Gossip Girl recap: The end of the affair

So Gossip Girl has seen in the new year with a host of deja-vu dalliances with pseudo-siblings, another convoluted plot that makes little sense and a Serena wearing far too many sequins.

At the end of the last episode we were left on a clifferhanger. Would Blair and Chuck survive the story of the princess and the paparazzi? Of course they would.

But Chuck’s near miss is just the excuse Blair needs to place another obstacle on the road to Happily ever after with Chair. She promises him upstairs that she’ll never leave Louis if Chuck survives, then is pretty much screwed when her wish comes true. It’s nice to know that fear of God, rather than passion of even interest in The Most Boring Character Ever (aka the prince).

So it was another scene at Chuck’s, with lots of unrequited love and tortured looks. Given that we know Blair gets to a wedding episode (if not past the vows) it’s clear this saga is going to run and run. It’s a shame. Bring back the bitchy sniping of the Chair of yesteryear.

Meanwhile, over at Nate’s Serious Journalism Job, he and Serena are trying to work out whether to use all the info the erstwhile Gossip Girl tipsters have sent them – Nate having put the kibush on her. Serena’s attack of a conscience isn’t going to last long; she comes to the deep realisation that it’s the misunderstandings about society gossip – not the gossip itself – that cause trouble.

But she shouldn’t worry about being Gossip Girl’s gatekeeper for long. Our trusted friend hasn’t gone very far; in fact she’s still digging up dirt, including the juicy tidbit that the crash car had its breaks tampered with (obv, oldest storyline in the book) and that it was actually booked for Nate. So who is out to get ol’ dimples? Gramps? Juliette? La Hurley? My guess is cousin Tripp, although there’s word that Georgina is back later this season, and murder is totally something she’d be down with.

Meanwhile Gossip Girlers, meet the real Charlie Rhodes who, contrary to my expectations, is not fat, deformed or a bit of a nerd. She’s a Juilliard student, with a wallet-photo-cute relationship with Mommy Dearest. Lily hasn’t figured it out yet, but it’s a matter of time.

And then, in proof that all good teen drama relationships must come full circle, we have the first suggestions of a reunion relationship. Sure, I’m sleeping with my sorta-sibling is the first excuse Serena could think of, but there was a look after that kiss. Given that the writers need to move Dan on from his ridiculous Blair rut (I really miss their sparring and sarcastic jibes. Friendship doesn’t suit them), a blast from the past is more than likely on the cards.
 

The Granville Gunman and Twitter

If, as I do, you live on a small and rather insignificant road in suburban north London, it’s not an everyday occurrence to see said location being reported as the scene of a crime. Especially not when the situation involves a stand-off between a gunman and armed police officers.

But today my little tiny road got its five minutes of fame. It started with a tweet from Barnet Police, a tweet that piqued my interest.

Within minutes, Twitter (albeit a limited number of geographically concentrated users – it’s not  a huge road) was abuzz. The police followed up with an explanation: “Police had reports of a man believed to be in possession of firearm. Police are trying to bring this to a peaceful conclusion.”

The Shomrim, the Orthodox Jewish security network, swiftly added this detail: “Armed Police are restricting access. Avoid area if possible”.

And then the rumours went a-swirling, some factual, others totally nonsensical. According to various sources, including local press and interested onlookers, the lone gunman was in his mid-50s and recently unemployed, on the 14th floor of a block of flats. Residents were being evacuated, or refused entry to the road. There were police helicopters, television crews, and this little gem, courtesy of the Times Series newspapers; ““He put a bottle of Jack Daniels, a tin of spinach and a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale down and said ‘There’s a little present for ya’.”

A few hours later, there seemed to be no clear resolution. I headed home, wondering whether I’d be allowed back into my flat, visions of various police dramas running through my head.

As it turned out, all was quiet on the Granville front, although the road was awash with policemen and, curiously, a fire engine. A police officer at the other entrance to the road said it was fine to go through. I asked whether there was any update and unsurprisingly, he remained tight-lipped. But minutes later, safe in my building, Barnet MPS tweeted again:

And so ended the drama of the Granville Gunman (as I hashtagged him), though the police will no doubt release more information in due course. A bit of excitement for the residents on a cold January afternoon, but nothing serious.

But the incident offers yet more proof of Twitter’s influence. As a journalist, I’d probably have found out about this sooner rather than later, even had it not been for Barnet police’s tweet. But most members of the population don’t have access to police press departments and many, if not most, don’t follow the local media religiously.

Social media does many things – and certainly, as today’s events demonstrated, it can misinform or spread panic – but as a way of getting information to the public promptly and efficiently, it’s pretty darn effective.

Does Aidan Burley deserve forgiveness? (The Telegraph)

You’re an MP at the top of your game. Elected just 18 months ago, already a high-flyer. You’re 32, Oxford-educated and part of a new breed of caring Conservatives. You’ve got a bright political future ahead of you. Now, how best to torpedo it?

Anyone considering that conundrum should call Aidan Burley, the Cannock Chase MP and former PPS to Transport Secretary Justine Greening. Last week it emerged that he’d been at a particularly raucous stag party in a French ski resort. It wasn’t that the group got obscenely drunk – though who knows, perhaps they did – or that they harassed the waitresses, or even that they ran up exorbitant bills and then neglected to pay them.

The crime – as it may well be in France – was that the party was themed; a nostalgic night during which guests donned SS garb and toasted high-ranking members of the Third Reich. Unfortunately for the stags, they were in a public restaurant and another diner, a journalist, caught the soirée on film.

For Burley, it was something of a last supper. The Prime Minister has now called for an investigation into his “offensive and foolish” behaviour and Burley has been removed from his post.

He is, of course, still part of the Conservative Party and his career will most likely recover. Politicians have bounced back from far worse. But, even as Westminster convulses over Britain’s future in Europe, it is right that this story and this scandal didn’t just disappear.

Let’s refresh. This was not a mere slip of the tongue. A few days earlier, Burley’s fellow freshman Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith was berated for a careless – but, I believe, absolutely unintentional – reference to Auschwitz. He was scolded, he apologised immediately, and the matter was put to rest.

Burley also said sorry, more than once. So why not forgive him, too? Aside from the suggestion in the Mail on Sunday that he was responsible for hiring the uniforms, the answer lies in his own apology; “I wish I had left as soon as I had realised what was happening,” he said.

This comment piece was first published in the Telegraph. Read the rest of it here

How a New York visit made me more aware of home (The JC)

In vain, we searched for the pickle shop. Wandering around New York’s historic Lower East Side, it seemed improbable, impossible even, that we wouldn’t encounter a Yiddish-speaking man selling barrels of flavoursome and juicy cucumbers and telling us we had chutzpah when we tried to negotiate a good deal.

We did eventually find some (delicious, too), although only in a trendy coffee shop on a run-down but fashionable street, where the clientele ate them ironically with one hand on their Apple computers or their chai lattes.

Pickles aside, finding traces of Jewish life and history in New York was not much of a challenge. A century from its peak, the Lower East Side is as empty of Jews as it once was full. In that respect, it’s like London’s East End, a thriving hub reduced to a whisper. But what used to be there is still clear, from shops bearing the names of their Jewish founders to delis that are, if now no longer kosher, still steeped in an unequivocally Jewish cuisine, and streets and buildings adorned with the names of Jewish impresarios.

The history is not dissimilar to our own. Many Jews from far flung lands ended up in New York, but many, too, my ancestors among them, ended up in Liverpool, Cardiff – and the East End.

As in New York, they built lives, set up shuls, schools and newspapers, became visionaries, wrote books and built industries.

Physically, there is more to see in New York than in our old Jewish hubs; many of the buildings that British Jews once inhabited have gone, destroyed during the Blitz or torn down, with perhaps a solitary blue plaque to denote their presence. But, beyond this, what struck me during my stay was the locals’ pride in the past – particularly pride in this very Jewish story of survival and success against the odds.

Down the road from the café was the Tenement museum, offering heritage tours of the area and a video history of the “huddled masses” – Italian, Chinese and of course Jewish – who arrived there in the late 19th century. A look inside the tenement itself we had a glimpse into the lives of the Jews who came to Ellis Island from shtetls, impoverished and not speaking the language, only to leave the factories and the slums for a better life just a generation or so later.

This comment piece was first published in the JC. Read the rest of it here

Could Mel Gibson give Gilad a Hollywood homecoming? (The JC)

Several months ago, various Jewish groups got rather exercised that Mel Gibson was planning to make a film about the Maccabees. The Chanucah story, in the hands of an actor we wouldn’t even trust to look after our chocolate money or dreidel winnings? Disastrous.

Mel’s movie is still in the development stage, so it’s not clear yet whether it will be The Passion II, or a mea culpa set to music with action stunts. But when the news broke, my reaction was: “about time”.

Not being in the market to convert, we don’t tend to shout about the Hollywood side of Judaism; the triumph of the underdog, “cue the violins” parts. Outside of our first few years of Cheder, when we colour in pictures of Noah’s Ark and giggle at Adam and Eve’s fig-leaves, we focus on Judaism as a “how to”, a code for conduct rather than an exact report on what happened.

It makes sense because, for many of us, the tales of the Tanach require a whopping great suspension of disbelief. Yet there’s something about Chanucah that makes the sceptic in me melt.

Of all the incredible – and unbelievable – stories in the Jewish canon, the one about the maverick warrior who successfully led a revolt against the villainous Greek conquerors has to be among the best. It’s got everything: family loyalty, victory against-the-odds, drama and intrigue. And there’s the oil, lasting for eight nights. It’s a miracle that you’d scoff at if it was the ending of a Disney film, and yet, it doesn’t half make you proud.

Seeing him take his first steps to freedom was like a miracle

Chanucah is a time for celebrating miracles and this week saw the tail end of one. On Sunday 550 Palestinian prisoners were released from jail early; the final stage of October’s deal to bring back Gilad Shalit. Last year, when we lit candles, it was unthinkable that Gilad would be with his family for the next Chanucah. We continued to pray and petition but it had been five years and he was a captive of a merciless terrorist group.

This comment piece was first published in the JC. Read the rest of it here

Gossip Girl recap: Rhodes to Perdition

So Max finally spills the beans about Ivy / Charlie – and nobody believes him. Which would almost be tragic (seeing as he is, um, totally right about what a deceitful life-stealer she is) if he wasn’t such a thoroughly unpleasant character too.

As the Rhodes girls gather to remember (or not, in CeeCee’s case) the lasdt days of disco (wth enough sequins to light the small country Louis is supposedly in), Carole shows up to complicate matters. As usual, it’s another show of sibling rivalry, trust funds and frightful hairstyles (Serena – seriously? Couldn’t you have gone for Ivy’s sleek ‘do?) but with little substance.

Basically, Carole protects her secret (where exactly is the real Charlie? Dead? A druggie? Or, shock horror, with a job?) and Ivy gets to stay in the Rhodes fortress of untouchability.

Across town, there’s more proof that Blair’s wedding is going to implode, as she and Chuck share yet more meaningful looks and teary glances. He tells her about Harry Winston, they all but confess their mutual love. It’s fairly sickening, but what is worse is that while Chuck’s character has developed for the good, Blair has been reduced to a snivelling wreck. Where’s her scheming, her dictatorial manner, her off-the-cuff bitchy retorts? In fairness, it may well reflect life that Queen Bee rich girls grow up to be dull and listless society wives. But that shouldn’t be Blair’s fate. She’s better than that.

I say bring back Little J or even the dreaded Vanessa, for some much needed Blair-baiting.

Nate, meanwhile, buries a story so he can win grandaddy’s respect. It’s all fairly dull, particularly Tripp’s supposed anguish about Maureen’s affair (Um, remember how easy he got Lewinskyed a few series back?) but I imagine he’s about to have an affair with the slutty reporter who offered him the tip, so that should compromise his yawnsome ethical attitude to life.

As for Dan, it seems the ego never sleeps. In true self-obsessed Humphrey style, he gets all too consumed with his bad new media press (OMG, like, people on Twitter are super mean) only to find it’s bitchy agent Alexandra trying to resuscitate his failing career.

Which she manages, with a little help from that well-respected literary connoisseur, Katy Perry).

All in all, a week episode. It was not funny (with the exception of Serena’s omnoipresent ability to forget just how many “different” dudes she’s dated) and the characters were acting stories they’ve done before.

But there’s hope to come. For one thing, Blair’s baby sityation needs to be resolved (surely she’s not going to spawn a devil child?) and Louis has got to get the boot, once and for all. Plus, CeeCee’s blatantly going to be no more, leaving plenty of secrets and will drama (so that the real Charlie can claim what is rightfully hers) plus the whole Diana history has got to come out. Bring it all on.

 

 

Gossip Girl recap: All the Pretty Sources

Was this week the start of the undoing of Gossip Girl? Probably not, but a couple of people took a good stab at it – La Hurley, Nate, Nate’s grandfather and of course, Louis the dark prince.

Back from his European exile, Prince Dullard takes a stab at buying Blair’s loyalty with sparkly and shiny things. When that doesn’t cut it, he decides to go on the offensive, and turn his princess-in-training against her friends.

As a short-term strategy it works, because Serena is planning Blair’s bridal bash and trying to conceal the glitziness of the proceedings with a series of lies about decor, menu and denim.

The shower is, this being Gossip Girl, a typical champagne and evening-wear affair, complete with a Tiffany’s lucky dip (never had that at my school fete). So, obvi, all is forgiven between “besties but actually frenemies” S and B. The whole plot though, of Blair being prima-donnaish about the event, was a bit weak.

The old Blair would have just found a way to seize control and organise new caterers etc, not merely whine about betrayal. Serena wouldn’t have known what hit her, while the minions would have become double agents.

Plus, what the hell was the dress she chose? And more to the point, what happened to the good old-fashioned hen do with women only, a semi-clothed bartender and phallic shaped party gifts? Surely Blair’s last hurrah should have involved something a little more scandalous than bubbly and ballgowns?

Into all the craziness comes Ivy’s ex, who, despite clearly being a couple of pennies of a pound, speedily realises that her “I wanted to see if you liked me or my money” excuse is total con. But if you can’t beat em con them; by episode’s end she is free of Diana’s blackmail but caught in ex-boyf’s web. Ex boyf, incidentally, is about to become Serena’s latest man plan.

Meanwhile, the bromance between Chuck and Dan continues, as the two of them mope about being rejected by Blair and sans invite to the shindig. Chuck’s solution is booze and call girls, but even getting stoned doesn’t do the trick and Dan manages to crash the party – that is, after disparaging a handful of stuck up guests in the lift.

Unsurprisingly, the lesson of this episode was that Dan is annoying and whiny when he is stoned, while Chuck is wise and disparaging. So,true to life then.

Over at the New York scheme-tator, Diana ends up out of a job, sacrificing her “career” – ha, please – because of her undying love (sorry, lust) for Nate. Seems this has been Grampy’s plan all along; to appoint a shrewd and capable teenager to run a media empire. Unfortunately, he temporarily forgot who his grandson was.

At one point Nate (re: the Gossip Girl upload) tells Diana he “hadn’t even thought” of posting the whole thing online. “I’m sure you hadn’t,” responds Diana, clearly not so blinded by love that she isn’t aware Nate is, well, Nate.

Diana is out of the building, but not out of the show. Her secret, which we can assume implicates grandpa and Bart Bass somewhere along the line, is destined to come out (at Blair’s wedding, probably).

And then there’s Blair and Louis. She calls time out on the relationship after she discovers Louis did the dirty with Gossip Girl’s correspondence (it’s not that her devious nature is out there for all to see that upsets her, it’s that he had the nerve to do something totally Blair-like that does), but having seen preview clips of the wedding, it doesn’t look like goodbye. I think we can assume that he’s not going to make it to the end of the series though.

He’s been taken by the forces of Gossip Girl darkness; in Gossip Girl terms, that’s like being got by the Lost smoke monster, You don’t escape its clutches too easily.

Gossip Girl recap: The Big Sleep No More

Finally, Blair returns to scheming. The fact that her scheme – to manipulate the bassstard out of Bass – was so clearly a way of sneaking an “it’s ok, it’s for a reason” snog, is beside the point. Finally, Blair remembered she wasn’t just a society wife-to-be, but actually a bitchy college student (hah) with loose morals.

Ivy / Charlie / annoying blonde Serene surrogate, could have done with a bit of the Waldorf witchery. With the help of La Hurley, she’s about to be outed for being a fake-der-Woodsen. In a highly ridiculous, it’s-such-a-big-city-how-did-her-dull-ex-find-her plotline, her dreams of living happily ever after were thrown off kilter by the return of the boyfriend she dropped for a taste of the good life. Obviously, she had to attempt to stave this off by smooching Nate (clearly the only reasonable solution when a girl’s got a problem).

But to complicate matters, Serena’s “single-man-on-the-loose-dar” went off with the arrival of Max.

With a smile and a toss of that mane, he is swept away, off to become another victim of Serena’s romantic rollercoaster.

The real story of the episode was La Hurley. That she is in the pay of Nate’s grandfather (grandson, sleep with a shady cougar to restore your WASP reputation) is ridiculous, but it is far, far less ridiculous than the alternative; that we are genuinely supposed to believe in Hurley as a media baron and see the New York Spectator as anything other than a glorified gossip blog.

Grandfather’s plan appears to be to shut Gossip Girl down (the site, not the show, don’t fret), presumably so that Nate can concentrate on the serious business of making something of himself. The fact that a) Gossip Girl will totally kick his ass b) A copycat site would go live in five b) Um, this is Nate we’re talking about. Other than using those dimples to advertise toothpaste, what’s he really going to do except squander his fortune on botoxed beauties?, seems to have bypassed him.

But I look forward to the battle of old money versus new media.

And of course there’s Dan, whose week of writing success (OMG, a book launch, rave reviews, I’m so loved, now I am totally self-actualised) has disintegrated into a book tour of empty seats and disappointment. So he holes up in his room in Brooklyn (despite an old-time pep talk from Rufus) and mopes.

Pathetic. Surely his speedy rise and fall is fertile source material for the sequel: “Outside”.

Where are the women in The Ides of March? (The Telegraph)

Forget the polls. Forget what the pundits think and what the ordinary Joes interviewed on the street have to say. The best barometer of how we view politics and what state politics is in surely comes from fiction, from the bumbling leaders of Yes, Minister to the spin-doctored puppets of The Thick of It.

Nowhere is that more true than with regard to American presidential politics. When Americans have faith in their commander-in-chief – or wish for a leader different to the one they have – contemporary fictional leaders have Abraham Lincoln’s ability to unite a divided nation, Dwight Eisenhower’s physical valour, Franklin Roosevelt’s ability to enact change and John F Kennedy’s glamour. Think Harrison Ford as the action-hero president in Air Force One (1997), Michael Douglas’s Andrew Shepherd striking a blow for liberty in The American President (1995) or Grant Matthews in Frank Capra’ss hope-imbued State of the Union (1948).

Likewise, times of low public faith in politics are often accompanied by films where power and the pursuit of it is shown as dirty, dank and Nixonesque. That’s no new thing; as the Great Depression got underway a film called Gabriel Over the White House (1933) was made, featuring a vacuous, do-nothing president in Herbert Hoover’s mould.

The Ides of March, George Clooney’s drama about political aspirations gone awry, reflects a profoundly dismal approach to politics at a time when Barack Obama’s popularity is at a new low. The film, set during the Democratic Party primaries (and based on a play that was itself supposedly based on Howard Dean’s shortlived run) takes a Hobbesian view of the state of politics; everyone is a dealmaker, everyone will ultimately act against their beliefs and nothing is sacred.

The subtext is that no politician – and, in this adaptation, for politician, read Barack Obama, with “Yes We Can” style posters and all – can ever be the ideal he purports to be. It’s a film about how the audacity of hope will always let you down.

But as dispiriting as that message was, also noticeable was the lack of a single credible female political figure. The sum total of female characters stood at three; the intern, the journalist, and the First-Lady-in-waiting (a Laura, not a Hillary or even a Michelle).

This was a film filled with backroom deals, high-stakes conversations and political chess games and yet the women were eternally on the periphery. Involved, yes. But not the ones leading the country, or trying to.

This comment piece was first published in the Telegraph. Read the rest of it here

Gossip Girl recap: I am Number Nine

What if Sorkin wrote Gossip Girl (a girl can only dream)? That was basically the focus behind this episode, as Dan and Serena pouted about plans to Zuckerberg Inside all the way to the Oscars.

His book would be the Social Network, take two. Only with more parties, champagne and overly coiffed society girls.

Except between Serena’s inability to understand how the industry she is supposedly so expert in works, and Dan’s ego, the project is a goner.

“I’m done,” Dan wails, as if dropping out of the top ten of the bestseller lists means he is to be chained to a rock for all eternity and pecked at by bitchy columnists.

While Dan’s rise and fall was no shock, there’s no way in hell a poseur like him wouldn’t have secretly been thrilled that Sorkin was planning to write the script. He might not have watched West Wing – too mainstream – but Dan was blatantly into the woefully misunderstood intellectual supremo that was Studio 60.

Unfortunately, Liz Hurley’s character has gone from farce to worse. I have no issue with Nate and the cougar as a storyline (except that we’ve been there, done that) but she’s a cartoon character.When she gets all overexcited about how she’s going to destroy society one scandal at a time, I half expect to see animated dollar signs flash over her eyes.

She’s what teenage boys imagine successful businesswoman are like, and there’s no way in hell she’d have built a media empire when she was off in the back all the time doing the dirty with her staff.

Anyway, now she’s got Nate (be gone, random media celeb plus one) and she’ll be damned if anyone stands in the way of her teenage romance. Adorable. Or the opposite.

Meanwhile, the prince got some backbone.

Nah, just joking. He wouldn’t know what to do with a personality.

But he tried to pay Chuck’s therapist to spy on him and reveal the secrets of Chair, which backfired spectacularly with the sort  of party-showdown that back in season one would have prompted a Gossip Girl blast, but is now so routine that nobody even chokes any on their champagne.

It was quite dull (not exactly a plot worthy of his fiancée) but it prompted Chuck to see the light and apologise to Blair for his past misdeeds. Is that a rift in an engagement I spy. Gawd I hope so.

But despite the groom drama, Blair is all set for bridesmaids after hosting a minions-of-old gladiator contest. She ends up going with Ivy, which means she must have what Lily on How I Met Your Mother has – pregnancy brain.

As if Queen B would let another Van der Woodsen (even a fake on) steal the limelight on the big day.

Not a great episode. The prince storyline is really done to death, as is Liz Hurley. What happened to college bitchiness, friends their own age and, hell, people who drank something other than champagne.

The great thing about Gossip Girl was always its ability to balance high drama with biting social satire, to show the divide between rich and poor and to show rich and pretty teens playing havoc with people’s lives, consequences be damned. Right now, it’s just a soap, and a bit tired at that. News of Georgina’s return couldn’t come at a better time.