Where did you spend
your summer?
I've spent mine buried
in other people's
love-lives. Ever since
the weather
grew warmer, familiar
figures
have been billing and
cooing,
entrancing me — and,
I suspect, the public at
large — with the hope
of romance.
Sarah Ferguson and
Prince
Andrew seem to be
flirting with
a reunion. Simon
Cowell may
have found true love
with the
woman expecting his baby. And
we learn from his autobiography
that Sir Paul McCartney's love for
his late wife, Linda, saved him from a nervous breakdown.
With so much love in the air,
Cupid might be tempted to feel
smug - though not all high-profile love stories this summer had a fairytale ending.
Paul Hollywood and his wife, Nigella and Saatchi, Wendi Deng and Murdoch, and
most recently Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones have split up.
Relationships represent such a huge focus, risk and investment, we can't help obsess
about them
in the lives of others. From adolescence, marked (or marred, in my case) with such
agonising rituals
as the prom, dating, and the first kiss, the couple is held up as our ultimate goal.
Match-making sites and lonely-hearts advertising are huge business. Weddings are
so expensive,
almost half of young cohabiting couples cite them as a reason not to tie the knot.
Dating has become
more sophisticated than when I was at it in the Nineties.
In those days, cautious singles might place a personal ad at the back of The Spectator.
I know one
woman who found her husband this way - though friends had to pen the description
of her qualities,
as her modest self-assessment would have sparked no interest.
Things have changed: friends are spending a small fortune on Berkeley International,
a dating agency
that screens candidates, then gives them your details - and charges both parties
thousands of
pounds for the privilege. The industry can bank on the pressure we feel to conform.
But so can celebrities. We love their love-lives. The more, the merrier: Cheryl Cole,
Jennifer
Aniston, Kylie and Katie Perry, George Clooney and Prince Harry… their couplings
have kept us entertained. Every spark lifts the spirit, every tryst bonds us to them.
A celebrity couple is so much more than a sum of its parts. Who wants to read about
Catherine
without Michael, or Wendi without Rupert? As Branjelina has proved, and Posh and
Becks, there's
nothing like a duo to arouse our curiosity.
What makes them tick, what makes them stick? In fantasy as in real life, love works
like Photoshop.
It makes the famous vulnerable, and the elite like the girl next door. As the gulf between
celebrities
and the rest of us grows, the humanising process of love becomes more noticeable.
Romance demotes Jennifer Aniston, superstar, to the clumsy loser at the back of the
school disco;
it raised Catherine Zeta-Jones from Welsh sweetheart to Hollywood royalty, and elevates
Posh
from sour-puss Spice Girl to an impressive wife who refused to so much as acknowledge
her
husband's flirtations.
Projection is part of the fun: if a curmudgeonly so-and-so like Simon Cowell can find love,
why not
me? If a lanky vegetarian like Linda McCartney could inspire such passion in a Beatle,
I'll find love, too.
Their relationship is the one area where big names are like us. We cannot travel with
them on their
private jets to their villa in Portofino; but the course of their relationship is only too familiar:
exhilaration, suspicion, boredom, torture, despair. It's an itinerary everyone knows, though
at one removed,
it feels safer.
So we tune in to their latest romance: the ups and downs, the gossip, the tattoos. It's an4
addictive
pastime, the Game of Thrones of my generation. It may be hard for the objects of my fantasy
to bear
such curiosity, but I'm so grateful to them. If someone famous doesn't live out a romantic
fantasy,
what hope is there for the rest of us?
your summer?
I've spent mine buried
in other people's
love-lives. Ever since
the weather
grew warmer, familiar
figures
have been billing and
cooing,
entrancing me — and,
I suspect, the public at
large — with the hope
of romance.
Sarah Ferguson and
Prince
Andrew seem to be
flirting with
a reunion. Simon
Cowell may
have found true love
with the
woman expecting his baby. And
we learn from his autobiography
that Sir Paul McCartney's love for
his late wife, Linda, saved him from a nervous breakdown.
With so much love in the air,
Cupid might be tempted to feel
smug - though not all high-profile love stories this summer had a fairytale ending.
Paul Hollywood and his wife, Nigella and Saatchi, Wendi Deng and Murdoch, and
most recently Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones have split up.
Relationships represent such a huge focus, risk and investment, we can't help obsess
about them
in the lives of others. From adolescence, marked (or marred, in my case) with such
agonising rituals
as the prom, dating, and the first kiss, the couple is held up as our ultimate goal.
Match-making sites and lonely-hearts advertising are huge business. Weddings are
so expensive,
almost half of young cohabiting couples cite them as a reason not to tie the knot.
Dating has become
more sophisticated than when I was at it in the Nineties.
In those days, cautious singles might place a personal ad at the back of The Spectator.
I know one
woman who found her husband this way - though friends had to pen the description
of her qualities,
as her modest self-assessment would have sparked no interest.
Things have changed: friends are spending a small fortune on Berkeley International,
a dating agency
that screens candidates, then gives them your details - and charges both parties
thousands of
pounds for the privilege. The industry can bank on the pressure we feel to conform.
But so can celebrities. We love their love-lives. The more, the merrier: Cheryl Cole,
Jennifer
Aniston, Kylie and Katie Perry, George Clooney and Prince Harry… their couplings
have kept us entertained. Every spark lifts the spirit, every tryst bonds us to them.
A celebrity couple is so much more than a sum of its parts. Who wants to read about
Catherine
without Michael, or Wendi without Rupert? As Branjelina has proved, and Posh and
Becks, there's
nothing like a duo to arouse our curiosity.
What makes them tick, what makes them stick? In fantasy as in real life, love works
like Photoshop.
It makes the famous vulnerable, and the elite like the girl next door. As the gulf between
celebrities
and the rest of us grows, the humanising process of love becomes more noticeable.
Romance demotes Jennifer Aniston, superstar, to the clumsy loser at the back of the
school disco;
it raised Catherine Zeta-Jones from Welsh sweetheart to Hollywood royalty, and elevates
Posh
from sour-puss Spice Girl to an impressive wife who refused to so much as acknowledge
her
husband's flirtations.
Projection is part of the fun: if a curmudgeonly so-and-so like Simon Cowell can find love,
why not
me? If a lanky vegetarian like Linda McCartney could inspire such passion in a Beatle,
I'll find love, too.
Their relationship is the one area where big names are like us. We cannot travel with
them on their
private jets to their villa in Portofino; but the course of their relationship is only too familiar:
exhilaration, suspicion, boredom, torture, despair. It's an itinerary everyone knows, though
at one removed,
it feels safer.
So we tune in to their latest romance: the ups and downs, the gossip, the tattoos. It's an4
addictive
pastime, the Game of Thrones of my generation. It may be hard for the objects of my fantasy
to bear
such curiosity, but I'm so grateful to them. If someone famous doesn't live out a romantic
fantasy,
what hope is there for the rest of us?
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