You have to wonder where the world is going when an alleged assassin is celebrated – even deified – because he just happens to be, in the eyes of many, handsome and desirable.
Luigi Mangione has been arrested in connection with the murder of CEO executive Brian Thompson, who was shot down in cold blood on the streets of Manhattan.
You'd think Luigi had just released a hit song or had triumphed playing Bob Dylan or a hunky gladiator in a new Hollywood film, instead of shooting a man in the back and running away.
Thompson was the boss of UnitedHealthcare, a firm of US health insurers who had come under increasing criticism for denying medical care to clients making claims on their policies.
This has been enough reason for many social media users in America and elsewhere to glorify his death and claim that 26-year-old Mangione is some kind of modern-day Robin Hood, a folk hero for killing a stranger.
To Mangione and his doting disciples, Thompson represented a sick and corroded scheme that has ill served the poorer sections of American society for decades – but was that his fault?
Thompson is a father of two who didn't invent the US healthcare system and who was pronounced dead 27 minutes after Mangione allegedly shot him. Did he really deserve such a lonely and brutal death? Does anyone?
It is noticeable and sad that there has been scant sympathy for him – and little compassion for his bereaved family and fatherless children. Instead, a chorus of lovestruck halfwits gurgle on about Mangione's 'ripped abs' and 'flirty smile', while chat-show hosts make jokes about 'the hottest cold-blooded killer in America today' (Jimmy Kimmel) and giggling young women in New York put themselves forward for jury duty at his trial.
It makes me feel sick. It makes me fear for humanity – and the fate of an increasingly shallow society where justice is measured by how cute and attractive the accused just happens to be. And if his victim so happens to be a symbol of unloved corporate America, then so much the better.
Where were the I-Love-Luigi mob when a putative assassin shot Donald Trump in Pennsylvania back in July? Surely here was another folk hero; another little guy trying to stick it to the big guy on behalf of the disenfranchised and the overlooked?
Oh, no wait. Hang on a minute. The Trump shooter – bespectacled, nerdy, chinless, ab-free Thomas Matthew Crooks – was no one's idea of a pin-up. So he died uncelebrated and little adored, killed by Secret Service marksmen, a pimply nobody instead of a worshipped martyr.
And perhaps we should count our grisly blessings that notorious American serial killer Ted Bundy is long dead, executed by the state in 1989 for the rape and murder of at least 30 women.
The depraved maniac even decapitated some of his victims and took their heads back to his apartment as trophies, but one shudders to think how the TikTok generation would have still found a way to lionise the handsome killer.
Just look at the reaction to Wade Wilson, the barking-mad Florida murderer who was found guilty earlier this year of strangling two women to death just for 'the sake of killing'.
In the days immediately following his trial, the heavily tattooed Wilson received 754 photos and 65 letters in the post, a quarter of which were censored by the sheriff's office for their 'inappropriate nature' – nudes, in other words. Dear God.
He also received nearly 4,000 supportive messages online, mostly from women who found him attractive. Who are these deluded she-fans, revering a man who has slain women for fun? They make turkeys voting for Christmas seem like superior rational beings.
The worship of Luigi Mangione is slightly different, in that not only do his followers blindly support this troubled misfit, but they have also added an element of gloat to the death of an innocent man. And that is unforgivable.
What really gets me is the skin-deep frivolity of it all, along with the trivialisation of a serious crime and the fact that everything, even murder, is seen an entertainment these days. TikTok influencers have been dressing up as Mangione, lookalike contests have been held in New York, mocking videos have been made and fan clubs started.
The grave issues that this incident raise have been overlooked in the nauseating stampede to salivate over the killer's Italian stallion good looks and Insta-reputation as some misbegotten Robin Hood.
However, there is another narrative, if you care to think about it. Which is that Mangione is the spoiled, rich scion of a fabulously wealthy Baltimore family; an elite son who went to private school, an Ivy League university and at some stage could have used his inherited millions to do good in the world.
Instead, his life took a very dark turn, culminating in the shooting of Brian Thompson, the son of a labourer who went to a state university and spent the next 20 years working his way up the ladder of corporate America. That's another storyline, but it's not the one that Luigi lovers want to hear right now. Shame on them.
Jane is just maid to star in panto
A thousand congratulations to Jane McDonald, who makes her debut in the London Palladium's famous pantomime this year. Oh no she doesn't! Oh yes, she very much does.
Jane stars as Maid Marion, opposite Julian Clary's Robin Hood in what must be the most joyous and exuberant festive production in all of London.
To add to the fun, Robin is Marion's unlikely fiancé – who she is always trying to kiss and bed.
Well, children. We can all imagine the panto larks that ensue in that doomed relationship, can't we? Jane sings four big ballads, while Julian unleashes his usual barrage of tear-inducing filth and takes delight in mocking her Northern roots.
'She's loitering at the side of the stage, stroking her whippet,' he says. 'Oh no, she's going to sing,' he moans elsewhere, as Jane launches into a tonsil-throbbing version of
You Don't Have to Say You Love Me.
Panto is harder than it looks for performers to get right, yet the former Channel 5 cruise ship entertainer triumphs. She plays it straight and is such a roaring success that I hope she'll be back next year.
Oh yes I do.
Lakeland's Dry:Soon Heated Airer is top of the 'unsexy Christmas gifts' charts for 2024. Frankly, I'm not surprised. Those of us lucky enough to own one already know that they are big, ugly game-changers.
We seek each other out at parties and whimper gratefully about their efficacy, cheapness and practicality. So if you are hesitating to gift one to yourself or buy one for the big, wet drip in your life, don't hesitate.
My advice? Buy the Dry:Soon cover, too. Some say you don't need it, but you do. It makes a big difference.
PS. You are right; there is nothing I can't be boring about.
Polo hardly appeals to the masses, Harry
In their $100 million Netflix deal, Harry and Meghan promised to produce 'content that informs but also gives hope'. Listen, you couple of crazy Montecito-based lemons.
That is what most consumers expect from an instruction leaflet that comes with a new and complicated sex toy, not from the latest offering of an international streaming giant.
Polo, the imaginatively titled five-episode documentary about polo, fails to engage on any level, unless you want to laugh at rich young men crying in darkened rooms because they just lost a game of hitting a ball with a stick while on a horse – and obviously I do.
Yet Polo is just the latest letdown in the diminuendo of duds that Archewell have produced over recent years.
Their documentary subjects have included the Invictus Games, leadership, themselves, themselves and themselves.
Meghan's cookery show seems to have been burnt to a crisp before it even reached the screen, while only someone as blinkered and glutinously privileged as Prince Harry could possibly think there was a public interest in the foolish and expensive sport of polo – except from his fellow one percenters and the horse-owning, country ruling international elites.
The Sussexes don't even make a proper appearance until the fifth and final episode – Netflix must have been horrified by the paltry return on their investment.
Harry and Meghan say that they want to make programmes through a 'truthful and relatable lens' – yet the ridiculous, pampered man-boys who play polo are taken far too seriously here, while being hosed down with reverence and uncritical idolisation at every turn.
Do you know what? It is probably the most revealing thing Harry has ever done. This is how he sees himself.
Coleen's clever to cash in again
After coming second in I'm A Celebrity, Coleen Rooney is to launch her new reality TV show. It will focus on her life with Wayne and their four sons. One supposes it could hardly be anything else, could it?
I like Coleen very much – she has always seemed like a good and decent person. She somehow managed to keep her family together despite the provocation of her husband's infidelities – and I see that as a sign of strength, not weakness.
Yet let's be honest – what has Coleen done except marry a footballer, have kids, buy a lot of designer clothes and stand up to the odious Rebekah Vardy? Perhaps that's all it takes these days.
I'm devastated by the loss of such an inspiring man
I'm so shocked by the death of my old friend Julian Spear – a music business executive who was a wonderful man in every way.
He died of a brain haemorrhage after diving into a cold outdoor pool at a gym in Surrey on Monday.
Such a terrible and ironic death for a man who had devoted himself to fitness and healthy living.
I worked for Julian in the 1980s, a keep-fit fanatic who was into whole foods, jogging and organic years before it became mainstream. He was a fun and inspiring boss.
Unusually, he was also a dashingly handsome music biz mogul who was utterly devoted to his wife, the actress Carol Royle.
The couple had known each other for 56 years, were married for 47 and adored each other.
Self-effacing Julian would perhaps have laughed at the newspaper headlines – Husband Of Coronation Street Star Dies – but he was a major achiever in his own right.
More than 30 years later I still remember him fondly, along with his vivacity, cleverness and kindness. And I just wanted to mention that here today.
