Never mind the buttocks

These are strange days at the Sunday Independent, a newspaper which is regularly accused of being excessively frivolous, but one which is a godsend to those of us who live abroad and still think there’s something terribly “wrong” about reading newspapers on the Internet.

I have noticed a worrying development of late, however: a clutch of writers have developed such intense paranoia that they now deem it necessary to devote an entire page to writing disparaging articles about former colleagues and the staff of rival publications.

The section in question glories under the moniker Fifth Column, and contains a dizzying array of gratuitous snipes each week, many of which are written by men who you’d think would be wise enough to know better.

Others are penned by writers either too absent-minded or cowardly to attach bylines to their work, and any remaining gaps are filled by Brendan O’Connor, an angry man from Cork who appears to have developed something of a scatter-gun approach to journalism in an attempt to offload the many chips that appear to weigh heavily on his broad shoulders. All of which is fine and dandy, except…

It has come to my attention that numerous Sunday Independent writers seem to have developed a worrying obsession with celebrity chef arses, with the aforementioned Brendan O’Connor and his colleague Sarah Caden being the main offenders.

That’s not celebrity chef arses in the “Jamie Oliver is a celebrity and an arse” sense of the expression. The fixation is with actual buttocks. More specifically, buttocks that belong to Domestic Goddess, Nigella Lawson.

For example, in a recent, relatively short article about whether or not Nigella’s new cookery programme is a good thing, Caden revealed a grim fascination with the popular cook’s “burgeoning bottom”. Indeed, so spellbound was she with the derriere in question that she deemed it worthy of several mentions, one of which took up a paragraph. We should not watch Forever Summer With Nigella for a number of reasons, she appeared to be saying, the main one being that its presenter’s behind is wider than the wingspan of an albatross.

As an avid television viewer, I find this particular mode of criticism rather fickle. With so much dross on the dream-box these days, the importance of the critic’s role cannot be overstated. So when it emerges that the TV reconnaissance expert of Ireland’s biggest selling Sunday newspaper has decided to eschew the traditional method of judging programmes on their merits, in favour of one that sees her base evaluations on the size of assorted buttocks, we can only conclude that she is not performing her role quite as informatively as might be expected.

Whether or not Nigella Lawson’s latest television excursion is any good or not is a moot point, but the very fact that its presenter has gone to the trouble of making it suggests that her efforts deserve to be judged on less whimsical criteria than rump-size.

ITV1’s You’ve Been Framed, for example, is a terrible, terrible television programme for no end of reasons, but it is highly unlikely that the sight of an old woman falling headfirst into a paddling pool would be any less tedious if Lisa Riley, the show’s “larger than life” presenter, lost some of the considerable bulk that constitutes her ample nether regions.

By the same token, the execrable breakfast show RI:SE will never be anything other than a complete load of drivel, no matter how well toned the delightful Liz Bonin’s buns appear to be. And if you’re still unconvinced, ask yourself this: has the quality of Neighbours deteriorated in any way since the peerlessly pert Kylie Minogue left the show? But then how could it?

Admittedly, Brendan O’Connor’s interest in Nigella’s backside is less peculiar, considering he has form, having previously cut his teeth by writing at length about J-Lo’s posterior.

“Indeed, anyone who’s watched Forever Summer, Nigella’s latest outing, will have noticed that the [olive] oil is beginning to show up on her hindquarters,” he expounded more recently in a chest-thumping polemic on the decreasing popularity of cookery programmes.

I only mention all this inconsequential crap because I originally thought it would afford me a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to embark on some intricate and clever-clever wordplay involving weighty issues, bottom lines, rear views and poor hindsight. All of which would allow me to point out a remarkable coincidence – that both the gentlemen of Fifth Column and Domestic Goddess Nigella Lawson are in an ideal position to call their autobiographies Behind: The Times.

Sadly, I seem to have run out of space, so my puns of steel will have to wait until such time as I can be, erm, arsed.