Tiger Woods: Is he currying favour?
So is Tiger addicted to sex... or his sponsors? . The shambolic figure photographed in the grounds of a rehab clinic was hardly recognisable at first.
But look closer and this was Tiger Woods as we have never seen him before — an unshaven loner, dressed in shabby shorts and a hoodie (the celebrity’s equivalent of sackcloth and ashes).
What a contrast to the immaculately groomed golfing legend we used to know. Whether the picture that circulated the world was set up or accidental, it had the same effect — showing the fallen star had fallen very far indeed, deep into contrition.
Its publication was followed swiftly by details of the treatment Woods is now seeking for ‘sex addiction’.
Penitence or just PR?
I can’t help wondering whether this whole rehab trip is just an orchestrated attempt to garner the forgiveness of his former fans, the sympathy of his estranged wife and (perhaps more pertinently) the pardon of his multi-million-pound sponsors who have abandoned Woods after details of his many mistresses came to light.
Because despite saying he was giving up golf altogether to concentrate on being a good husband and better person, rumours now abound that Tiger is planning a return to the PGA tour in the spring.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Oprah Winfrey’s sofa is already booked for him to blub all over.
How long before today’s pariah is back in business, the slate wiped clean by a few days in an expensive retreat?
Whatever the truth about that picture, rehab clinics have become the modern
equivalent of a ‘get out of jail free’ card for misbehaving celebrities, whether their sin is drink, drugs, violence or sex.
They need help and sympathy, their spokesmen say. They are victims of a medical condition, and are now being cured. It’s atonement on prescription.
What precious few of them are prepared to stand up and say is: ‘I made a mistake, I behaved badly, it was my choice.’
Besides, is there really any such thing as sex addiction? Isn’t it just like food — some people are plain greedy and if they can get away with over-indulging they will?
One of the problems of modern life is that people are not prepared to take responsibility for their own actions. Celebrities, in particular, are quick to blame others, society, their parents . . . anyone and anything, rather accept the blame when scandals come to light.
Tiger Woods a sex addict? I suspect he’s more addicted to Nike and those millions he makes as the world’s richest sportsman than he is to sex with a changing cast of cocktail waitresses.
We know they can’t stand each other, don’t speak except on TV and readily admit they have nothing in common — except a desperate need to be centre stage.
So it was rather curious to see Cheryl Cole cuddling up to pregnant Dannii Minogue at the National Television Awards sporting an ‘I’m broody, too’ grin.
Given that pair’s rivalry, how long before Cheryl announces she’s expecting triplets?
Christine’s own goal
Christine Bleakley: Airbrushed
You don't have to look like a footballer's girlfriend to be one.
Westminster noticeboard
In Labour strongholds, one worker in three is employed by the State.
Wage apartheid — or another blatant attempt by Brown to buy his core vote?
Despite a battering from Labour and even from wet members of his own Shadow Cabinet (and yes, I do mean you, David Willetts), David Cameron holds firm to his promise to support marriage through the tax system.
Now that’s beginning to feel like a lasting commitment.
Judging by her discreet behaviour at the Golden Globe Awards, Paul McCartney’s new love Nancy Shevell understands her man very well indeed.
Arriving with him to collect an award, she disappeared the moment the cameras were upon them, leaving him to soak up all the adulation.
Heather Mills may be able to dance on ice, but ducking out of her husband’s limelight is one smart move she never mastered.
The smile of hop
John Humphrys described the picture of a beaming seven-year-old Kiki Joachin being rescued after a week buried alive in Haiti as an almost biblical image, a resurrection scene that could have been painted by Caravaggio.
Washed and safe the next day, bearing hardly a scratch from his ordeal, little Kiki said: ‘I smiled because I was free — I smiled because I was alive.’
And the world smiled with him.
In a world where movie stars never stop squealing about their lack of privacy, how refreshing to discover Keira Knightley has been living in quiet anonymity on a houseboat in East London with her boyfriend, Rupert Friend.
They make pots of tea, walk hand-in-hand along the canal and eat at the local chippy.
She’s perfect proof you can be nominated for an Oscar and still remain a normal human being.
Details of the attack carried out by two brothers, aged 10 and 11, on a helpless pair of boys are almost too horrendous to contemplate.
The litany of torture and abuse they revelled in defied all humanity. My first instinct was that any child who displayed such savagery should be locked away for ever.
Yet when you hear of the way the two brothers were raised, what chance did they ever have of a normal life?
Their father was a violent drunk who regularly beat, burnt and suffocated their mother, battering them senseless if they tried to intervene.
A constant supply of porn and violent films was available for them to watch at home.
The younger boy was smoking marijuana (grown on his father's allotment) and drinking from the age of nine.
I don't for one moment excuse their crimes, but surely if anyone deserves to be jailed for life, it is the father who stole their childhood long before that terrible day.
In defence of her decision to have an IVF baby in her 60th year, Sue Tollefsen says: ‘Don’t just look at me as a 59-year-old, look at my child and how happy and lovely she is.’
Mrs Tollefsen holds aloft her adorable 22-month-old first IVF baby, Freya, as proof of what she calls her inalienable ‘right to be a mum’, whatever her age.
It’s certainly proof of the equality of men and women.
It used to be only vain old men clinging desperately to their mortality who had babies when they were old enough to be collecting their bus passes.
Chilcot Corner
Giving evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry, Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon admitted he was rarely present at any of the key decision-making meetings leading up to the war in Iraq, so could shed little insight into what took place.
What he could reveal, though, is that the then Chancellor, Gordon Brown, starved the Forces of cash before and after the invasion, leading to a shortage of kit and helicopters.
As for the former Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw said he could have stopped the war, that it was the hardest decision he’d ever taken, and that the false 45 minutes claim still haunts him.
Not half as much as it haunts the bereaved families who are now realising, from the mouths of a cowardly Cabinet, that they lost their sons and daughters in what this government’s ministers knew in their hearts was an illegal and ill-prepared invasion.
Alistair Campbell now admits his evidence to the Inquiry may have been misleading: ‘Reading the bald words on the page gives the wrong impression of what I was saying in response to what I thought I was being asked.’ Come back, John Prescott, all is forgiven!
Tony Blair is said to be devastated by the death of his close friend and spiritual mentor, Peter Thompson — but could not attend the funeral in Melbourne as he was too busy preparing his evidence for the Chilcot Inquiry.
Why does Blair need to ‘prepare’ any testimony? Telling the truth shouldn’t need any research. ( dailymail.co.uk )
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