PIERS MORGAN: ‘Lily Allen doth protest too much!’

SATURDAY, JUNE 9

A friend threw a splendid 50th birthday party in Oxfordshire in which she separated all 250 or so guests on to four long, gender-exclusive dinner tables: two male, two female.

I found myself sitting with my old boss Rupert Murdoch, mobile-phone tycoon Sir Charles Dunstone and Blur pop star Alex James.

‘This is great!’ I declared. ‘We can talk about sport, business and women all night!’

And that’s exactly what we did, most enjoyably, over copious quantities of fish and chips, fine wine, brandy and cigars.

Today, the dimmest of the dim contestants, Hayley ‘Is Spain in the United Kingdom?’ Hughes, appeared on Good Morning Britain. I planned to expose her cerebral deficiencies by asking a series of quick-fire questions…

Frankly, if this is radical-feminism utopia, I’m all for it.

One of Rupert’s former top lieutenants, Les Hinton, has just published an excellent autobiography that includes an amusing anecdote about a meeting between the three of us in my editor’s office at the now defunct News Of The World.

Les wrote: ‘He’s a very bright man,’ said Rupert as we left. ‘But he can be a bit reckless. Keep an eye on him.’ Rupert would later express his view more colourfully: ‘The trouble with Piers is that his balls are bigger than his brains!’

I asked Rupert tonight if he’d actually said that. ‘It sounds… plausible,’ he chuckled.

At midnight, David Cameron plonked himself down next to me.

‘Let’s have a chat, Piers,’ said the former Prime Minister, with whom I have rarely seen eye-to-eye.

So we did, for nearly an hour, over several large whiskies.

Our conversation was off the record.

However, I did look him in the eye and ask ‘What the hell were you thinking?’ about his decision to have the EU referendum.

As I pointed out, if you let the British public determine such matters, you end up with ships named Boaty McBoatface. We just can’t stop ourselves giving the Establishment a bloody nose.

Cameron’s justification for both the decision and the woefully unsuccessful campaign he ran was lengthy, candid, passionate and fascinating.

I still think he was nuts to do it.

SUNDAY, JUNE 10

Lily Allen, the most annoying woman in showbusiness, dedicated her song F*** You to me tonight during a concert at London club Heaven.

It’s a fine line between demented hate of the kind Ms Allen constantly spews my way, and crazy love.

Methinks the ‘lady’ doth protest too much.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20

I’ve spent the past fortnight lambasting Love Island as the world’s most stupid TV programme featuring the world’s most brain-dead, fame-crazed zombies.

Today, the dimmest of the dim contestants, Hayley ‘Is Spain in the United Kingdom?’ Hughes, appeared on Good Morning Britain.

I planned to expose her cerebral deficiencies by asking a series of quick-fire questions including ‘What is Pythagoras’s theorem’ (the mathematical measurement of a triangle) and ‘Do you know Pi (the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter) to five decimal places?’

Unfortunately my own brain scrambled, perhaps due to its sudden close proximity to Ms Hughes’s, and I said: ‘Do you know Pythagoras’s theorem to five decimal places?’

When she said no, Susanna Reid asked me if I did. ‘Yes, it’s 3.147…’ I stammered, before one of our camera crew shouted out: ‘That’s Pi, not Pythagoras!’

I froze in horror. He was right.

To compound my shame, I even got the Pi number wrong – it starts 3.141.

Susanna, who is disturbingly addicted to Love Island, leapt on my gaffe like a ravenous rattlesnake: ‘You just showed yourself up, Piers Morgan, on national television, in an attempt to humiliate these people.’

True.

‘I’ve mugged myself off,’ I admitted, deploying one of the show’s cretinous catchphrases, as Hayley smirked gleefully, albeit with blissful ignorance as to what the hell we were talking about.

I retreated to ITV’s box at Royal Ascot, where lurked such luminaries as Declan Donnelly, Judge Rinder, Ben Fogle, Susanna and Jeremy Kyle. ‘Meet the woman who saved my life,’ said Jeremy, introducing me to his new girlfriend Vicky Burton.

‘Why would you do that?’ I asked her.

‘F*** off, Morgan!’ chortled Jeremy. Then he turned to Vicky and commanded: ‘Don’t tell him anything, he’s like a virus – if you let him in, he’ll get everything out of you!’

Our professional jockey tipster, Dave Crosse, arrived in a neck brace and plastered broken arm after a bad fall. His tips proved to be as successful as his recent riding.

‘Would anyone like to see the horses parade?’ asked an Ascot executive.

‘Go on, Dec,’ I urged the pint-sized presenter. ‘They might give you a ride.’

In the third race he bet on Tribute Act, a 10-1 outsider. It came second, and Dec exploded with excitement, performing an ecstatic Riverdance-style jig of joy and wildly clicking his fingers.

‘How much did you win?’ I asked, assuming it must be a small fortune. ‘I had £5 each way on it!’ he exclaimed jubilantly.

So he’d won £10, something he earns in less time than it takes to say ‘tight Geordie git’.

My own strategy of putting all my chips on Frankie Dettori was an unmitigated and very expensive disaster. In a desperate effort to recoup my mounting losses, I backed him massively again in the 4.20pm on Cracksman, the red-hot, odds-on favourite.

As it stormed to victory, I screamed with delight, punched the air, and hugged an equally thrilled Kyle.

As we danced around together, he suddenly yelled: ‘I thought you backed Cracksman?!’

I stopped dancing.

‘I did. It won, didn’t it?’

‘NO! Poet’s Word won, the one I backed! You just cheered your horse losing, you absolute muppet!’

Dec’s delight at this revelation was even greater than when he won his £10.

I stumbled off home.

My day had ended the way it had begun: with abject, self-induced humiliation.

 



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