Rabbiting on

WHAT  is the best way to display grief on learning of the death of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner? Should a lady wear her rabbit ears at half mast? Or dye her fluffy white bunny tail black? Maybe stitch that silk cossie costume even tighter the better to feel her pain, or add another couple of inches to the heels on which she will spend the evening ferrying drinks to men?
For mourn we must, according to some of the Hefner obituaries published yesterday. Though many in number, they were of the same broad mind, one that holds that yes, Hefner earned a fortune from his mags and bunnies, but he broke down a lot of barriers along the way and advanced causes such as civil rights and gay marriage.
Tributes have arrived, too, from the women who worked for Hefner. “Thank you for being a revolutionary and changing so many people’s lives, especially mine,” said one. Another called him “an icon of epic proportions”, while Pamela Anderson, ex-cover star and current friend of Julian Assange, said: “You gave me my life”.
Let us not forget, either, all those great authors he published.
What a guy, eh? Yes, if you discount the fact that Hefner made his fortune from exploiting women, he was a diamond geezer. But what a discount that would be, one right up there with asking Mrs Lincoln, all that unpleasant business aside, how she enjoyed the play.
Should a person be so fortunate as to live to the grand old age of 91, as Hefner did, they will inevitably have a patchwork of experiences they can point to. No one is the same at 20, 40, 60, or 80. Hefner may have been up with the times, or ahead of the curve, on free speech, civil rights, and same sex marriage, but he did not start the curve. Others put in the hard yards before, and after, he came along.
As for his backing sexual freedom, well, he would, wouldn’t he? Women were free to do what they liked, as long as they liked posing nude for men and dressing up in demeaning costumes. Funny how no high flying businessman, or any man for that matter, ever wanted to show the world how liberated he was by sticking a ball of cotton wool on his backside.
Ah, the bunnies. At a push, one can grant Hefner a pass on his magazine. He did not invent the mucky mag business. That was as old as paper when even he came along. He simply repackaged the product to make it fancier, albeit in doing so he played a large part in bringing the exploitation of women into the mainstream, giving the business a sheen of Mad Men gloss it did not deserve.
It was in his creation of Playboy “bunnies”, however, that any Brownie points Hefner may have earned elsewhere go up in a puff of cigar smoke. Even by the sexist and misogynist standards of the day, reducing women to fluffy animals there to run after men was scraping the bottom of a very murky barrel.
Anyone tempted to see the bunny phenomenon through a soft focus light should read Gloria Steinem’s expose for Show magazine. 
Using a false name, Steinem became a bunny at the New York Playboy Club to see for herself whether they really did, as the job ad said, “have glamorous jobs, meet celebrities, and make top money”?
What a depressing world of artifice Steinem depicts, of waitresses being given “demerits”, because their “tails” were scruffy from men pulling on them, where they were only allowed to “go out” with the highest ranking club members, where costumes were so tight the women’s legs went numb, and where the much fabled tips were crummy.
Steinem’s articles were published in 1963. Far from harming Hefner, his empire went from strength to strength, and the millions started to flow. They didn’t flow forever, the internet and other competitors saw to that, but the money brought him the lifestyle he wanted. 
“I’m the luckiest cat on the planet,” he would say.
The millions also bought him the mausoleum drawer next to Marilyn Monroe, thus bringing an end to a working relationship that began with him putting a nude photograph of her in the first edition of Playboy in 1953.
Yet Monroe had not wanted those photos published, fearing the shoot, for which she was paid just $50, would finish her movie career before it had even started. But Hef, having bought the rights, went ahead anyway.
“Spending eternity next to Marilyn is too sweet to pass up,” Hefner told the LA Times when his crypt purchase was revealed. Despite his seeming adoration, and all the money he made from her, the number one playboy never actually met this flesh and blood woman in the flesh. Go figure.

Stay classy, Scottish Labour

WHEN it comes to political stushies, the Americans had Watergate while Scottish Labour has … well, let us just say it starts with a “P”, Bob.
The latest imbroglio began when interim chief Alex Rowley, who had previously expressed himself neutral in the party’s leadership contest, was recorded endorsing candidate Richard Leonard. In jumped Jackie Baillie, who is backing rival candidate Anas Sarwar, with claims of plotting. A  (now former) Leonard lackey, in turn, applied the P word to Baillie’s comments and lo a new “-gate” was born. Stay classy, Scottish Labour.
The Tories, holding their conference next week, are altogether more civil about their civil wars. Blood still spills on the carpet, but the help mops it up quickly.
To get matters off with a swing in Manchester, YouGov has asked Conservatives who they would most like to see as leader. Boris is top but at number two, breathing down his neck, is Ruth Davidson. Is it too much to ask of the Tories to desist from their usual classiness and settle this one via mud wrestling?

An appointment with the doctor

A NATION awaits. On tenterhooks. With wheelbarrow-loads of Kettle Chips and shelves of wine to hand. Yes, it is the series finale of Doctor Foster next Tuesday.
This second run of the BBC drama has been a real Marmite affair, with some complaining that creator Mike Bartlett has gone too far and turned the doc into a caricature, while sending the story so over the top it has landed an inch short of Everest’s peak.
After the last series closer, complete with the titular GP being hurled against a patio door by her unfaithful husband, who knows what might be on the cards come Tuesday.
It does not bode well that Bartlett told the Radio Times this week that in writing Doctor Foster he took inspiration from the Greek tragedy, Medea. Without issuing any spoilers, let us just say that did not end well for certain members of the family. He also said that depending on what happens on Tuesday, a third series “might not be possible”.
Oh, for more innocent days when millions gathered round the TV to find out who shot JR.