PLATELL’S PEOPLE: Jonathan Ross called me a ‘dog’ to my face

Picture the scene last Tuesday, a beautifully clear winter night, stars shining, the savour of mulled wine in the air.

I was lucky enough to be invited to a magical pre-Christmas celebration in the surroundings of 17th century Kenwood House in Hampstead Heath, North London.

Tis the season to be jolly, and there were children running around, the light shows were lovely, and I felt a real sense of joy after a miserable two years, as my friends and I wandered around the beautifully lit pathways.

Who should we bump into but ITV’s Jonathan Ross and his wife Jane Goldman, their daughter Honey and her boyfriend Zane Saz?

As we stood outside the burger bar, Ross turned to me and said: ‘They don’t allow dogs in here, Amanda.’

If it was meant to be funny, it wasn’t. As a columnist, I have developed the skin of a rhinoceros but, actually, it hurt. It was humiliating.

My friend’s husband had to restrain himself from launching into Ross, which was also my natural instinct.

What gives any man — any person — the right to describe a woman as a ‘dog’, let alone a very public figure and star presenter on ITV.

This is someone who boasted in 2019 on Loose Women that ‘as the youngsters say, I’m fairly woke’. Well, it’s not very woke to deride a woman like that, is it Jonathan?

Should I have been surprised? Perhaps not. This week, one of Ross’s guests on his ITV show, Sheridan Smith, said her treatment was nothing short of misogynistic — her word. Many contributors to the social media storm that followed agreed, saying she was all but ignored as Ross regaled his male guests Gary Barlow, Jeremy Clarkson, Riz Ahmed and Stephen Merchant.

And let’s not forget that, when it comes to casual insults, Ross has shocking form. He and Russell Brand made those unforgivable prank calls to Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs, leaving disgusting messages on his phone, one with Ross shouting ‘he f***ed your granddaughter’.

Both men were suspended from the BBC and Ross ended up at ITV.

Could it be that, on Tuesday, Ross spoke out against me instinctively as a protective father? Certainly, I have written critically of Honey in the past, questioning whether she was wise to post pictures of herself, size 18 in a G-string, in an attempt to shame a ‘fat-phobic’ world.

She’s also denounced her parents for trying to make her diet during her adolescence into a ‘normal’ size.

Whatever the reason for Ross’s vile insinuation that I was a ‘dog’, perhaps he should have stopped and thought how he would feel if some stranger had said that to his wife or daughter.

Am I the only woman to feel that mandatory mask-wearing — after fewer than 30 cases of Omicron — is rather misogynistic? After 30 minutes on public transport, all of us with red lipstick this festive season will end up looking like Heath Ledger in Joker. 

I fear Amol’s Marred the BBC

‘I’m about to throw a brick at Kate and Wills’, ‘Must we endure endless sycophantic and shameless monarchist propaganda?’ and Prince Philip is ‘a racist buffoon’.

Some anonymous, idiotic online troll? No, a selection of the publicly-stated historic opinions of the BBC’s golden boy, the gold jewellery-sporting Amol Rajan, a proud republican given the job of presenting the now discredited pro-Sussex two-part documentary The Princes And The Press.

BBC insiders say he’s a shoo-in to replace Andrew Marr on their hitherto unbiased flagship political show. Royal brickbats at the ready!

Rihanna, Charles and a Royal Flush!

Accepting her National Hero of Barbados award as the Caribbean island became a republic, Rihanna, 33, looked gorgeous in a golden gown, seemingly without a shred of underwear and revealing her wonderfully womanly, wobbly tummy and fulsome breasts as she embraced Prince Charles. Let’s hope he had some smelling salts to hand.

Accepting her National Hero of Barbados award as the Caribbean island became a republic, Rihanna, 33, looked gorgeous in a golden gown, seemingly without a shred of underwear and revealing her wonderfully womanly, wobbly tummy and fulsome breasts as she embraced Prince Charles. Let’s hope he had some smelling salts to hand

Through to the quarter-finals and tipped to win the glitter ball, Strictly’s deaf dancer Rose Ayling-Ellis says she turns down lucrative deals to endorse hearing aids, refusing to promote any devices not provided by the NHS which has cared for her since she was a child. Can Rose get any more adorable?

In her brazen statement after the court verdict against The Mail On Sunday, Meghan declared: ‘This is a victory not just for me, but for everyone who has ever felt scared to stand up for what’s right.’

Sorry, but this is a multi-millionaire duchess who married into the Royal Family. She’s not in any way like the rest of us.

And I’d have more respect for Meghan if she’d seen her father even just once after she got married to Harry, who himself has never met him. Doing ‘what’s right’ is a daughter behaving respectfully to her devoted father.

A flimsy excuse for high fashion!

This is one of the creations of new, must-have designer Nensi Dojaka, who says of her £1,500 plus ‘frocks’ that she ‘doesn’t like anything too pretty or too exposed, I have an eye where to stop’.

Crikey, if a bit of gossamer thrown over your undies is what she thinks is fashion, I’d say it IS time for her to stop!

This is one of the creations of new, must-have designer Nensi Dojaka, who says of her £1,500 plus ‘frocks’ that she ‘doesn’t like anything too pretty or too exposed, I have an eye where to stop’

Harry’s hopeless 

On World Aids Day, Prince Harry said Covid was like HIV, that ‘corporate greed’ and the ‘political failure’ to provide vaccines have caused the unnecessary deaths of millions of people.

During the 1980s and 1990s I watched three dear friends die of Aids. There was no vaccine, no treatment. As tragically proved by Freddie Mercury’s premature death 30 years ago, it didn’t matter how rich you were, Aids was a death sentence.

To conflate medicines for Aids with vaccines for Covid just proves Harry really doesn’t have a clue.

Of all the contraband confiscated from the stars on I’m A Celebrity, — including Oxo cubes, Nescafe Gold and Fruitellas — most surprising was DJ Naughty Boy’s nail file. Given that he threatens nightly to flee the set, Mummy’s Boy should have smuggled in a hacksaw to help him escape . . . and put the series’ dwindling number of viewers out of their misery. 

The house where the movie Home Alone was filmed is now available to rent via Airbnb over the festive season. Why would anyone want to stay where the then ten-year-old Macaulay Culkin’s character was abandoned by his parents and tormented by two robbers?

Languishing in the polls ahead of next year’s election, France’s Brit-bashing President Macron says of our PM: ‘It is very sad to see a great country led by a clown.’

Yes, a clown with an 80-seat maj-ority, the fastest growing economy in Europe (while France’s tanks), and consistently ahead in the polls over Sir Keir Starmer. Here’s guessing Bojo the clown will have the last laugh.

Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey, 50, wants to ban ‘snogging under the mistletoe’ this Christmas. In your dreams, dear.

Five words of advice to the Foreign Secretary Liz Truss after shamelessly copying Margaret Thatcher’s famous photo-pose riding in a tank: naked ambition is very unattractive.

Even if her fashion empire is struggling, it’s a bit crass of Stella McCartney to launch a Beatles fashion line to coincide with the new documentary of the Fab Four. Her Strawberry Fields jumper costs £895. Time to stop milking your dad’s fame and let it be, Stella.

A Londoner winning the prize for the oldest working iron (a Morphy Richards bought by his grandmother in the 1940s) is an inspiration. So I’m hanging on to my Sony bedside clock radio, bought in 1985 and still going strong, in the hope I’ll one day win a prize for the longest ever bedside companion. It’s seen me through one marriage, four engagements and various romantic entanglements. Thank goodness these antiquated clocks can’t talk.