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Jayne Dawson: Messing up big time
hristine. Christine, Christine, Christine.
What was the girl thinking of? One minute she was a beautiful colossus, the biggest thing on air.
She stood astride the television world with one stilleto heel planted in each big channel while desperate executives clung to an ankle, trying to haul her into their bit.
She was hot. Hotter than that sizzling platter of fried beef they bring to the table in Chinese restaurants, hotter than the gold hotpants worn by Kylie, hotter than the smokin' wrath of the nation if England lose.
But then she wasn't.
The BBC let go of their ankle sharpish, fed up of Christine telling us she was "torn", and leaving her to topple inelegantly into the ITV camp.
Not that we need to stay awake worrying about her. Because Christine, who only a few years ago was employed to run errands for people like her, will be receiving 4m over the next three years.
And she will be reunited with her potato-faced chum Adrian Chiles, he who is so engagingly dry, if not actually miserable.
Some people think that's because he wants to be Christine's boyfriend, whereas she prefers Frank Lampard. But I'm not sure about that. I don't think Adrian's pining for Christine at all, actually. I think, basically, he's just got one of those faces.
If he was a woman, annoying blokes in the street would be telling him to "cheer up, love". And then he could say: "Shove off, stupid, I've just got a 6m contract."
Anyway, the reunion of Chiles and Bleakley raises many questions about what will happen to the current presenters of GMTV. Actually it doesn't, it's clear we're going to see bottoms shoved off all over the place, in fact we're going to see a sofa massacre. Fire-retardant foam cushions and false eyelashes will be flying all over the studio soon.
Over at the BBC meanwhile, there will be a slug-out for her former spot, with Fern Britton, Lorraine Kelly and Myleene Klass all rumoured to be contenders.
But back to Christine. The reason the BBC managed to steal her thunder was that she forgot the basic rule of decision making which, contrary to pop psychology, is ALWAYS sweat the small stuff. But never the big stuff.
I don't know what Christine was thinking of. This was a BIG decision. she should have made it just like that, in the blink of an eye, in the disdainful flick of a wrist – while agonising over what nail colour to apply for that night's show.
Because this is what women do. Men, I don't know about. Not on this topic, not on any topic. Men are unfathomable. But this is how women get through life. Trust me, it is.
Women will stand, caught, torn, transfixed, between two shades of cream to paint the living room walls, they will agonise for a ludicrous amount of time in a changing room between two versions of the same garment, both of them in exactly the same size and colour, trying to decide whether one is a bit better fit on the hips than the other, aka Makes Them Look Slimmer.
They do this because, it is said, The Devil Is In The Detail. And in the case of colour, size and style, this is always true.
While they attempt to make these impossible, small decisions, men will stand at their side, arms folded looking really quite fed up. They will pace, they will stomp off to the doorway "for a bit of fresh air" they will spit quite unkind words out of the corners of their mouths about the length of time all this is taking. They will say: "for God's sake buy them both, let's just get out of here".
Then they will come home one day and find that their partner has painted the wall in that carefully chosen shade of cream, and also put the house up for sale and found them a new home. All in the one, unexpected, afternoon.
Mothers
I don't know why it happens like this, I just know that it does. Maybe it's because women are used to doing the big stuff without fuss because we do, after all, create life. One day we are childless and content, the next we wake up determined to become mothers. And that's that.
So walking into a house and deciding within seconds that it is our new home is no problem to us. Deciding to have children, deciding to quit a job – we can do all that without breaking sweat.
My very own sister woke up one Tuesday morning and decided her family's future lay in New Zealand, and off she went. Just like that. Taking one surprised husband and three surprised sons with her.
So what happened to Christine there, I just don't know. Maybe it was a clear-eyed game of poker to up the millions on offer, or maybe Christine just got her decision making process slightly mixed up. Maybe she forgot that as a woman it was the nail varnish she was supposed to agonise over, not nailing the job. Christine should have been bigger than that.
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Sunday 12 February 2012
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