OH OF COURSE I looked. Didn't you?
I mean who wouldn't? Male, female, goat, sealion – frankly, the individuals who could stand hand (hoof or flipper) on heart and say they have not one iota of interest in the intimate picture spread in this month's W magazine, featuring photographs ta
ken by Brad Pitt of his partner Angelina Jolie and their six children, are either lying, Amish or Fred Goodwin (who may, admittedly, have other things on his mind this week, having brought one of Scotland's greatest financial institutions to its knees and then swanned off into the sunset with a pension bigger than the GDP of Iceland). But anyway.
The pictures are, by anyone's standards, fascinating. In one we see Jolie breastfeeding one of her twins, smiling beatifically at the man she loves behind the camera. In another, she is laughing with her seven-year-old Cambodian adopted son, Maddox. In a third she looks grumpily into the camera, mid-chew, a half-eaten burger in her hand. For a couple who rarely give interviews and tend to sell their baby pictures in order to fund charitable works rather than for their own private gain, the publication of these pictures is a curious decision, given the inevitable stramash they have created (a fire fuelled by the fact that Jolie has unadvisedly chosen to tell W magazine that she takes her son Maddox shopping for knives).
It is interesting that these pictures have emerged in the same week that a Forbes survey has listed the ten faces in the world most likely to sell magazines. At numbers one and two come, not unsurprisingly, Jolie and Pitt. There are a few other predictable names on there, such as Jennifer "sad Jen" Aniston and Heath Ledger, whose death in January from an accidental drugs overdose had the magazine-buying public rushing to the newstands.
But the two most surprising names are, in seventh place, Suri Cruise, aged two, and, in eighth, Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, ditto. Now, while I appreciate why seeing the pictures in W of Jolie acting candidly with her children is interesting, I honestly don't understand why people rush out and buy a magazine because a toddler who barely has the motor skills to hold a fork is on the cover.
I keep reading about how lucky these children are, born into a life of fame and privilege. I'm not so sure. At the age of two months, Shiloh had a wax model made of her and installed in Madame Tussauds. Suri's excrement has allegedly been sold on eBay. Both of them have been paparazzi targets since birth. And now their parents (the Cruises did a "tasteful" photoshoot with Suri for Vanity Fair in 2006) seem to be actively promoting them.
A normal life must seem a most unattainable goal when life starts out like that. The Jolie-Pitts would be well advised to turn off the camera.
Sturgeons' eggs show insight into minister's taste for giftsWHO knew Nicola Sturgeon had such good taste? A list of gifts received and kept by Scottish ministers reveals that the Deputy First Minister and health secretary kept a gift of champagne and caviar from the consulate general of Russia, presumably for her own consumption. How 1986 of her. Less encouragingly, for a woman who is supposed to be in charge of improving the nation's health, she also kept a coolbag with samples of products (from which we must divine drinks), from the Coca-Cola company. And I don't want to hear that they were the diet drinks, Nicola, you know as well as the rest of us that's little in the way of an excuse. By far the most, er, intriguing of the gifts however, were received by Alex Salmond, who was given a stuffed toy rat for Chinese new year from an academic, as well as, from the Cantilena Children's Art Festival, a papier-mâché puppet of himself. So, no more worries about lining up a successor, then.
• SO, the credit crunch has been upgraded to a credit crisis. Who decides this stuff? Did someone start a Facebook group about it? While the financial world spins on its axis, it is fascinating to note the market terms that have made it on to the front pages lately. As a former business journalist I used to pride myself on a nerdy knowledge of terms such as 'dead cat bounce' (a market rally after a sharp fall), 'bottom fishing' (buying up oversold shares when markets are down) and 'triple witching' (not, surprisingly, a Girls Aloud concert). My favourite, however, is 'naked option', and I think I speak for us all when I say I hope this is something Gordon Brown never has to do.
The full article contains 806 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
