Stick to buying perfume and forget about kids, Sir Elton

16 September 2009

Rod Liddle says that celebrity adoption has become an unsavoury game of Top Trumps, and that the Ukraine would be right to turn down Elton John’s bid for a baby

The world may indeed be shrinking and its people becoming an undifferentiated morass, but east of the Oder-Neisse line they are not quite the same as us just yet. There is a certain infelicity when dealing with sensitive social issues, the sort of thing you hear over here only when no one is listening. Take the response from a senior Ukrainian politician to Elton John’s request to adopt a 14-month-old Ukrainian baby called Lev. ‘You won’t be allowed because you’re too old and you’re a poof,’ is what Sir Elton was told, pretty much in those words. ‘Gay marriages,’ the Ukrainian said, ‘don’t count.’ No messing around. I suspect if you’d asked the Ukrainian about Jews, Gypsies and Soviet collaborators he’d have responded in similarly vigorous fashion. As I say, things are different east of Szczecin; that veneer of western civility has not yet been imposed, which is why David Cameron has had so much trouble with his new allies in the European parliament, such as the Latvian Fatherland and Freedom party, whose views would make Heydrich wince.

Sir Elton had been doing a spot of shopping in the Ukraine after a gig. When international slebs these days wish to acquire the sort of finely crafted accessory which might fulfil their emotional and spiritual needs, they head not to Prada and Gucci, but to the local orphanage. Sir Elton and his missus, David Furnish, were touring a Ukrainian orphanage when they chanced upon little Lev. They fell in love and simply had to have him — come on, you know how it is. Sod off, said the Ukrainians, you’re old and queer. Now, we should allow for the possibility that, as he says, Elton was simply smitten and motivated by the most decent of charitable impulses when his eyes fell upon baby Lev. But still, there are a few people in Britain who view this latest adoption craze among slebs as thoroughly vile; I assume the view from Kiev is unanimous. A craze is what it seems to be, to non-slebs, though — and watching the public antics of Angelina and Brad, Madonna and now Sir Elton, you wonder if they are engaged in a giant high-stakes game of Top Trumps: my two cut-price Vietnamese brats beats your Malawian piccaninny, but I’ll raise you one with a little mite with HIV from Kiev, etc.

1 | 2 | 3 Next page

More articles from: Rod Liddle | this section

Print this article | Email to a friend | Permalink | Comments (1)

Post this entry to: del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Post comment

logdon

September 25th, 2009 8:18am Report this comment

A world gone wrong to quote Bob Dylan from some time ago.

Is the Third World now some picanniny and mix counter for celebs to choose lifestyle surrogates and siblings for the collection they've amassed already?

These people always project a kind of liberal, green, one world socialist demeanour yet act just like the Bourbons, above it all and able to trawl the globe, buying anything which catches their eye.

Nothing or no one is out of bounds when a fistful of dollars can purchase whatever their fancy alights upon to the extent, now even including orphan children.

We live in a world of no responsibility. Anything goes just as long as you have the connections.

From Obama and Brown's prancing and posturing of 'saving the world' to a sixteen year old single mother in some benighted sink estate we see a pattern of mendacity and entitlement which transcends all norms and turns what used to pass as morality on it's head.

Fortunately the down to earth pragmatism of the Ukranian official nails it.

The mind reels

Post comment