Tory green gaffe

Not the best of beginnings to the new year on Planet Tory. Although you may have missed it, Peter Ainsworth (environment, big hair), has published a list of green “heroes and zeroes”. All are faintly mad (George Monbiot – ‘too grumpy’) but praise is lavished on Sarah Beeny, the presenter of How Toxic Are You? on Channel 4, for highlighting “the presence of toxic chemicals in household products”.

Alas, this coincides with a release from Sense About Science, detailing celebrity science gaffes, with the worst offender being cited as one Sarah Beeny. One chemist criticises her programme’s “lack of positive scientific fact”, while another fumes about her insistence that a certain soap was chemical-free. “To be chemical-free you have to experience a total vacuum greater than that of space,” he explains.

Keen collectors of political memorabilia should cast their rheumy eyes across the Channel, where the possessions and, we are told, wardrobe of the late President Mitterrand are soon to appear for auction. The items are being sold by Danielle, his widow, in order to fund France-Libertés, her humanitarian organisation. The auction lots are thought to include gifts from world leaders such as Fidel Castro, as well as red, cashmere mufflers and bohemian-style black, felt sombreros, of which he was, apparently, fond.

An awful lot of Wales on the page today, for some reason. Russell Crowe is to take part in the BBC Wales series Coming Home to trace long-lost relatives. His great-grandparents ran a fruit and veg shop in Wrexham.

In luvviedom, political correctness appears to be on the wane. In Debrett’s People of Today 2008, female thespians describing their occupation as “actress” include Helena Bonham Carter, Joan Collins, Dame Judi Dench, Keira Knightley, Janet McTeer, Sienna Miller, Dame Helen Mirren, Vanessa Redgrave and Kate Winslet. Throughout, only Samantha Bond (Miss Moneypenny, to you and me) opts for “actor”.

Postscript

Young Stalin, the biography by Simon Sebag Montefiore, is to be made into a film by Miramax, with John Hodge (of Trainspotting) writing the script. Who will play the young Stalin? So many reasons, these days, for him to sound Scottish.

Slash (from Guns N’ Roses) was on Virgin Radio yesterday, promoting his new autobiography. After reminiscing about meeting Arnold Schwarzenegger he left the studio and drew a moustache on a picture of Debbie Harry that was in the hall.

Proof, at last, of our long-held rule of thumb that the intrinsic worth of a film is inversely proportional to the number of times that it has Eddie Murphy in it. An online survey by AOL has him listed as the poorest-performing actor of 2007 for Norbit, in which he has three parts.

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