I've never eaten Brazilian beef, though I believe it's similar to Argentinian which I have tried, for what it's worth Not a lot, to be perfectly honest, but then I'm biased. If he didn't know, why didn't he know? Why did he tell the world my cousin was a terrorist? Why did he lie to us?We want to know why for six days there was no independent investigation If there was nothing to hide. Lopped elfin nose, lips pouted in anger at what the brain cannot comprehend, bling in the belly button, and a Burberry scarf. Look, darling, our baby! Since this cannot be what we mean by a "designer" baby, what are we so afraid is going to happen if we allow expectant parents to specify a few alterations? We are, says Tony Calland, chairman of the Welsh Council of the British Medical Association and member of the BMA's ethics committee, on a "slippery slope". To what? To breeding children who don't say we are on a slippery slope? A generation born without the capacity to speak in clich?- would that be so terrible? Or delivered into the world, unlike Victoria Beckham, with the reading gene? Wouldn't it be nice if she could have one genetically equipped to recognise a book - even if it's only the book that mummy wrote?I see the problem.
Whenever I hear the expression "designer" baby I immediately form a mental image of Victoria Beckham, she who has never knowingly read a book. Thousands of her, suddenly appearing from between the legs of disconcerted mothers in obstetric wards up and down the country. There must be someone, somewhere, prepared to go through scripts with her and encourage her to say no once in a while More from Philip Hensher. There aren't many of Douglas's movies you wouldn't be happy to sit through twice.On the other hand, though she is lovely to look at and undeniably very thin, Nicole Kidman would probably have to pay anyone to watch even so clever a movie as Eyes Wide Shut more than once.
An actor like Kevin Spacey or Michael Douglas is always worth watching, not because of their technical skills, but because they always seem to have a sense of what movies they can do something interesting in. Anyone could have seen that The Stepford Wives was a stinker from the start; anyone could have told her that she stood no chance of convincing in Birth.It makes you realise what a skill there is to picking the right projects. As at too many of her films, you just sat there and watched the acting.Now I come to think of it, I don't think I've unaffectedly enjoyed a movie of hers since To Die For, a good 10 years ago. Nicole Kidman, in my view, just picks terrible movies, or the wrong movies for her. In The Interpreter and Birth, I couldn't believe in her as a woman with a career; The Stepford Wives ditto, plus not being funny; after Dogville, I thought "All is forgiven, but never do it again"; Cold Mountain embarrassing, The Hours plain awful, Birthday Girl squirm-making.
