet devices.
Given how easy it is to send a picture of your bits to a stranger (and how difficult it is to avoid seeing pictures of naked strangers online and ‘coveting’ them), I believe it is a stretch to think our God would have said ‘Thou shalt not sext’ with quite the same degree of cold command.
I’m not condoning or excusing what Kay did. It was an act of emotional betrayal and a humiliation of his wife. And it could have gone even further. But I do understand it.
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Vernon Kay + a smartphone + a busty, blonde, single, younger glamour puss was an accident waiting to happen. And it happened. Twice.
If everyone chucked out their partner for sending fruity texts, or drunken tweets, there’d barely be a marriage left standing.
Vernon Kay is a bit of a chump but he needs help, not the order of the boot and a broken home. Sexting is sleazy but divorce is far, far worse for everyone.
I’m sure Tess Daly is furious, and she has every right to be.
But she shouldn’t throw out the baby (in this case, her 41-year-old husband) with the bathwater.
Not for something so silly.
Emissaries from the United Nations have variously pronounced that the UK has a ‘boys’ club sexist culture’; condemned this country’s housing and welfare policies; judged that Julian Assange is being arbitrarily detained; and, lastly, endorsed Argentina’s geological claim on the Falkland Islands (something to do with the continental shelf). Maybe it’s time to have another referendum – this one on whether to leave or remain in the UN?
Naked greed of the selfie sisters
Model Emily Rata-wotsit and Kim Kardashian have taken their tops off again and done a statement selfie in a bathroom together.
Kim tweeted: ‘When we’re like… we both have nothing to wear LOL.’
Emily warbled on in a series of baffling tweets about how going naked was an expression of sexuality and female empowerment.
‘Even if being sexualised by society’s gaze is demeaning there must be a space where one can be sexual if one chooses to be,’ she waffled.
Well. It’s nice the breathtaking brunettes are free to do and wear what they please in liberal democracies.
I say this with feeling as M&S is selling burkinis and a man beheaded his wife in this country for not being the housewife she used to be. And in The Archers, Rob has achieved total domination of his pregnant wife, the gibbering Helen. But this we all know.
If you want to express your sexuality and take your clothes off, you don’t do it in public and on social media. You do it in private. Otherwise it’s just shaking your moneymakers, ducks.
In years to come, historians of presidential elections will date the moment Donald J. Trump crashed and burned to March 30, coincidentally just as Matt Frei’s brilliant documentary about the Republican contender, Donald Trump, Can He Really Win?, was being aired on C4.
I may be naive, but you can’t insult everyone who doesn’t look like you and say women who have abortions must be ‘punished’, only to take it back later and win.
You just can’t. Can you? Please God let me be right. Please God let me be right. Please God… VOTE HILLARY.
Prince Charles doesn’t do a lot of media, but he was clever to pick Gardeners’ Question Time last Friday, and was at his best.
He talked about planting trees with Prince George at his Highgrove estate – famous for its lawns, ha-has, stumperies, rockeries and parterres.
But his pièce de résistance came when he said he went to other people’s gardens and felt jealous as they were so much better than his and he always wondered ‘how they did that with their roses’.
Having been to Highgrove (not name-dropping, I was on a tour!), I find this hard to believe.
But it’s good to know that even the green-fingered heir to the throne suffers from garden envy sometimes.
Ding ding! Roll up for the power couple all-star fantasy fight club! In the blue corner: Jerry Hall and Rupert Murdoch. And in the red corner: Wendi Deng and Vladimir Putin… or so claims a US magazine. Can it be true?
If so, I know who my money’s on – but far more interesting is which dating app has Wendi (first Murdoch, then the Blair rumours and now Putin) been using?
Passion for power: Wendi Deng is reportedly dating Russian President Vladimir Putin
QUOTES OF THE WEEK
Dawn French speaks about the vagaries of fashion
‘I always looked up to him, even when I was looking down at him. I’m saddened to hear of his passing. He was a lovely spirit.’
Australian comic Barry Humphries fondly remembers comedian Ronnie Corbett, who died last week aged 85.
‘Police announced tonight that they wanted to interview a man wearing high heels and frilly knickers – but the Chief Constable said they must wear their normal uniform.’
One of Ronnie’s famous one-liners.
‘If feminists have nothing more to worry about than where TV presenters sit on the sofa, then I suppose we can wind up the Equality Commission.’
Former Tory MP Ann Widdecombe laments the latest row about who sits where on Breakfast telly.
‘If I had been around when Rubens was painting, I would have been revered as a fabulous model. Kate Moss? She would have been the paintbrush.’
Actress Dawn French on the vagaries of fashion.
‘I didn’t approve much of being young. You eventually get through it and then you’re middle-aged. Old age I’m looking forward to with such joy.’
Tory fogey Jacob Rees-Mogg MP talking to students about the joys of ageing.
‘Mum was frantic with worry and said not to draw attention to myself. I didn’t know how to tell her I’d already done a selfie with the hijacker.’
Hostage Ben Innes who posed grinning with Seif Eldin Mustafa, who was wearing a ‘suicide belt’ as he hijacked a Cairo-bound plane.
Lulu says sexism in pop is worse today than in the Swinging Sixties when she started
‘I have a stand-up desk. Sitting down is the new smoking.’
Today presenter John Humphrys explains his new keep-fit regime.
‘I’m smoking kush [cannabis] in front of the police.’
Chatbot Tay, Microsoft’s Twitter experiment of using a bot – an automated program that can respond to users’ conversations – goes off message for the second time after previously sending out tweets denying the holocaust.
‘I hate the way a lot of young women in the music business are used like pole dancers when really they have got a voice or a talent for writing.’
Lulu says sexism in pop is worse today than in the Swinging Sixties when she started.