A young Paris Hilton with Nancy Reagan. Photograph: parishilton.comBehold, above, a newly unearthed photo of one of the key American figures of recent decades, granting an audience to Nancy Reagan. On the right, of course, is Nancy, pictured during her time as first lady of the United States. On the left, however, is a little lady who would go on to eclipse even the B-movie actress who ended up in the White House as a symbol of the transformative power of the American Dream, and the infinite possibilities of life in that golden land. She is, of course, Miss Paris Hilton – heiress, celebutante, DUI star, and coiner of mid-noughties hipster catchphrase "that's hot". Now, you might assume the picture to be part of a newly released presidential archive, or perhaps the centrepiece of a major Smithsonian exhibition entitled something like: "Eleanor's Heirs: from Roosevelt to Richie." But it was in fact tweeted this week by Paris herself, who elaborated that the historic meeting took place at New York's Waldorf Astoria Hotel, presumably some time in 1983. The pair's body language will not have escaped your attention – see how Paris's determined forward advance evokes the pioneer spirit, while Nancy's ignored hand is more reminiscent of the pliant helpmeet tradition without which America could never have been built. As for the minutes of this extraordinary meeting, they remain undisclosed. Perhaps a second after the shutter snapped, Paris gave definitive intellectual shape to the still-sketchy series of decisions that would come to be known as the Reagan Doctrine, and urged the invasion of Grenada. Then again, perhaps she simply burbled "talk to you never" at the first lady. But we must salute her generosity in posting the picture now, clearly anxious that Nancy's twilight years should not see the American public forget with what interesting individuals she rubbed shoulders – and indeed shared carpet time – over the years.
Bristol Palin and Mark Ballas perform on Dancing with the Stars. Photograph: Adam Larkey/APFinally, there is troubling news from the set of America's Dancing With the Stars, where Sarah Palin's shy and retiring daughter Bristol is one of the contestants. Mommie dearest was in the studio to watch Bristol take on the quickstep this week, but just prior to her beginning a supportive interview, a wave of booing swept through the audience. "Why is there booing?" wondered show host Brooke Burke. "There's booing in the ballroom . . . I don't know why." I've got an inkling meself, Brooke – but it's encouraging to find people have since suggested the boos were for something else entirely. Still, Sarah does have a preternatural gift for calling black as white. Lost in Showbiz read her enchanting book Going Rogue last weekend, and while it's hard to pick a favourite passage, special mention must be made of the bit where she explains that the New Deal caused the Great Depression. Based on this model of thinking, there's every reason to believe the boos were correlated, not causal, and we must wish Bristol all the best as she continues to embody the lives of ordinary Americans through the medium of lucrative primetime dance.
Charlotte Church, who decided not to marry Gavin Henson after he appeared on a reality show. Photograph: Simone Joyner/Getty Images EuropeA New Jersey restaurateur, Joe Cerniglia, killed himself in New York this week. His body was found in the Hudson river. Normally, the lonely death of an indebted father of three would make few headlines. But Cerniglia had appeared on Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, and been told that unless he sorted his business out it was "about to fucking swim down the Hudson". See that coincidence? Newsworthy. It's not only that though. Another person, Rachel Brown, who had been on another Ramsay show, Hell's Kitchen, also killed herself, also in the US. This death wasn't newsworthy until now, under Oscar Wilde's rule about misfortune and carelessness. What, quite, is being said about Ramsay here, though? That appearing on his show makes people suicidal? The Cerniglia family has nothing but praise for Ramsay, whose advice helped Joe to turn around his restaurant, if not his debt. What possible influence Ramsay had on Brown remains entirely opaque. Maybe it all just feeds the belief that being in the presence of celebrities is "transformative" for better or worse, or that reality shows are weird and creepy. Take Gavin Henson. His former partner, Charlotte Church, says his appearance on the reality show 71 Degrees North changed him, and prompted her decision not to marry him. What was the specific problem, though? Had he become a bit cold?
Celebrities routinely complain about popular newspapers. But editors are quick to point out that the bellyaching celebs are happy to do business with them when it serves their purposes. Two examples in the past week are Russell Brand and Coronation Street actor Bill Roache. Brand, in a wonderfully entertaining Newsnight interview with Jeremy Paxman on Friday night, made a lot of sense in talking about the cult of celebrity. At one point he railed against the Daily Mail and Rupert Murdoch for using the incident in which he and Jonathan Ross were damned for their phone messages to Andrew Sachs in October 2008 in order to pursue their campaign against the BBC. Fair enough. But which paper was given serialisation rights to Brand's latest book? The Sun (prop: Rupert Murdoch). Which publisher produced the book? HarperCollins (prop: Rupert Murdoch).* Then there is Roache, better known as that Ken Barlow off the telly. In his latest memoir,** he has devoted a whole chapter to his infamous 1992 libel case against The Sun (which he sued for calling him as boring as Barlow). Having turning down an out-of-court settlement of £50,000, he eventually won, but the costs led him into bankruptcy. So which paper has been carrying extracts from his book? None other than the News of the World, The Sun's stablemate. *Booky Wook 2: This time it's personal (HarperCollins, £20)**50 years on the Street (Mainstream Publishing, £14.99)
Hoarders: Tony Curtis and Tutankhamun. Photograph: CompositeTony Curtis was buried on Monday with many of his earthly possessions, according to the Las Vegas Sun. But how does he compare with that other famous tomb hoarder? Tony Curtis His Stetson hat. Seven packets of Splenda. An iPhone. A travelling bag packed full of favourite photos and letters. A model of his 25th-anniversary Trans Am. Driving gloves. Cash. A pair of his grandson Nicholas's baby shoes. Two watches. Stones he had collected. Tutankhamun 139 ebony, ivory, silver and gold walking sticks. Musical instruments. Lamps. Six chariots. Two thrones. Ritual beds and headrests. Gilded statues. Chests. Clothing, including tunics, kilts, gloves, scarves and headdresses. Ebony gaming board. 30 jars of wine.
Gamu Nhengu was eliminated from The X Factor on Sunday night. Photograph: Ken McKayDeath threats, Robert Mugabe, comments from the foreign secretary, calls for a judicial review – ladies and gentleman, it's popular light entertainment show The X Factor! A few decades ago, ITV's early evening slot was occupied by AJP Taylor, who garnered ratings in their millions for delivering straight-to-camera lectures on subjects such as the great war and the Russian Revolution. (TEXT 50741 if you think Lenin invented the Iron Curtain, or 50742 if you think it was essentially constructed against him by the capitalist European powers.) But as you'll be more than aware, Toto, we're not in Kansas any more, and the presiding genius of today's schedules is a man whom any regular readers of this column have come to know as the Karaoke Sauron. He is, of course, Simon Cowell, and he's currently beaming his subliminally hypnotic masterplan into your home twice-weekly. Taylor's programmes were widely regarded by fellow academics as frightfully vulgar, so one can only speculate about what the professors and proletariat of yesteryear would have made of the endless cavalcade of snot and tears that now constitutes primetime entertainment, or indeed of the Facebook group "Cheryl Cole to die a painful death", or the viral BlackBerry message informing the Chezza that "Every1 has a bullet for you". But first, a recap. On Sunday night's edition of The X Factor, nation's sweetheart Cheryl Cole opted against putting the sweetly talented young Zimbabwean Gamu Nhengu through to the live studio rounds of the competition. Instead, she preferred to advance two ladies who had . . . well, I believe the technical term is "lost their shiz" during their auditions, one of whom presumably reminds Cheryl of a particularly damaged version of herself. Alas, Gamu has since suffered what tabloid journalists traditionally refer to as a "double blow", in which two disproportionate setbacks are yoked together to imply some kind of parity, when none exists. A classic "double blow" would be Jordan failing to land some knicker contract in the same week as discovering her child was blind and afflicted by a growth defect. And so with Gamu. Not only has she missed the chance to lose out on a quarter-finals place to 1 Direction's version of You Raise Me Up, but she is likely to be deported back to Zimbabwe, after her mother's visa expired in August and the application to extend it was turned down. It seems that not only did Mrs Ngazana make an administrative error, resulting in the application being judged "out of time", but she has reportedly claimed benefits to which she was not entitled. Well. I need hardly tell you that the Sun, Mail and Daily Star have finally found the sort of benefit-dependent immigrant family they can get behind, and their ability to hold two contradictory positions at once has rarely been more grimly hilarious. Thus it was that Cheryl woke to bleeding heart Mail headlines about Gamu's "visa woes", with wickedly disingenuous reports larding on the accusations that she'd sparked a "race row". So Cheryl's security has been stepped up after imbecilic threats on her safety, while the roads arounds Gamu's Clackmannanshire home were closed after crowds gathered bearing banners protesting her X Factor elimination. Encouragingly, the matter has already reached the offices of state, with foreign secretary William Hague accosted about it at the Tory conference, only to declare: "We mustn't do things differently just because people are in the news." It's not a view shared by Scotland's external affairs minister Fiona Hyslop, who has written to the home secretary and the immigration minister asking them to reconsider on the basis that: "Gamu has demonstrated that she is a hugely talented singer and a great asset to Scotland and the country's music scene." Meanwhile, the family's lawyer seeks a judicial review, while Gamu's MP Gordon Banks has written to the Scottish secretary. "What we've got to hope," Gordon tells Lost in Showbiz, "is that the media doesn't just focus on this one case, but looks at the whole issue of the way out-of-time cases are handled." Good luck with that . . . If only Chezza Cole could be involved in them all. "Yes," sighs Gordon wistfully. "I feel sorry for the others." And yet, even among such stiff competition, arguably the most absurd aspect of the whole business is the suggestion that Cowell has made a misstep in excluding Gamu. To get some perspective on his "howler", let's consider a previous observation of reality TV ubermensch Mike Darnell, president of alternative programming for America's Fox network and a man we might reasonably decribe as post-moral. Mike was once asked if he rued anything about Who's Your Daddy?, in which an adopted woman was invited to guess which of a group of men was her father. His only regret? That the inevitable controversy the show generated was "outside the programme – so it doesn't translate into ratings". It seems reasonable to suspect Cowell holds a similar worldview. So if the Gamu saga results in significant numbers of viewers switching off their sets in disgust, then we can start talking about missteps. But if, come Saturday night, The X Factor's ratings only increase, then I think we may chalk up another victory for Sauron, and salute him once again for creating a system so devilishly shockproof that the house always wins.
Jeremy Kyle: public intellectual? Photograph: Ken McKay / Rex FeaturesIt was barely a month ago that this column speculated that Jeremy Kyle was attempting to rebrand himself as a public intellectual, so imagine its delight to note him sharing a platform with George Osborne at this week's Tory conference. Jeremy was chairing a fringe meeting entitled Getting Britain Back To Work, during which he said clever things such as: "Here is a lady who wants to work and says she can't afford to. That ain't right, is it?" Despite such invaluable contributions, a potentially tragic pattern seems to be forming. Last month Jeremy had dinner with Peaches Geldof; this month he's palling round with George Osborne. There are less provocative ways to goad someone into ending it all for you, Kyle, and if next month finds you taking tea with that woman who put the cat in the bin, we pray you'll seek the help you so desperately need.
