Tales of the City

We don't need this kind of hero

YOU CAN picture the scene so clearly, can't you? The staff at Timemagazine's New York HQ are in serious conclave. James Kelly, themagazine's managing editor, announces that they must address thevital question of whose face should adorn the cover of Time'sChristmas special. Who should be nominated the mag's "Person of theYear"?

The title goes back 74 years and carries enormous prestige. Itsrecipient must be the man or woman who has had the greatest impact onthe course of history in the last 12 months. It's not an award forheroism or virtue, but for power, impact, success, clout andleverage. Hitler was named Person of the Year in 1938, and Stalin inboth 1939 and 1942, though other years have seen more benign figureshonoured, such as Nelson Mandela and JK Rowling.

So the Time staff stand around considering which luminary of 2001best fits the bill. And in less time than it takes to say Mazar-I-Sharif, one name appears and silences the discussion: Osama binLaden.

Can they be serious? Certainly. Who else caused such local mayhemand such global fallout, destabilised most of the Westerndemocracies, put the entire world on security alert, filled everynewspaper every day, destroyed the airline industry, deep-sixed thetourist industry, sent world leaders scurrying across the skies, putthe words "anthrax" and "bioterrorism" on everyone's lips and causedthe entire geopolitical universe to re-group and re-align? Whoappeared on more T-shirts than anyone else? Whose name was enteredmore often than any other in the search engines of the internet?

But the chaps at the magazine aren't sure they should risk it. Thelast thing that America needs is to think that, all over Afghanistan,and Pakistan and Iraq, copies of Time will be brandished as proofthat even America - even a magazine based in New York - has finallywoken up to the greatness of Osama. In Manhattan, they're stilldisputing whether they can make him "Person of the Year" without re-defining the word "person" to mean "complete bastard".

It's a tricky one. Doesn't it confer a kind of nobility on someoneto memorialise them in this hallowed spot - second only, in prestige,to putting their head on a postage stamp - when your ground troopsare currently trying to smoke him out of his underground hidey-hole,like rodent operatives gassing rats? Having his face on the cover,the jutting chin, those cold brown eyes - isn't there a sense thathe's being carved on to Mount Rushmore? And you wonder: what is itthat we actually feel for this man? It's not exactly hatred orcontempt or fury, but an unsettling amalgam of horror and amazementand - can it be admiration?

In an attempt to clarify one's thoughts, I turned to Demon Lover:The Roots of Terrorism by Robin Morgan, a classic work by thecelebrated American feminist and activist. And there Ms Morganexplains it all for you: "The terrorist is the ultimate sexual idolof a male-centred cultural tradition that stretches from pre-Biblical times to the present; he is the logical extension of thepatriarchal hero-martyr. He is the Demon Lover and society is(secretly or openly) fascinated by him. He walks with death and isthus inviolate; he is an idealist but a man of action, a fanatic ofdedication and an archetype of self-sacrifice... His intensity reeksof glamour. Women, we are told, lust to have him. Men, we are told,long to be him. He is sexy because he is deadly; he excites with thethrill of fear..."

And you think, actually no, I can't be doing with all this half-whispered, quasi-erotic myth-making any longer. This may be where theintellectual response of America is going, but we don't have to joinin. The British press is happier speculating about Osama's tinymembrum virile, and gleefully reporting that he wears XXL boxershorts from Man at C&A. Let's keep it that way. And let us urge Timemagazine to make anyone else Person of the Year - Rudy Giuliani,Nicole Kidman, anyone. Hell, even Tony Blair...

When Greece gets too hot for anoraks

WE'VE ALL gone off Greece a bit lately, haven't we? The blueAegean, ouzo, democracy, Demis Roussos, Maria Callas, souvlaki,baklava and Arianna Stassinopoulos-Huffington notwithstanding, Ithink it's fair to say that the image of Greece as a fun-seeker'sparadise populated by thousands of Penelope Cruz beauties dancing tothe zithery strains of Theodorakis played by laughing, moustachioedpeasants in voluminous white bloomers has taken something of a knocklately. It's not just the way they lock up a dozen innocent Britishplane-spotters for taking photographs of their seedy airports, northat they keep them incarcerated for weeks on suspicion of espionage -no, what's really insulting is that they refuse to believe thatanyone could possibly travel the world watching planes taking off andlanding, and writing down their serial numbers in little books. Theydon't understand how it could be a leisure activity for grown-ups. Ofall the bloody cheek. Do they know nothing of the British way oflife?

In an attempt to make amends for his countrymen's treatment of theaerial anoraks, Stelios Haji-Iannou, the busy Greek boss of thediscount-fares airline easyJet, has offered to fly relatives of thehapless 12 out to Kalamata, gratis, on one of his own planes. Thecase hasn't come to trial yet, but the police claim that they have"fresh evidence" to put before the judges in the next day or so, andthe relatives can offer much-needed support.

Now, I've flown on easyJet and I know what a unique experience itcan be. So I suggest to the relatives that, if they set off right nowfor the check-in desk at Luton Airport, by the time they've heard allthe explanations about the shocking weather conditions in thePeloponnese and been told about the eight-hour delay, when they'vespent what seems like days sitting in the airport reading magazines,eating fast food and weeping with a boredom that's alleviated bytrips to the Departures board, where the estimated time of departurekeeps moving back half an hour, like a reverse game of Grandmother'sFootsteps, and drives you into sock- chewing frenzies of frustration,by the time they've boarded the plane and discovered that theirgratis fare entitles them to no food or drink or other such "frills",although you may be treated to an exciting display of Losing One'sRag by the talented cabin staff - by the time you've been through thewhole easyJet experience, it should be about time for the trial tostart.

And the plane-spotters can look out of the windows of their lonelycells, and note down the serial number of the plane that's deliveringtheir flesh and blood, so cheaply and so late, in their hour of need.

Don't throw the book at me

I'M GUILTY of a shocking faux pas. I have, apparently, abused myposition in the bare-faced pursuit of riches. Goodness, the fuss Icaused by asking readers for a hand in tracing a quotation in Nemo'sAlmanac, the literary competition, in which you track down 70-oddabstruse bits of poetry and prose in the hope of winning a book tokenworth tuppence ha'penny. Thanks to everyone who wrote and e-mailedthe answer (it was George Gershwin), but I can't do it again. TheNemo fanatics out there are tut-tutting about my soliciting help viathis column - a crime worse, in their eyes, than the contestants onUniversity Challenge calling their tutors on mobile phones. So Iwon't be asking for more help, except to note in passing that thelines "Now wasn't it a funny thing/ To get a sight of JM Synge/ Andnotice nothing but his hat?/ Yet life is often queer like that",carry a strange resonance when you know them terribly well but can'tquite remember the author's name...

Why the 2002 Pirelli Calendar girls should just throw off theArmani

PIRELLI CALENDARS, we used to explain to suspicious girlfriends,are different. This is not a soft-porn garage-pin-up thingy, this isa clever satire on the fetishising of the human body, byphotographing naked bottoms as if they were sand-dunes with Jeeptracks on them, or Eva Herzigova eating pasta wearing only an apron.Fleshy, but classy, you see. Sadly, for the new calendar, Pirelli haschanged its mind, and clothed the girls in Armani. Does Mr Armanithink a woman could be more beautiful clothed than naked?"Absolutely," says Armani. "Clothing in this way allows you tofantasise and dream."

But it's kinda hard to fantasise about this peculiar series ofimages by Peter Lindbergh. They're all young starlets hanging out ona Hollywood set. Miss January is a vague young blonde who hasevidently forgotten her name, her hair appointment, and her place inthe script. Miss February (pictured above) totters towards the viewerin her mother's bra and pants, apparently demanding to know who haspinched her antiperspirant.

Miss March has collapsed on the roadway, possibly from the pain inher feet - she clearly suffers from phenomenal verrucas. Miss Aprilis a swimsuited waif, standing in a torrential rainstorm, beinglaughed at by uncaring lighting-riggers...

It's awful. The only fantasy you can come up with is of rescuingthem all in a Land-Rover, driving them home swathed in warm blankets,and making them a hot drink. The girls' expressions do not say "Irepresent a clever satire on the fetishising of desire". They mostlysay "How soon can I go home?", and "I'll catch my death in theseawful clothes". Do Sgr Armani, Mr Lindbergh and the Pirelli familyget off on that?