I heart Kelly Brook

It’s been a strange week. Monday, officially the most depressing, depressing day of the year, began with tough- freezing winds, even more chilling credit card bills and the sadistic irony of amazing sales when I can only check my bank balance through squinty, flinching pleading eyes but by Tuesday night I was on a high, emotionally drunk texting my entire phone book “Yes, we can!”(On the subject of bank balances, are you like me nostalgic for the days when bank machines just told you how much money you actually had, instead of bamboozling you with cleared accounts, reserve accounts, I can’t believe, this my account accounts? Lately I feel like pounding my fists against the screen and wailing “Just tell me how many pounds I have please!” I look forward to the day when opening my bank statement isn’t like the scene from the end of “Raiders of the Lost Ark”. I also think when they offer an advice slip it should say something more useful like “End it before someone gets hurt”. Banks, are you listening?!)Anyway, as I was saying, it’s a tough old time of the year when all around seem to be losing their jobs, but some seem to be doing it with more style than others.Jeremy Piven, an American actor best known for his part in HBO’s “Entourage” is facing a legal challenge from the producers of the Broadway show he had to pull out of due to sickness. Now, we’ve all pulled sickies in our time, gingerly rang our boss’s number , hanging our head over the side of the bed, reliably informed that was how you made the best sick voice, but no one has bungled it up quite as much as Piven. What excuse did he use to withdraw from the production of “Speed the Plow” the play he was the lead actor in? Upset tummy, that old reliable “food poisoning”, just not feeling that well? No, Jeremy decided to go for acute mercury poisoning; which means he claims he has been accidentally overdosing himself with sushi. Considering the amount of raw fish you would need to consume to achieve this level of toxicity (the equivalent of eating the entire cast of “Finding Nemo” raw) doctors and subsequently lawyers have become suspicious. I bet he’s wishing he’d just said he had period pains now; it might have seemed more believable... Poor old Kelly Brook has been sacked from “Britain’s Got Talent” after it became evident that unfortunately she didn’t. Unable, according to insiders, to come up with enough simpering words of encouragement on the spot for dancing dogs, or skateboarding pensioners, she was quickly asked to leave.I genuinely hope that as she was quietly escorted out of the building, past smug wax- faced Amanda Holden, a woman with all the genuineness and honesty of the scratch cards you find in magazines telling you you’ve won your own island, past scrotum faced Piers Morgan, she turned around, grabbed her wonderful breasts and shouted “Do you think I give a flying f*&k? Look at me, I’m gorgeous, you f@&king morons!” and with a flick of her hair, knocked over a troupe of prepubescent ballerinas and was away.Because what is talent? We applaud someone with an exceptional voice or incredible rhythm but surely that’s just as much an accident of birth as long legs or a beautiful face? When we talk about talent, we don’t really respect the grafters, the workmen that put the hours in, we idolise the ones that do it effortlessly and never seem to really try. When the likes of say Gary Barlow, explain how long and hard he works to craft a song, it makes us feel awkward and slightly embarrassed for him, we’d like him more if he pretended he rolled out of bed and scrawled one out between vomits.I’m sure had Kelly wanted to, she could have invested the hours and become a half decent singer, tap dancer, writer of stream of consciousness literature, but at this period in our history is that want we really want? Glamour and beauty, between gym sessions, plucking, grooming, dieting, shopping, waxing, takes as much time as any other endeavour. What does the world need, another novel on what it means to be English, or a glorious face to look at in fancy clothes, that distracts us for a moment from the knowledge that one day, we’re all going to die alone. In a world of skinny, bored teenage models, gorgeous glossy Kelly always looks like she’s made an effort. Her bouncing curves hint at the healthy, earthy sexiness of having that extra slice of cake and staying up late, her knowing grin a sign that her sexuality is something she is enjoying rather than being projected onto her. Instead of the expensive, jaded glamour of, say Paris Hilton, her plump bottom reminds us of the simpler, heartier pleasures that make money seem beside the point. Youth, beauty, life, fun, that’s what we need to celebrate and cling onto in these cynical times. She is all that is temporary, fleeting, meaningless and absolutely necessary; our talisman against old age, bills, cloudy skies and cynicism. WB Yeats said “The beautiful and the innocent have no enemy but time”. This is true for all of us, credit crunch, unemployment, mercury poisoning, negativity, Simon Cowell be damned. Don’t believe the lies. We have Kelly, we have Obama, we have big bottoms, we have all we need and it will all be fine.