From Maura Higgins and Rita Ora to the Lionesses and Madonna, my biggest winners and losers of 2023
FOR the final column of 2023, I present my annual Old Moore’s Almanac awards – aided and abetted, as ever, by the invaluable feedback you send my way each week.
It wouldn’t be the same without you.
So, thank you, have a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year, and I hope that 2024 brings you good health, love and luck.
The ‘Duh!’ Award
Notable mention: British tourist Ivan Dimitrov, 27, who issued a grovelling apology after being caught carving his name on a wall at Rome’s Colosseum.
His defence? That he didn’t know it was an ancient monument.
Saints preserve us.
Runners-up: The social media “influencers” who flocked to the launch weekend of a £1billion hotel in Dubai then accidentally fell in to the “designer water feature” that blended in with the floor.
Perhaps it was performance art to show them that, contrary to what their followers might believe, they don’t actually walk on water.
WINNER: “Danger tourist” Miles Routledge who found himself captured in January by the “Talibros” in Afghanistan and held prisoner until his release was finally negotiated in October.
The 23-year-old YouTuber was airlifted out of Kabul by British forces two years earlier, but went back again.
His mum says he’s still “finding himself” after university.
Trouble is, it’s costing the state a small fortune to “find him” too.
Virtue Signalling Award
Notable mention: Irish actor Joseph McGucken for saying he felt “uncomfortable” watching Bono’s daughter Eve Hewson playing someone working class.
I have news for him.
Christian Bale isn’t really an American psychopath either.
It’s called “acting”.
Runners-up: The Twitter mob who descended on Fiona Bruce with personal abuse when she made a simple legal clarification on Question Time that the accusation of domestic violence against Stanley Johnson was “a one-off”.
Sadly, after 25 years as an ambassador for Refuge, she felt compelled to stand down.
Well done everyone.
Online bullying wins the day.
WINNER: Actor Alan Cummings who has given back the OBE given to him in 2009 because he “does not want to be associated with the “toxicity of the Empire” a mere 14 years after he initially said he was “delighted” and had his day at the palace.
And the award for best dramatic performance goes to . . .
The Pull Focus Award
Notable mention: Hayley Atwell’s voluminous, loo-roll holder frock at the Mission: Impossible premiere. It resembled one of Tom’s collapsed parachutes.
Runner-up: Rita Ora for her sheer cheek (literally) at the Vogue Forces for Change party in a totally see-through balaclava and dress with strategically placed plastic flowers as nipple covers.
WINNER: Talking of strategically-placed plastic flowers . . . Maura Higgins wore an eye-poppying outfit to watch the Tommy Fury/KSI fight at Manchester’s AO arena.
We shall remember them.
The Heroes
RUGBY star Kevin Sinfield carrying former team-mate Rob Burrow (who has motor neurone disease) across a charity race finish line, Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, England’s Lionesses, Gwyneth Paltrow standing up for herself in the ski-gate court case, Her Madgesty Madonna recovering from a serious infection to do a global tour, Tom Cruise helping to keep cinemas going with his action movies, Henri D’Anselme who used his backpack to fight off a man stabbing a three-year-old British girl in a French park, Dame Joan Collins still putting on the Ritz at 90, the anonymous woman whose evidence helped put killer Thomas Cashman behind bars, mum Becky Sharp injured by a car after pushing her baby out of the way, Georgia Harrison for going public with her revenge porn experience to campaign for other victims.
RIP: A fond farewell in 2023 to Len Goodman, Jerry Springer, Barry Humphries, Tina Turner, Paul Cattermole, Harry Belafonte, Raquel Welch, Jeff Beck, Mary Quant, Tom Sizemore, Burt Bacharach, Nigel Lawson, Lisa Marie Presley, Gina Lollobrigida, Ryan O’Neal, Benjamin Zephaniah, Denny Laine, Shane MacGowan, Joss Ackland, Matthew Perry, Richard Roundtree, Haydn Gwynne, Piper Laurie, Michael Gambon, David McCallum, Roger Whittaker, Gayle Hunnicutt, Sinead O’Connor, Tony Bennett, Jane Birkin, Alan Arkin, Julian Sands, Glenda Jackson, Martin Amis and Sylvia Syms.
The Zeroes
THE “just stop oil” woman who threw orange confetti over George Osborne at his wedding, our GPs (who we can’t get an appointment with) sending us group texts in the summer advising us to drink water, kids who identify as cats and the parents who let them, Hannah Ingram-Moore spoiling her father’s legacy with ill-judgment, any company hiding lousy customer service behind the “because of Covid” excuse, London Mayor Sadiq Khan for gridlocking our capital city, Vogue magazine for naming trans cyclist Emily Bridges in its “power women” list while failing to mention any biologically female sports stars, those who failed to listen when hospital staff warned them about killer nurse Lucy Letby.
The Total Take Down award
Notable mention: Spotify boss Bill Simmons who says that one day he’s going to dine out on his phone call with Prince Harry about podcast ideas, which, considering he then called the Sussexes “grifters”, I’m guessing was devoid of originality.
Runner-up: Penny Mordaunt likening Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer to “beach Ken” because he “stands for nothing, on shifting sands in his flip flops staring out to sea” and his weak record suggests that, also like Ken, he has “zero balls”.
Ms Mordaunt, however, clearly has.
WINNER: South Park’s spoof (or was it?) of Harry and Meghan on their “worldwide privacy tour”.
Their utter hypocrisy brilliantly skewered in three little words.
Nancy Doolally-o Award For Services To Delusion
Notable mention: JK Rowling’s ex-husband who says that he helped her to write the first Harry Potter book. Yeah right.
Amazing, isn’t it, that she’s managed to write a squillion other, massive successfully books without his help?
Runner-up: Faryal Khan, wife of boxer Amir, who has just taken him back again after the latest of several reported misbehaviours or “silly things” as he conveniently dismisses them before describing his wife as “very forgiving”. She needs to be.
WINNER: US tech tycoon Bryan Johnson who follows a strict diet and exercise routine, takes 80 vitamins a day and scoffs 70lb of puréed vegetables a month in the pursuit of “eternal youth”.
He says, “I currently have no plans to die”.
Unless, of course, he gets hit by a Greyhound bus while crossing the road to the mung bean store.
The ‘Leave It Out’ Award
Notable mention: The “internet sleuths” who think they’re bloody Columbo and get in the way of proper police work.
They wouldn’t let someone cut their hair who wasn’t trained, so why do they think they can solve a crime better than an experienced detective? Bore off.
Runner-up: Former boxer David Haye who said of his “throuple” with two women, “I have found myself in the company of open-hearted individuals who perceive me through the lens of my daily action, rather than the societal expectations foisted upon a man of 42”.
Clearly they’re not with him for his sense of humour.
WINNER: Anyone who goes to the theatre and thinks they can sing better (and louder) than the professional on stage they’ve actually paid to see.
You can’t, so please don’t, and let the rest of us enjoy it without the subsidiary caterwauling.