Latest news with #PrivateEye
Spectator
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Spectator
Being stalked by a murderer was just one of life's problems
Private Eye asked last week: Which of Michael Gove's luckless staff at The Spectator will be assigned to review this grisly account of their editor's marital woes? Reader, it's me! I'm happy to do this, though, because I have an interest in how to be a political wife (I am married to Alex Burghart MP), and perhaps have something to learn here, though I'm struggling to understand, eek, 'lesson seven': Realise… that when you step over the salt circle into the five-pointed star coven of politics, you have ceased to become a person. You are now a c**t. There's a feeling that the author still has a touch of PTSD. Readers with expectations of schadenfreude will not be disappointed. Sarah Vine shoots thunderbolts. She writes like she's just sat down at your kitchen table, poured herself a big glass of vino and let fly. It takes huge skill to blow off copy like this, accurately channelling the voice of Middle England, and since 2012 she has been a prize-winning columnist on the Daily Mail. But the Cameron elite could not understand her popular touch or value what she did, and when they took different sides over Brexit they fell out forever. We find her here looking back over the wreckage: 'This is my story, written with no fear, no favour – and, frankly, no fucks left to give.' The mood is quite Thelma & Louise. Scorched tyre tracks are left across David Cameron for his shock resignation the morning after the referendum ('what a massive man-baby'), as well as for offering the Goves an Admiralty flat that they could not accept ('another dick-move, Dave'). Theresa May is branded 'utterly graceless'; the journalist Emily Sheffield is told that 'not everyone has a baronet for a daddy'; and even Vine's own father is thanked for 'fucking me up so brilliantly'. But she never turns on Michael, 'the best ex-husband a girl could ever ask for'. She does tease him throughout, though. He is her 'goofy, incorrigible genius', unable to ski when they met on a group skiing holiday; legendarily clever, although not always gifted with foresight – she rags him for having written Michael Portillo: The Future of the Right. One gets the sense she was fun to be with, while also fiercely loyal. She eye-rolls, yet there's more than a hint of pride when she recounts how, while she was in labour with their first child for 23 hours, her husband spent the entire time reading Robert A. Caro's biography of Lyndon B. Johnson, only once complaining about the discomfort of his given seat, a bean bag. But when the Daily Telegraph drip-fed leaked MPs' expenses claims, aiming to damage Gove, she saw red. She would never work with the editor Will Lewis again, branding him 'the man who tried to ruin us', and noted the hypocrisy of Andy Coulson, too, later imprisoned for 18 months for phone hacking, yet hanging Gove out for claiming allowable expenses. Vine felt, during her husband's anguish, her 'tiger wife' awakening. 'From this point on, I became obsessed with convincing people to see Michael as the kind, serious, intellectual, public-spirited campaigner that I knew him to be.' She describes her father, a Welsh Del Boy-type, as Roger the Dodger, Mr Boom 'n' Bust – yet she has surely inherited a touch of his risky charisma. She rolls like a fighter, carelessly swaggering et tu, Pontius Pilate at David Cameron and gaily mixing metaphors: '…the potassium-on-water conflagration that happened when politics and media collided – would ultimately be the grim reaper of all that had come before'. When Vine started work at the Daily Mail in 2012, Samantha Cameron felt betrayed. The truth was that at the paper I was her and her family's staunchest advocate. I was forever putting my neck on the line to defend the Camerons, both politically and personally… What annoyed me even more was the notion – unspoken but very much implied – that I should somehow act as an unpaid spokesperson for the Cameron government, that I should be a sycophant and courtesan. Some of Vine's anecdotes are so vivid, we feel we are there. During dinner at the Johnsons' house in Islington, Boris and Michael discussed whether or not to join the Leave campaign, thrashing out the implications over slow-cooked shoulder of lamb: Timescales, economic consequences, trade options, regulations, Northern Ireland: these were all in the mix. Boris sought the counsel of various third parties – a cabinet minister, a lawyer – barking loudly into his mobile (on speakerphone) in between mouthfuls, Michael listening in and occasionally contributing. Meanwhile, Vine, Marina Wheeler and Evgeny Lebedev were left making conversation 'in stage whispers'. Vine writes candidly about money worries and feelings of social inadequacy – difficult topics, bravely broached. She puts herself down wittily throughout. The stock image of a collapsed woman on the cover has a jokey deadpan feel, but there is a genuine undertow of sadness. At times one cannot believe what the Gove family endured during frontline political service. The angry dinner lady, sending their young son to the back of the line because he was a Gove. The jolly-looking 18th birthday card with a badge that their daughter Bea excitedly opened, only to find it contained a death threat for her father. And the knowledge, gleaned by security services from phone locations, that the murderer of David Amess MP trailed the Goves around, spending days lingering on the street where they lived. Politics gets the blame for a lot of the fall-out: Ultimately, I don't think many couples would have survived what we went through… George and Frances did not; Boris and Marina did not; Kate Fall and her husband did not; Matt Hancock's marriage did not. The mechanisms by which these marriages fell apart may all be different. But there is one common denominator: politics. Vine says that the Turkish Delight the White Witch offers Edmund in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe represents the intoxicating taste of political power: Power is the ultimate drug. Those who are hooked on it will, like any addict, go to almost any length to get their fix, prioritising it above all else – friends, family, colleagues. She might have added that the power of the press, her own personal creative outlet and addiction, can be just as damagingly sweet.
Spectator
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Spectator
I'm pseudy and proud
What does it mean to be a 'pseud'? I hadn't thought a great deal about it, until a passage from a piece I'd written about semicolons made it into Private Eye's venerable Pseuds Corner. It appears just after a conversation between two AIs, and above a breathless quote from Meghan Markle (for it is she). Members of the public submit what they consider to be 'pseudy', and everyone laughs. I've always enjoyed it, and I was so delighted to be featured (I mean, Will Self's been in there!) that the column is on its way to the framers as we speak. To share some pages with Craig Brown, whose satirical bite in his diary is so excellent at exposing the emptiness of contemporary culture, is heavenly. But should it have been in there? Torn out of its context, my prose indeed is florid: Formed from two other punctuation marks, it [the semicolon] is a gorgeous, enigmatic, humanist chimera. It more closely resembles a gentleman, on the edge of his chair, leaning slightly forwards, poised to hear the aphorism fall from your learned lips. It is the jewelled hand, held out to be kissed; it is the tactful recognition of a guest in the glittering salon. Overblown? Yes. But the piece had begun with a request to the reader to rub ashes into your hair at the demise of this punctuation mark – did the person who sent it in to Private Eye think that I really meant that? The piece was an exercise in playful hyperbole; my tongue was, quite firmly, in my cheek. It was, in short, an extended joke, and a sincere one too: the opposite, in fact, of pseudery. Yes, I care deeply about semicolons, and yes, I'm happy to deploy a range of literary techniques to mourn its passing – isn't that what writing is? There doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason as to what ends up in Pseuds Corner: sports writers feature heavily, and indeed, Dan Carrier of the Camden New Journal is in there with a comparison between the Basques and Tottenham Hotspur. (I think it's actually quite good.) The AI conversation surely doesn't count, because AIs don't have a concept of pseudery. They're not real! They can't be pretentious! What about Meghan Markle? The Cali Duchess muses: 'I think it speaks to this chapter many of us find ourselves in, where none of us are one note. But I believe all the notes I am playing are part of the same song.' Sure, it's meaningless, and to say that the metaphors are mixed would be an understatement, but isn't she – and heaven forfend that I'm actually defending Miss Markle here – trying to articulate something that she truly means, but lacks the rhetorical ability to formulate? As a form of literary criticism, then, it seems that Pseuds Corner essentially comprises 'things that Private Eye readers think are pretentious'. Which is to say, jargon, extended metaphors, and anything that smacks of fanciness or, as with Markle, flummery. Private Eye wants writers to be blunt, concrete, and to the point. Perhaps this is a result of its largely grammar/minor-public school and Balliol conception in the 1970s, and its distrust of anything that smacks of aristocracy or academia. It's a bit like the Augustan poets, with their ornate phrasing, being shoved out of the way by Wordsworth, with his old men and daffodils. Experimenting with language; employing unusual vocabulary; working with extended metaphors: these are good and necessary parts of a vital literary landscape Where would we be, though, if everything was as Private Eye wished? If my piece on semicolons simply ran: 'Aren't semi-colons great, and I'm really sad that no one's using them any more,' would readers have responded to it, with such passion and interest, in quite the same way? As Private Eye itself would say, shurely not. Experimenting with language; employing unusual vocabulary; working with extended metaphors; using academic terms to try to pin down concepts like 'queer space travel': these are good and necessary parts of a vital literary landscape. I mean, look, I think academics go too far sometimes – is space really queer and decolonial, as Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian suggests in the same column? – but they are usually trying to articulate concepts that haven't been articulated before. Which is to be encouraged. Aside from that, all of this, like the royal family, adds hugely to the gaiety of the nation. We don't want a Gradgrindian landscape where prose merely does the job. Boring! I'm very glad that Pseuds Corner exists – like everything in Private Eye, it serves a function, which is to remind writers that words must be used correctly. But I also must say: now gods, stand up for pseuds! Because if writers cease to be ludic; if duchesses start to read actual books; then Pseuds Corner would be redundant. And that would be a sad day indeed. Or perhaps that should be: the willows would weep; the stars would flicker out; and the melancholy gods would groan, pale-faced, on their silken couches.
News.com.au
17-06-2025
- Sport
- News.com.au
Trainer Joe Pride's grand campaigner Private Eye is no longer sprinting towards prizemoney top 10
Trainer Joe Pride has made the honest appraisal that Private Eye's days of contesting The Everest are behind him. Private Eye, who is on the verge of breaking into the all-time top 10 prizemoney earners after his close third in the Stradbroke Handicap last Saturday, is a rising eight-year-old and Pride believes the gelding is looking for longer race distances now. 'I think his pure sprinting days are over, he is not as sharp as he used to be,'' Pride said. 'He's more of a 'miler' these days. It's funny because after he won the Queensland Guineas as a three-year-old Brenton Avdulla said we should push on to the Derby. 'But then he got faster and became a sprinter. It seems he's reverting to what he was as a younger horse.'' Private Eye won the Group 1 Epsom Handicap over the Randwick mile course as a four-year-old but then developed into one of the nation's best sprinters, contesting three successive The Everests for a second to Giga Kick in 2022, a third behind stablemate Think About It in 2023, then his close sixth to Bella Nipotina last year. But Pride's evergreen equine star continues to be competitive at the highest level with his Stradbroke placing taking his career earnings to $12,217,185 and 11th on the prizemoney rankings, moving above Think About It ($12,163,050). Private Eye will get his chance to break into the top 10 in spring with Pride looking at a possible return in the Group 1 $1 million Winx Stakes (1400m) at Royal Randwick on August 23. 'He won't have long off and I will have a think about the Missile Stakes (August 9) but maybe we go straight to the Winx Stakes fresh,'' Pride said. 'If he gets into the top 10 prizemoney earners, it will be a great achievement for the horse but it probably doesn't mean what it used to with the exaggerated levels of prizemoney these days. 'But he's done a great job during his career, he's been racing at Group level for five seasons now and is still holding his own.'' Pride said a race like the Group 1 $5 million King Charles III Stakes (1600m) at Royal Randwick on Everest Day, October 18, was a more likely spring goal for Private Eye. This is also the target for stablemate Ceolwulf, who won the Epsom Handicap-King Charles Group 1 double over the famous Randwick mile course last spring. Ceolwulf won the Neville Sellwood Stakes then was spelled after finishing fifth to champion Via Sistina in the Queen Elizabeth Stakes during autumn but is back in work at Pride's Warwick Farm stables and is also being readied for a comeback in the Winx Stakes. Epsom winner Ceolwulf with a huge run wins the G1 King Charles III Stakes in front of a record crowd at Randwick! @PrideRacing | @SchofieldChad @aus_turf_club | @WorldPool — SKY Racing (@SkyRacingAU) October 19, 2024 'I'm really happy with how Ceolwulf spelled, he looks great,'' Pride said. 'At this stage we have either the King Charles or the Cox Plate as his main goal, I don't think he can run in both being just a week apart. 'That is one of the holes in the program because you want to see the best horses clashing. 'When I was getting into racing in the late 1980s, you watched Vo Rogue, Super Impose and Better Loosen Up racing against each other all the time because they were the only weight-for-age races. 'But these days there is so many choices and so many races to choose from for these top horses.'' Pride said there were various options for Ceolwulf including going to Melbourne later in the spring or staying in Sydney for an extended campaign. 'If Ceolwulf runs in the King Charles, then we have the option of going to Melbourne for either the Champions Mile or Champions Stakes, or he stays home and could even go to the Five Diamonds,'' Pride said. Civic Stakes (1400m) with Accredited, Cool Jakey, Estadio Mestalla and Headley Grange.
New Paper
13-06-2025
- Sport
- New Paper
Private Eye hot on Stradbroke Handicap trail
BRISBANE Sydney trainer Joseph Pride is undeterred by the challenges facing Private Eye, when the outstanding miler tackles the AU$3 million (S$2.5 million) Group 1 Stradbroke Handicap (1,400m) at Eagle Farm in Brisbane on June 14. Assigned top weight of 57kg, the Al Maher seven-year-old will resume after a 182-day break. He is bidding to defy history as he tries to become the first horse to carry 57kg or more to victory in the Stradbroke Handicap since Rough Habit won with 58.5kg in 1992. Additionally, winning the Stradbroke Handicap first-up is a rare achievement, after an extended break with Crawl famously bucking the trend by triumphing in 2001 off a 56-day break. "Records are made to be broken and I don't think first-up is what it used to be," said Pride of the 12-time winner, whose biggest win came in the Group 1 Epsom Handicap (1,600m) in 2021, but carrying a luxury weight of 52.5kg then. "I've also given Private Eye four barrier trials, I'm very happy with him, and he won't be beaten on the score of fitness. "His trial last Friday (June 6) at Rosehill was everything I wanted to see from him. He jumped and put himself on the speed. "He wanted to be there and that's the best version of Private Eye. He ran second to Alligator Blood in the 2022 Stradbroke - I feel he's ready to run super again on Saturday." Nash Rawiller, who rode Private Eye to two of his six Group wins, including the Group 3 Festival Stakes (1,500m) at Rosehill on Nov 30, hops on in the Stradbroke. Fellow Sydney jockey Jason Collett will partner Godolphin's Golden Mile for James Cummings, who was on June 11 unveiled as the latest expatriate to join the Hong Kong training ranks in September 2026. Briefly retired to start a breeding career, Golden Mile was gelded after being injured at stud. The 2022 Group 1 Caulfield Guineas (1,600m) winner returned to racing in March, before catching the eye when third to Joliestar in the Group 1 Kingsford Smith Cup (1,300m) at Eagle Farm on June 7. "It'd be a great story for Golden Mile, who's come back from stud duties and he has been warming to a win," said Cummings. "He was excellent (last start) and he's been building up to that. "A bit over a month ago (May 3), he screamed home for third in the Group 2 Victory Stakes (1,200m at Eagle Farm). That had him back in the form he was 12 months ago, just prior to him going to stud." Interestingly, the Astern five-year-old also was third in the same Victory Stakes in 2024 (won by Brisbane star Antino) as his send-off race, before his switch to the short-lived breeding duties. Other leading chances in the Stradbroke Handicap are southern raiders War Machine and Rise At Dawn - who are both trained in Flemington by Ben, Will and JD Hayes - local veteran Rothfire, who will be ridden by James McDonald for trainer Robert Heathcote, and Robusto, who is trained by Pride's neighbour Bjorn Baker and has Kerrin McEvoy in the irons. Elsewhere on the "all-black type" nine-race programme that also features the Group 1 J.J. Atkins (1,600m) for two-year-olds, the A$1.2 million Group 2 HKJC World Pool Q22 (2,200m) has garnered eight top stayers, including Bankers Choice for the Hayes brothers. Third in the Group 3 Lord Mayor's Cup (1,800m) at Eagle Farm on May 31, the seven-year-old Listed Mornington Cup (2,400m) winner - when temporarily prepared by Glen Thompson after his previous trainer Mike Moroney's death - will be ridden by big-race jockey Mark Zahra. "He's a very straightforward horse," said Ben Hayes of the nine-time winner by Mongolian Khan. "He came to us in great form, we thought his last run was very good. "He had the trial (at Caulfield) because it was a while between those runs and the Eagle Farm run was a good pipe-opener for this really good prize money race. "He's shown that he can get to the trip and I think the 2,200m should be ideal." Other chances include Fawkner Park and Bois D'Argent, who are both trained by Annabel and Rob Archibald, and Kovalica for Chris Waller. HKJC
South China Morning Post
13-06-2025
- Sport
- South China Morning Post
Private Eye chases history in Stradbroke Handicap
The Joseph Pride-trained galloper will look to defy a big weight and a long break at Eagle Farm on Saturday Sydney trainer Joseph Pride is undeterred by the challenges facing Private Eye when the outstanding miler tackles the Group One Stradbroke Handicap (1,400m) at Eagle Farm in Brisbane, Australia on Saturday. Assigned top weight of 57kg (125.6lb), Private Eye will resume after a 182-day break and will have to defy history as he attempts to become the first horse to carry 57kg or more to victory in the Stradbroke Handicap since Rough Habit successfully carried 58.5kg in 1992. Additionally, winning the Stradbroke Handicap first up is a rare achievement after an extended break with Crawl famously bucking the trend by triumphing in 2001 off a 56-day break. 'Records are made to be broken and I don't think first up is what it used to be,' said Pride, a former protégé of 12-time Hong Kong champion trainer John Size. 'I've also given Private Eye four barrier trials, I'm very happy with him and he won't be beaten on the score of fitness. 'His trial last Friday at Rosehill was everything I wanted to see from him. He jumped and put himself on the speed. He wanted to be there and that's the best version of Private Eye. 'He ran second in a Stradbroke three years ago [behind Alligator Blood] and I feel he's ready to run super again on Saturday.' Nash Rawiller will ride Private Eye, while Jason Collett will partner Golden Mile for James Cummings. An EPIC finish in the G1 Kingsford Smith Cup sees Joliestar nab them right on the line to take her third Group 1! 🤩@cwallerracing @mcacajamez@BrisRacingClub @RaceQLD — SKY Racing (@SkyRacingAU) June 7, 2025 Briefly retired to start a breeding career, Golden Mile was gelded after being injured at stud and the Group One winner returned to racing in March before catching the eye when third to Joliestar in the Group One Kingsford Smith Cup (1,300m) at Eagle Farm last Saturday. 'It'd be a great story for Golden Mile, who has come back from stud duties and he's been warming to a win,' said Cummings, who was this week announced as the newest addition to the Hong Kong training roster. 'He was excellent [last start] and he's been building up to that. 'A bit over a month ago he screamed home for third in the Victory Stakes and that had him back in the form he was 12 months ago, just prior to him going to stud.' Other leading chances in the Stradbroke Handicap are War Machine and Rise At Dawn – who are both trained by Ben, Will and JD Hayes – veteran Rothfire, who will be ridden by James McDonald, and Robusto, who is trained by Bjorn Baker. The Stradbroke Handicap is one of two races from Brisbane being simulcast for betting by the Jockey Club before Saturday's Sha Tin meeting.
