What A Time To Be Alive! - Marina Hyde [EXCLUSIVE EXTRACT]

0:10Hi guys, this is Marina. I hope you're all very well. My new book, What a Time to Be Alive, is out now and I'm really excited to say that on this feed we have a chapter from the audiobook. Obviously, I have picked one with lots of celebrities and entertainment in it. So, we have Brooklyn seceding from the Beckhams, the Gwyneth Paltrow scheme massacre trial. I very much hope you enjoy it. But as I say, the book's out now, but if audiobooks are more your thing, there is a big extended interview with me on that format as a bonus conducted by none other than my beloved Richard Osman. So anyway, there you go.

0:45What a time to be alive. Out now. Chapter one, media spectacles, spectacular and otherwise. Television adhered to the decree of Duchess Meghan and allowed us to experience wonder in every moment. From the no-stakes legal maelstrom of the Gwyneth Paltrow ski trial to Princess Di's ghost hamming away furiously in the crown, the possibilities of the medium were explored in dazzling fashion. Strictly Come Dancing continued its long stint as the prime piece of formatted entertainment across which all UK culture wars must be fought, while Saoirse Ronan failed to understand the assignment and said something interesting, unprepared and unexpected on a chat show.

1:30Ideally, it won't catch on. Speaking of things unlikely to catch on, car manufacturer Jaguar unveiled a peak woke advert precisely two weeks after the watershed moment of Donald Trump's re-election, after which you couldn't sell a single share in woke, much less a pink car with a six-figure price tag. Meanwhile, our long-time alternative royal family, the Beckhams, caught a nasty case of the Windsors. Did Gwyneth Paltrow ski into a retired optometrist? I couldn't care less, but the farce is unmissable. 28th of March, 2023. A star-struck lawyer, a neutrals-clad wellness guru, this has to be the lowest-stakes court battle of all time.

2:19To Park City, Utah, currently seen of one of the great pleasures of modern life, a court battle that you'd be intensely relaxed for either side to lose. Yes, it's the Gwyneth Paltrow scheme massacre trial. Take your seats for a preposterously camped battle between a well-to-do retired optometrist, who says the high priestess of Fanny Steaming skied into him, and her Vajusty herself, who says he skied into her. Why is this not happening at The Hague? Sorry, but no sense of occasion. Before we go any further, I want to make a deeply serious point. Something happened that day. Something happened on that mountain, in that luxury ski resort, up there in God's Cathedral.

3:01And, like anyone who has watched either the plaintiff or the defendant on the stand at any length, I literally could not care less what it was. I mean, this is as low stakes as it gets. Asked about what had been taken from her by the events on the Deer Valley slopes, Paltrow delivered the sociopathically straight-to-meme line, well, I lost half a day of skiing. Bear in mind this is a woman who claims that water has feelings. For his part, Terry Sanderson's lawyer put things into perspective by declaring, after the crash, he's no longer charming. We'll come on to the charm-icidal maniac slash wronged wellness guru in a moment.

3:41First, a reminder that Mr. Sanderson is seeking$300 ,000 in damages, which, to us country mice on this side of the Atlantic, feels a little eye-catching. Of course, we have only an outsider's grasp of the Baroque flourishes of the US legal system. But we surely know that any citizen of that great nation making some kind of personal injury claim understands that this is America and asks for at least$30 million just as a point of principle. Then again, having watched him, I think I'm on the verge of understanding why Mr. Sanderson values his lost charm at a mere$300 ,000. In reality, so well adjusted is our early 21st century system of social capital that there are few better ways to accrue charm than from starring in the Gwyneth Paltrow ski trial.

4:31This seems to have been something once dimly grasped by Mr Sanderson, who emailed his daughters in the immediate wake of the accident with the possibly unfortunate subject line, I'm famous, at what cost? As for whether the collision put him off skiing ever again, on Monday he revealed he tried not to go back, but eventually overrode himself and took several skiing trips, albeit dressed in slightly traumatised paws. this ungodly looking red fluorescent outfit that I bought. Steaks, dear boy, steaks. Arguably Terry's most compelling proof that he suffered a brain injury is his choice of lawyer who makes Lionel Hutz look like Cicero.

5:13At one point in the proceedings, Kristen Van Ornen almost squealed, I am so jealous, I have to wear four-inch heels just to make it to five foot five. They're very nice, lied Gwyneth. You're not trained in accident reconstruction, ran another gambit. Me? asked Gwyneth. No. Neither am I, chortled Kristen. A few years ago, Gwyneth stopped acting to focus on her lifestyle brand goop, and I would be overjoyed if she now stopped that to focus on starring in court cases serving up this level of farm-to-table hilarity. Private security for my client wanted to bring in treats for the bailiffs for how helpful they've been, announced her lawyer one morning, so I wanted to do that transparently and see if there are any objections?

5:57Alas, there were some objections. That basic bitch Lady Justice apparently says Madam can't treat basket her way out of this one. But you can't keep a good wellness entrepreneur down. Every aesthetically challenging day in that hideous orange Utah legal facility, Gwyneth has swept in wearing category five neutrals, hopefully drawn from her own brand's courtroom casuals line. Though all Gwyneth's garments are made from the neck of these really incredible Himalayan goats to whose sheddings a normie like you could never have access, do be reassured they will be lovingly ripped off in never pill nylon and available later this year as Halloween costumes.

6:38Just as goop is a place where food is never eaten but instead grabbed or reached for, so it is that one of the best things Gwyneth's website can say about any outfit is that it takes you effortlessly from one part of your day to another. In this case, from pursing your lips in court to making that evening's waiter give you the resume and achievements of every ingredient in the biodynamic salad before pursing your lips once more and hissing, no thank you, I'll just have broth. As for any lessons that might be drawn from this appallingly entertaining courtroom dramedy, I'm afraid I can only return to an oldie but a goodie.

7:17Never litigate. Never litigate unless you absolutely positively have to. And as far as anyone can see, Mr. Sanderson didn't have to. We already know what Gwyneth Paltrow is like, but we now know from Terry's own testimony that he ordered his former girlfriend to leave him after he began his legal journey as, I knew she didn't buy into it. My interaction with my family has been difficult, he reflected yesterday. Something is wrong with my essence and what I bring to the table with them. Earlier, one of his daughters had testified that he was obsessed with the trial, while another's deposition declared he was emotionally abusive and quick to anger before the 2016 collision.

8:00Whatever the thread count of this dirty linen, is it worth it? For anyone other than the countless mind-boggled spectators, the answer can only be no.

8:14Diana's ghost in The Crown? Darling, what's new? She's the hardest working specter in showbiz. 17th of October, 2023. Thanks to psychics and Hollywood actors, she's never wanted for work and she'll be a real vision in Netflix's prestige drama. There is spine-tingling supernatural news from The Crown, a TV show that takes itself considerably more seriously than the actual royal family. This has never been a programme that wears the prestige TV label as lightly as have other jewels of the era, preferring instead to drag it like a 10-ton weight into every scene, while some of the finest actors of their generations pretend to be things like Sad About the News or Princess Anne.

9:02Giggling away with a drink and a packet of crisps, I often wonder if I am its only disloyal subject. Surely not. For a long time, I really couldn't believe anyone took it seriously and assumed it must be in on the joke itself. A Nicolas Cage of a show, if you will. I can't quite decide whether this position has been bolstered or undermined by the High Camp news that the forthcoming final series is to feature the ghost of Princess Diana. According to reports, and it's not out yet, so the usual caveats, the ghost appears to both Prince Charles and the late Queen. The Queen sees her while planning the funeral arrangements and starts crying, having been told she taught us what it means to be British.

9:45To Charles, who is apparently shown sobbing over her body in a Paris morgue, Diana's ghost reportedly says, thank you for how you were in the hospital. So raw, broken, and handsome. Ooh. I'll take that with me. You know I loved you so much. So deeply, so painfully too. That's over now. It will be easier for everyone with me gone. Can this genuinely be the dialogue? I certainly hope so. Having said all that, I have kept a close eye on the appearances of Princess Di's ghost since her death. I'm not her talent agent or anything. Indeed, the post-death CV I am about to showcase might cause you to wonder if she even has reputable theatrical representation in the afterlife.

10:30But once you start, patterns do begin to suggest themselves. One of the most regular jobs Diana's ghost takes, for example, is appearing to actors who are going to play her to communicate how completely okay she is with their decision. And, dare they hint, kind of honored? Kristen Stewart, who was Diana in the 2021 film Spencer, felt some spooky spiritual feelings making this movie. I felt there were moments where I kind of got the sign off. It was the same for Naomi Watts, who gave us her Diana in an eponymous 2013 film. There were definitely moments when I felt Diana's presence, explained Watts.

11:09I found myself constantly asking for her permission to carry on. There was one particular moment where I felt her permission was granted. Hmm. Elsewhere, Diana's ghost has an eye for an occasion. Before this crown booking, she most recently appeared to, or rather was heard by, some viewers of ITV's broadcast of the Queen's funeral. As the hearse headed out of London towards Windsor, a woman's voice could be heard saying, the death is irreversible, and the fact that she's trapped, before a male commentator hastily cut in. Really a very competitive booking from ITV there, who do suffer with people reflexively watching the big events on the BBC.

11:49Speaking of big events, Diana's former psychic and energy healer, Simone Simmons, is still able to hear her ghost, even over the sound of cash registers. I know a lot of people aren't going to like it, hazarded Simmons in 2017, but she said we've got to vote for Brexit. Britain was great economically and production-wise before we joined the EU. She was interested in the referendum and suggested I vote to leave because Britain was really great before the EU. Righto. During Covid, Diana's ghost seems to have fallen in with an Australian anti-masker. Then in 2018, a Japanese spiritual leader announced the deceased princess had been in touch to reveal that England will experience another revolution.

12:36Also, I prefer Islam. Then again, Diana's a great lover of pubs, frequenting the England's rose in Oxfordshire, formerly the Feathers, and several others, even if her chat tends towards the predictable. Like many with their gift, is it? Psychics frequently reveal that she has told them that Kate is perfect, but she can't be doing with Meghan. Not that her royal spectralness is always welcome. A parson was reportedly called to Soundringham in 2001 after the servants refused to work in one chamber. The parson said, wrote the Mail's long-time royal correspondent Kenneth Rose in volume two of his diaries, 1979 to 2014, that the oppressive or disturbing atmosphere may have been because of Princess Diana.

13:26A poor show, but it must be said that work-wise, the 2000s for Diana's Ghost, had the humiliating flavor of John Travolta's 1980s. 2003 found her appearing in a pay-per-view séance in the US. The DVD of this televisual horror show is emblazoned with the words, Banned in Great Britain, which would sadly have limited the presumably much-needed royalties available to its naturalized American presenter, former Avengers star Patrick McNee. McNee certainly looks to be thinking of the paycheck as he watches psychics compete to get the best content from Other Side Die. For someone who in life could pick up the phone to the likes of Elton John or Liza Minnelli for a sensational gossip, it must feel a bit of a comedown having to spend eternity with only ghastly old chancers like these to natter to.

14:19Diana supposedly appears to one medium couple at the séance who say she's met Mother Teresa. Funny way to put it, given she and Mother T met several times in life, but perhaps they'd shared a drink from the River Lethe. Or maybe Mother T was just being standoffish about the fact that Diana's death, five days before her own, ended up completely overshadowing it. That séance came before the era of prestige TV, of course, meaning it was not inherently classy. Strange now to think back to that benighted time when actual culture secretaries somehow thought they had better things to do than write to Netflix.

14:56I fear a generation of viewers who did not live through these events may mistake fiction for fact, feared Oliver Dowden about the previous series of The Crown. For my part, I fear he is now Deputy Prime Minister. It would be wonderful to know Diana's view on both that incidental detail and her upcoming appearance in The Crown. And since she's the afterlife's greatest showbiz trooper, it surely won't be long before we find out. One day, all matters of state will be decided through Strictly Come Dancing. That day seems near. 15th of October, 2024. The Saturday Night Staple is no longer just a dance show.

15:39It's a battlefield where political fights and culture wars are waged. Within two years, maybe one, the preeminent mode of political discourse in our society will be things that did or didn't happen on Strictly Come Dancing. This imperial phase for our culture was actually predicted by Edmund Burke in a sealed section of A Vindication of Natural Society, viewable only by those with a pure heart and the sophisticated conviction that ballroom has always been war by other means. I think Burke also foresaw Greg Wallace, who we'll come to in a sec. As you may know, the top-rated BBC Saturday Night Show has once again been fitted with its row suffix.

16:24The latest incident to rock Strictly in the parlance of these things concerns pro dancer Katya Jones and Wynne Evans, the guy who plays the opera singer Gio Campario in the Go Compare adverts. And if you gave in to even a twitch of a smile at the thought of contemporary sexual politics being litigated via those proxies, then you should be immediately reclassified into that least escapable modern category, part of the problem. As for the problem, is it very bad to have spent two days scrutinising the footage, watching the row mushroom, studying the two separate apology videos for something the pair insist was a joke, and still be distinctly unclear on what did or didn't happen?

17:05If so, I can only apologise. To briefly summarise, footage from Saturday shows Wynne's hand slightly creeping round Katya's waist and her moving it back. There also seems to have been a declined high five. As mentioned, both have since posted video apologies, e-pologies if you will, saying it was just a silly inside joke. And look, I have a huge amount of time for formal statements containing the words, we were just messing around in the claudatorium. Likewise, today's official corporation statement about something said in a Mrs. Brown's boys rehearsal, which declares the BBC against all forms of racism and sounds like something Derek Zoolander might have on a t-shirt.

17:51The Strictly row has drawn forth all the forces of the pre-industrial woo-woo complex. Take body language expert Judy James, doyen of this venerated science, who is somehow yet to receive the nod from the Nobel Committee. Judy was on hand in the Daily Mail to reveal the true meaning of the pair's joint apology for the joke. Wynne's smile looks awkward and becomes a teeth-bearing gesture when he opens his mouth to try to speak, she decrees. His yes, sorry, looks penitent and he finishes with a lip clamp with with his mouth pulled down at the corners in a denial ritual. Katya leans into the camera with her brows raised and finishes with clenched teeth.

18:32Not to be in a denial ritual, but sorry, what? I'm certainly looking forward to Judy being let loose on the concurrent Greg Wallace videos. The MasterChef host also seems to be in some kind of, yes, hot water over on-set jokes and has consequently felt the need to set the record straight. Has he succeeded? Well, we can probably all agree none of us would wish to have been sitting in our home study yesterday with a selfie stick while saying the words, These allegations were investigated by the BBC six years ago, and my comments were found to be not sexual. This sort of thing is normally the prelude to joining Substack.

19:11Then, this morning, Greg could be found yomping across the field with that same selfie stick, revealing he was stressed but sticking to my healthy lifestyle choices, I really like a mango. I really like a pineapple. I really like a bowl of blueberries. Greg has himself done Strictly, of course, such as the nature of light entertainment cross-pollination. He subsequently revealed of his stint on the show, I was having a really tough time. The side of my face broke out into a rash, like cold sores, but up the side of my face. Unable to go on stage one Saturday night, he summoned a therapist to the studio.

19:47I got parking for her, only for her to fix him with the words, Greg Wallace, as important as you think you are, nobody gives a shit what you dance like, mate. This wasn't the line he went with after elimination, of course, but arguably she had a point. Yet for something meant to be a bit of fun, Strictly can have the flavour of some totalitarian country's state television, with its nutso apparatus of fervently expressed joy and gratitude, underpinned by beady-eyed artist chaperones and mandated apologies that typically resemble hostage videos. It is getting to the stage this season where I can almost imagine a contestant giving their mind of the slip and defecting to I'm a celebrity in the dead of night.

20:29Press conference on the Gold Coast airport tarmac in which they denounce the warped ideology of the glitter ball and reveal the existence of a network of tango re-education camps. Perhaps this is one of the downsides of the post-streaming wars world. There is just less television that people gather around at the same time now. Aside from sport, the formats that still retain the power to bring the nation together in serious numbers, live, also frequently seem to polarise it, or at least become freighted with vastly more meaning than they can possibly bear. Strictly's unasked-for status, as the show across which most culture wars must be waged, increasingly reminds me of those shudder-inducing stories about battery chickens.

21:13These unfortunate creatures are intensively farmed in order to scale them up at unnatural speed, but they still cheep like chicks and have legs that are unable to support the weight of their bodies. Without wishing to call it too soon, is it just possible that a dancing show is being forced to bear too much cultural weight? I don't expect stone-cold truths from a chat show, but Saoirse Ronan delivered one. 29th October 2024 The men on Graham Norton's sofa found self-defence a hoot. I'm sure most women have found themselves in that conversation. In a development that absolutely must not catch on, something interesting has happened on a TV chat show.

22:01What a precedent. I'm desperately hoping the entertainment industry rallies round to prevent it ever happening again. We can probably count on it. The dance of all chat shows these days is almost entirely mechanized. You go on, you do your rehearsed anecdotes. The news that the late Michael Parkinson is being relaunched as an AI barely raises an eyebrow because it's all so synthetic anyway. Therefore, the moments when it isn't take on outsized significance. As you may have guessed, we are talking about last Friday's episode of The Graham Norton Show, on which The Blitz star Saoirse Ronan appeared as a guest, alongside Gladiator 2 actors Denzel Washington and Paul Mescal and Day of the Jackal leading man Eddie Redmayne.

22:45We join the sofa as Redmayne is doing an anecdote about how his Jackal preparation involved him being trained in self defence in order to do what Team America would call his acting. Not how Eddie put it, obviously. and yet the reality. Redmayne's revelation that he was shown how to use a phone as a weapon if attacked proves quite the hoot, with Mescal riffing on the absurdity. Who's actually going to do that though? Norton chiming in and Denzel laughing along. Ronan is trying to say something, but she gets honked over before managing to cut through with a line for the ages. That's what girls have to think about all the time.

23:24Oof, the look on the other actors' faces after Saoirse has detonated this chatter-side bomb is hilariously mesmerising, as is the sudden silence which is split-second but also seems to last 27 years. Ronan obligingly diffuses it by provoking the audience's applause with a rallying, am I right ladies? And then everyone moves on. Well, everyone except the internet, which has been picking over the entrails ever since. The clip itself will be familiar to any woman who has ever wondered if they can be arsed interrupting some self-styled comedy gold happening around them to say something that matters to them.

24:03As mentioned, Saoirse herself has at least one failed attempt at interjection before waiting, as one must, and trying again, at which point the guys are having such a rip-roaring time doing their bit that initially they don't appear to realise she has opted not to respond with the time-worn improv gambit, yes and. Possibly the best part of the entire thing is the moment after, surely a shoo-in for the best silence Oscar. Personally, I'd have liked it to have been broken by Denzel thundering, where is your improv now? But for some reason, such lines desert our leading men. Caught unawares, Redmayne offers a sort of one, yes queen, nod, but the applause for Ronan is seized on as a natural break, and the conversation moves on without anyone at all discussing by far and away the most fascinating thing said on the sofa thus far.

24:55But look, I know what you might be thinking, is all this unfair? I mean, they're only on a flipping chat show, aren't they? The trouble is that there are so few of these sorts of moments in the obsessively controlled world of contemporary showbiz that we are left with the somewhat absurd situation of twats like me remorselessly analysing this tiny clip like we're huddled in the White House Situation Room watching live footage of some sealed team raid on a stronghold and holding our breath for the kill order. And yet, this one proves no less satisfying each time you see it. Ladies and gentlemen, she got them.

25:29No one is suggesting that the male actors and presenter involved deserve some huge backlash for this. What people are saying is that the moment was telling. When clips like this go viral, it's for a reason. For this many civilians to share them, this many female civilians, let's face it, means they instantly saw something they recognised. Most, if not absolutely all women, have been in a version of that conversation in their time, and almost all have not found the precise words to say in the moment it was happening, instead coming up with them either while stewing on the way home, or two weeks later in the middle of the night, still stewing.

26:09For the right words to be found in the moment, on primetime television, is a fantasy arguably more powerful than any of the ones the chaps are currently promoting in their movies and prestige TV projects. No offence to the Roman gladiator, former Roman gladiator turned arms dealer and public school assassin with whom Saoirse was sharing the sofa, but Mescal and Washington just got totally coliseumed, while Redmayne took an absolute burn bullet to the forehead. even now their publicists will be frantically workshopping reflective answers for pending interviews in which they may be asked about Ronan's point what makes it somehow more darkly amusing is that these particular three male actors are always projected as being among the good guys of showbiz and I'm sure they are but what they can't do even with all their combined decades of acting is think their way into the part of literally any woman in any place walking home after dark or going down an almost deserted route on just another day in a lifetime of knowing she could be prey.

27:12You get quite good at thinking about how boring little things like phones or keys might be able to defend you in those moments, as any woman will wearily concede. We all dream of a future without this forever hum of fear, where we too can join in the absurdist joke. And yes, of course it was all just a joke. But consider the real-life context in which this tiny little sofa vignette occurred. We are a week off a US presidential election in which the fact that the bookies' favourite has been accused of multiple sexual assaults over multiple decades has not even been an issue. Even with my expectations adjusted to meet the times, it will never not blow my mind that we are going to get to the end of this presidential campaign and the fact that at least 26, 26 women have accused one candidate of sexual assault has not even remotely dominated the news cycle.

28:04There has not been one week or even one day in which that message has caught fire and everyone has talked of absolutely nothing else. It is just what? Accepted? Expected? Priced in? Boring? Either way, perhaps it helps explain why many women are not in their best take-a-joke mood right now. Hats off to Jaguar's inclusive new branding. Now people of all backgrounds won't buy its cars. 22nd of November 2024 In the aftermath of Trump's victory, the ad already looks like a period piece. But aside from that, I mean, seriously? There are many Eve of the offensive conversations I would love to have been a fly on the wall for.