Old, Jilted and Fat

Julie Burchill is celebrating the publication of her autobiography, but does the book provide a realistic portrait of the venomous and personally troubled
columnist?

Fiona Russell Powell, who has lived in Julie's shadow, delivers her verdict on Fleet Street's leading bitch.

Punch Feb 14-27th 1998

Julie Burchill... aren't you just sick of seeing that name, not to mention that great pudding face staring out at you from the pages of nearly every news-paper in the land? It has been an unprecedented media blitz for a Fleet Street hack's autobiography, and one that I followed with great interest.
You see, Julie and I once had a lot in common. We were both teenage runaways who left school early with no qualifications and decamped to London as music-mad bolshie brats. We were both taken under the wing of Nick Logan as tyro music journalists, she at NME then later The Face; I'm younger, so I started at The Face.
We both loved to play with words and people's reputations, pricking pomposity with sharpened pens, acerbic alliterative and clever, clever bon mots. We both spoke in high-pitched, little-girl voices. During the Eighties, I had the irksome epithet "the new Julie Burchill" consistently attached to my name. In fact, an unknown, struggling journalist for an unknown magazine once interviewed me on that angle. The magazine failed while the interviewer, Cosmo Landesman, succeeded by marrying Julie Burchill. (His writing improved dramatically and it was commonly rumoured that Julie only agreed to join the Sunday Times provided they took on her husband too.) But there were differences too: I liked to get out and about and enjoyed a high profile on the club scene; she hid behind her typewriter and was rarely seen, preferring to deal via the telephone, sending her copy by bike or fax. I was middle class and lazy, while Julie, the daugh-ter of a Communist, seemed to have the Protestant work ethic deeply ingrained and grafted as hard as befits a true Thatcher child.
I remember the first time I met her in 1988, in the Groucho Club, of course, at a mutual friend's leaving party. I smiled, saying: "So, finally we meet," knowing full well that she had also heard the many comparisons between our work and our way of speaking. She feigned frosty incomprehension and turned away. The evening continued and the table was having a good ,time, that is until Cosmo and I got chatting. The host interrupted us to have a quiet word in my ear. "Please, please stop talking to Cosmo and go to the top of the table," he pleaded, "Julie's going spare." I glanced over at her, and if looks could kill I would have died that night. "OK," I laughingly obliged, surprised to learn that the famous Julie Burchill, now 38, obviously considered me a threat.
Then there was a friend of mine who worked at The Face. I noticed that she seemed to have a crush on me and was relieved when she started going out with one of Julie's friends. She switched allegiances when she was drawn under Julie's wing, but not before I had given her a short story of mine to read, which I never got back. It may only be a coincidence, but Julie produced a piece of fiction six months later that was very similar. She employed much the same tech-nique at her infamous dinner parties. She would assemble a group of decent minds, ply them with drugs and liquor, then pump them on the burning issues of the day before running into the kitchen to take notes. These were later regurgitated for her opinion column in the Mail on Sunday.
Towards the end of the "me" decade our paths diverged when we were torn asunder by drugs. I chose heroin: the wrong choice. She had already chosen cocaine, the Eighties choice. While Bolivia fuelled her prodigious output, I wrote less and less and faded from the scene, no longer in line to accede Julie's throne. It is only now that I feel I may have ultimately scored the better deal, because, though my career suffered and I lost a lot of time, at least I have dealt with my demons, whereas hers seem to be finally coming home to roost. That she is a most unhappy woman seems to me to be as plain as the large crooked nose on Julie's over-made-up Michelin Man face. Something appears to have gone horribly wrong. Her autobiography, I Knew I was Right, is ill- conceived and unevenly written. She has not bothered to adapt her style, sticking to her hyperbolic reactionary Eighties formula. The jokes fall flat and her power over the pen deserts her in many places.
She has said recently that every word of this flatulent and unreliable breast-barer is "a cry for help". I believe her. In fact, it is screamingly obvious. Perhaps to the casual reader, from the egocentric title onwards, the book may appear to be simply an excuse to blow her own trumpet and slag off her first husband, Tony Parsons. I doubt his feathers have been ruffled, given that he long ago pointed out: "Hell hath no fury like an ex-wife run to fat." Is there any real justification for this autobiography? Word is that she's broke, having spent £30,000.she could ill afford on her unsuccessful custody case.
Her recent press interviews are most telling and point to a need for treatment. The word "therapy" springs to mind. "I'm a psychopath," or "I'm a sociopath," she announces, explaining that she must be because she feels so guilty about feeling no guilt. A regular heartbreaker, she paints her-self as a monster that betrays everyone who loves her - classic behaviour for an attention-seeker with a large ego but pitifully low self-esteem. She bursts into tears at the drop of a hat - particularly at the mention of her parents - typical symptoms of someone who is depressed. But she insists that she is "insanely happy" - feisty flannel which high-lights, rather than conceals, an apparent illness. She says she adores her parents, but that it is the mother of her former female lover, Charlotte Raven, who is her best friend. I wonder how Ma Burchill feels about that. She bangs on about being working class and yet brags at every opportunity about Charlotte and Daniel Raven (her latest lover, Char's bro) coming from a millionaire's family.
She seems incapable of accepting that her actions may have consequences and blames losing custody of her son Jack to Cosmo on the fact that her infidelity was with a woman rather than a man, believing that the wounded pride of a male-dominated court system punished her for this. She does not appear to realise that the abandonment of her first son, Bobby Parsons, and her self-confessed drugging and boozing may have affected the ruling against her. She grieves openly for the loss of Jack, saying the day she lost custody was "the worst day of my life", then sneers that "motherhood is a bourgeois concept" when criticisms are levelled at her for deserting Bobby. These are the words of someone who is either confused, or who says whatever suits them at the time. I have seen her in action and would suggest that it is both.
I am friendly with Cosmo's parents, Fran and Jay Landesman, a fascinating American couple who settled in Islington some 30 years ago. With breathtaking hypocrisy, she frequently condemned them for their unconventional marriage and often refused to speak to Jay, even though they gave her and their son the hospitality of their house before they could afford a place of their own. I remember several occasions during 1995 and early 1996 when Fran, who adores her only grandchild, was very upset because Julie always threatened to withhold Jack when she had taken umbrage over something. I was appalled that she could use him as a weapon to force her parents-in-law to toe the line, but nothing is sacred when it comes to getting her own way. An out-of-control control freak, and cruel with it: this is one sick woman.
Now topping the scales at a whopping 15 stone, she claims it is deliberate, in order to be taken more seriously. Plus, being so "beautiful" was a burden. I have never heard such a load of bollocks. No woman likes to be overweight, and Julie falls into the obese category. It is demoralising, one of the major causes of depression and she should know that her size is a health risk. Hard to believe that this is the woman who previously confessed to a family member: "I would rather get terminal cancer than gain weight." I once asked what her problem was, to be told: "Julie is addicted to cheese. She eats pounds of it while she's reading Freddie Ayer."
The embarrassing revelations about her 25-year-old toy boy who services her "five times a night" sound suspiciously like she is approaching a mid-life crisis. Why does she feel the need to prove to Joe Public that she is still attractive and desirable? Then there is the fulsome praise for Cosmo and Charlotte keeping their traps shut, but it is hardly surprising since they have a lot to be grateful to her for, both earning journalistic recognition after they bedded her.
Finally we come to the matter of her voice. Mine has dropped a bit now, but Julie's has remained stuck somewhere around 1968. It is universally accepted that people with high voices - the result of breathing from the chest - are suppressing their emotions, often rage, which are seated in the stomach. Adults with child-like voices are usually suffering from arrested emotional development.
Poor Julie, she is in such turmoil. Somebody please help her. It is harrowing to witness such a public display of pain and self loathing. She may be a difficult woman to like, but I fear for her.
What next? Is it the noose or the couch? More of the same, I suspect. It is always the most intelligent who are resistant to therapy as they can always come up with brilliantly plausible reasons why it won't work. But Julie should try it. She can talk about her favourite subject and maybe find that there is a rather nice, if insecure, person buried beneath all those layers of fat and camouflage. Either that or it's a year's subscription to Slimming.