h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

John Major and Edwina Currie eh? I didn't know he had it in him. Though she obviously knew she had it in her! Makes you wonder about all those 'Ginny' jokes on Spitting Image!

I notice that she's an evil over sexed harpie and he's a sensitive lonley missunderstood overworked fellow in the press today.

What!!!???

*run>s off to look at the newspapers!

I've been watching it on Sky News.

I'm really that married people have affairs.

They must be getting my share.

Yes, autist, in Saudi they'd both be beheaded for this revelation!

For John Major to say it's the thing he most regrets in his life, he didn't think about that for the 4 years it was going on, did he?
I'd be interested to know if he dumped her just before he became Prime Minister.

But as it's Edwina who's spilled the beans to boost sales of her book, I have no sympathy for her either.

As for Mrs Major forgiving him, I'd be more impressed if she'd cut up his suits or gave them away to Oxfam, smashed up his bottles of or gave them away to neighbours, etc. etc.

To forgive so easily allows them free reign to do it again.

"I am a little surprised, not at Mrs Currie's indiscretion but at a temporary lapse in John Major's taste" - Mary Archer

Ouch.

Blimey

Sorry.... that's a comment from .... Mary Archer .... who is married to .... Geoffry Archer, the Great Story Teller.... about other people's taste in partners....

Otto.

Trying to shift a really unpleasant mental image.

The affair ran between 1984 and 1988 (when Major joined the cabinet).

Why can't people just come out and be honest and say "actually it was nice, it's good to have sex with other humans, especially if your feeling a little lonely. I enjoyed it, i liked her/him, and i wouldn't have done it if it hadn't been good. I gave it up, not because i found it shameful, but because there were better things to do."

I always admired Alan Clarke for having just such an attitude, though i can see that his wife might not share my oppinion.

Yes, he was a right one, I recall one bloke going after him with a shotgun after he'd found out Alan had an affair not only with his wife, but also his daughter.

In my experience, people generally express regret that they've been found out.

Mary Archer is the woman I was thinking of this morning, in comparison with Norma Major, they're cut from the same cloth.
"Fragrant" wives who won't hear a bad word about their husbands, even when confronted by the evidence.
Loyal, dependable, passionless.

I find the story quite touching. They probably both needed it, and it seems likely that it caused below-average fallout/pain compared with the average extra-marital affair.
And how very British. Quite unlike Bill and Monica, for example.
* shudders *
It would make an excellent little play on ITV one winter's evening. Alan Bennett's probably working on the screenplay already.
Or maybe the National Theatre of Brent could perform it. The one-who-isn't-Jim-Broadbent looks a bit like Major, and Jim could do Edwina.

What a ghastly image to be confronted with over one's brekkers

On the news they mentioned the 'Back to basics' speech when they reported this story. What was the speech about, and why is it significant?

Back to Basics was a project to return the Conservative party, the government, and the country back to basic tory political values. It was given against a background of inumerable Tory sleaze allegations and revelations of sexual misconduct within the party. This combined with the Tory's homophobic education and puritanical censorship legislation allowed the Back to Basics speech and campain to be seen as a moral crusade.

Wheras 'Back to Basics' wasn't actually a moral agenda, the Tory's did have a hypocritical moral agenda that the pursued vigorously, opposing homosexuality, Unmarried sex / mothers, criminalising sadomasochsm, opposing the liberalisation of censorship both in print and film, and promoting the 'christian' values of hate, bigotry and distrust.

The 'Back to Basics' speech was John's keynote speech to the Tory Party conference in, I think, 1993. At which he called for a more traditional Britain and a return to Victorian values and prudery and such like. This was immediatly followed by a seemingly endless stream of Tory MPs being caught with their trousers down and in effect turned the Tory government into a laughing stock

So how did she REALLY like her eggs done.

Unfertilised, at least.

I think they're welcome to each other. I'd rather go without.

Who can honestly say that at one time or another, they haven't found Edwina Currie extremely sexy. I know I have.

::DISCLAIMER:: That was a Monty Python reference btw, just in case you were wondering

Thank for that!

He's not the priminister, he's a very naughty boy.

I guess the Grey Man isn't quite so grey after all....