Mel B's amazing Christmas trip to stay with Rwanda's president
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Version 0 of 1. When it comes to Christmas, stars are just like us. Indeed, they certainly want us to think they are just like us, with the trusty annual magazine inquiry "How are you spending the holidays?" providing the perfect opportunity for some amusingly mendacious market positioning. If there is a purpose to Lost in Showbiz – though I hope it is abundantly clear after all this time that there is absolutely none – then it is to be out here, drowning in all the magazines and websites, so you don't have to be. And let me tell you something I have learned after years and years of this toil at the coalface of sparkle: there is literally no celebrity who does not cook the Christmas dinner. Not. One. Every one of those gilded creatures gets up at 4am, manhandles some beast of a bird into a giant tin, and spends the next seven hours worrying about its progress and whether they ought to have wrapped the legs, while occasionally lugging it out to let its carcass baste their blowdry with nourishing steamed juice. None of them has help; none of them has some semi-indentured housekeeping retinue grudgingly paid time-and-a-quarter for the big day, and none of them needs a satnav to find their own kitchen. On the guiding principle that the relationship with one's fans should be profoundly passive-aggressive and ideally pre-feminist, it is incumbent on the modern celebrity to dress up to the absolute nines, having starved themselves down to the absolute zeroes, and pose for a relaxed festive magazine shoot giving us a flavour of how they'll be muddling gorgeously through on the big day. "It's chaos!" they must declare, with a tinkly laugh of indulgence. "But somehow it all gets done." The great sadness, obviously, is their failure to realise that the last thing we want them to be is "just like us". We would like their festive season to be as lunatic and otherworldly as the rest of their more diverting excesses. So in this spirit, do let's take the time to salute the lone stars: the one or two entertainers who stand out as having made the effort to be total celebrity arses. A few years ago, it was Mr Tom Cruise, who was reported to have gifted all his staff an envelope. This they presumably tore open in the anticipation of a cash present – only to discover a card bearing the printed greeting: "A donation has been made on your behalf to the International Association of Scientologists." But this year it is our very own Mel B whose yuletide plans are properly exceptional. To wit: Scary Spice will be spending it with misunderstood Rwandan president Paul Kagame. But please, don't take my word for it – over to B herself. "Christmas is different every year," she informed the Daily Mirror this week. "Last year we were in Australia and it was lovely, but this year we have decided to go to Rwanda. We've got this amazing trip planned, and we're staying with the president, Paul Kagame." Thanks to Bob Geldof, we know there won't be snow in Africa this Christmas. What there will be, according to Mel, is a selection of guest fauna. "I said to the kids: 'Do you want to go to Africa and see lions, tigers and bears or stay at home and watch TV all day?' It was a no-brainer." Come come, B. Don't do yourself down. Anyway, the invitation seems to have come via Kagame's son and daughter, who apparently live in New York, and who, Mel says, are "adorable people". Inevitably, though, certain detractors have felt moved to point out Kagame's questionable human rights record, as well as last year's UN report suggesting he funded and trained a militia accused of war crimes in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo. Which feels a little sour-grapey of some of the lesser Spices, but there you go. They may well be reduced to actually cooking their own turkeys these days, so you have to allow them a bit of a vent. Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning. |