Lamb To The Slaughter

‘WHEN you say of someone that they ”turned heads”, it is usually perceived as a compliment.

Why’s everyone looking in the opposite direction?

However, if you fail to specify in which direction the heads turned, it can cut both ways.

Thus, when Hello! reports that Las Vegas’ reigning diva Celine Dion turned heads at the Billboard Music Awards at the MGM Grand Arena, we’re not sure that it is not being deliberately ambiguous.

And a photo of the Canadian songstress only serves to reinforce our suspicions.

Hello! observes – again, surely, with deliberate ambiguity – that ”she stood out of the crowd in her toga-style outfit”.

Indeed she did, in much the same way that Caligula’s horse probably stood out from the crowd in the Roman senate – except in this instance, Celine is rather more ovine than equine.

But at least no-one can accuse her of being a sheep and following the flock as far as her choice of outfit was concerned.

Indeed, Hello! is struggling even to retain a veneer of politesse, describing the outfit as ”unusual”, which is not an epithet that lends itself to a positive interpretation.

The big winner on the night was Beyonce Knowles, who picked up four awards – ”a tribute to how the Destiny’s Child singer has won over the world with her talent and beauty”.

She forewent the toga for the evening in favour of a sequinned Versace gown.

The Billboard Century award for creative achievement went to our favourite tree-hugger Sting.

”If you play music with passion and love and honesty,” he told the audience as he accepted the award from Stevie Wonder (the only person in the room incidentally to congratulate Celine Dion on her choice of outfit), ”then it will nourish your soul, heal your wounds and make you life worth living.”

And there was us thinking that practising Tantric sex with a rare species of orchid in the middle of the Amazonian rain forest was the road to fulfilment.’

Posted: 19th, December 2003 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink