Hallo Readers,

On Monday, Robin Williams, aged 63, hanged himself whilst his wife lay sleeping in the next room. After the body was taken away, the family issued a statement asking to be left alone to grieve. Fat chance… within moments of that request, duly reported on its own website, ABC News despatched a helicopter to hover over the Williams’ residence whilst simultaneously advising visitors to the site (and presumably its TV viewers), “Watch live – Aerials of Robin Williams’ Home”. The rationale for the helicopter was unclear. The corpse had left the building. The family remained inside. The only people outside were journalists and cameramen badgering the neighbours for anecdotes about the deceased. Was he, like, crazy? Did he do silly voices when venturing down the drive to collect his mail? Did they have any idea that he was going to top himself? How shocked were they? But still the helicopter hovered, droning away almost at roof level so that those indoors could probably barely hear each other as they sought to make sense of what had just happened. It was only an hour later when Twitter had exploded in anger that ABC withdrew its live ”aerials”. A spokesperson said “When we realised that there was no news value to the live stream we took it down immediately. Our intention was not to be insensitive to his friends, family and fans, for which we apologise”. Which begs more questions. In the minds of the ratings-chasing morons who run ABC, what would have merited sufficient “news value” to justify a noisy helicopter right over the heads of the bereaved and their neighbours? Ben Affleck and Matt Damon popping in to pay their respects? Someone carrying the rope out to a waiting car, like Horatio from CSI? And of course ABC did not give a toss about sensitivity – they just wanted the story. This is the downside of rolling news…. there is very little to say and an awful lot of time to say it in.

The important things to say about Robin Williams’ death have nothing to do with his house. They are that he was talented and funny. That he made some terrific films and some terrible films and some films that were an uneasy mixture of the marvellous and the mawkish. That he had an addictive personality. That he suffered from episodes of severe depression, this one prompted by the news that he was in the early stages of Parkinson’s Disease. That he did not take his own life because he was “selfish” or “cowardly” or because he failed to “pull himself together”. That however talented and famous and loved you are, depression is a lethal illness.  That you do not think about your family because you can’t think about anything except how unbearable your life is, usually coupled with a longterm lack of sleep that exhausts you still further and makes you completely irrational. And that in Williams’ case, we are lucky enough to have a legacy of work to remind us that he made a lot of people very happy but that sadly, in the end, he could not extend that gift to himself.

Lauren Bacall also died this week, a month short of her 90th birthday.  She oozed beauty and glamour and as she got older, her wonderful face reflected her long and extraordinary life. She admitted to the odd Botox injection but refused to have plastic surgery just as, aged 20 and offered a starring role opposite Humphrey Bogart, she had refused to have a nose job or her teeth straightened. As she said, “I think your whole life shows in your face and you should be proud of that”. Compare her style and class to the ghastliness of the women below and it becomes clear, yet again, that money buys you neither.

We start with singer Katy Perry in an Acne leather jacket and a very ridiculous hat.

Katy is actually very pretty so why she chooses to go about plastered with makeup and looking like a sunburnt green-haired mutant from Planet Thing is a mystery right up there with why anyone would buy her records when she sounds like a scalded cat. Two words to Katy – Factor 30. And another one – lining.

This is TV personality, Kim Kardashian’s best friend and basketball wife Lala Anthony wearing For Love & Lemons.

And here is one word for Lala – why?  She looks like a titsy lampshade and the dress is incredibly unflattering.

In last week’s It’s Got to Go WTF fulminated about wankers who wander into MOMA and take pictures of the paintings. And now London’s National Gallery is going the same way. Apparently it will “enrich the visitor’s experience”. No it bloody won’t. They won’t experience the painting because they’ll be so busy snapping it or, worse, taking a selfie with the wife and kids in front of it. Meanwhile, someone actually wanting to  see a wondrous Rembrandt or Cezanne will not get near it for the selfie-takers and iPhone idiots. Have the Trustees been to Le Louvre and tried to get within 500 metres of the Mona Lisa? You’d be better off trying to get into Harrods on the first day of the Summer Sale……

Next up we have ghastly heiress Paris Hilton, currently earning $347,000 AN HOUR for DJ-ing in posh Eurotrash nightclubs. And if that does not define insanity, WTF does not know what does. As the Yiddish expression has it, “gelt geht zu gelt” – money goes to money.

How confusing is this? Paris smothers herself with appallingly-applied fake tan (her left foot looks like someone has ridden a bicycle over it) and then wears a dress with an illusion panel 10 times lighter than her newly-dyed skin. Eh? As for the tit panels, it is as if someone is standing behind her and groping her with diamanté oven  gloves.

Talking of fake, here is Lady Gaga arriving in Japan. 

Yes I know Gaga’s life is supposed to be performance art, blah, blah, but there is no excuse for flashing your sea-anenome-strewn bits to an unsuspecting public and absolutely no excuse for flashing your arse.

Gaga, pet, we’ve seen it all before. Just put it away. And lose the hair, which looks less like a mermaid and more like a collapsed straw beach umbrella.

Finally, we come upon the cream of British womanhood in the shape of left, former EastEnders actress Nicola Stapleton (is there a sadder phrase in the language than “former EastEnders actress”?), centre, current Hollyoaks actress Stephanie Waring and right, fashion designer Nadine Merabi who bears responsibility for all three of these quite shocking dresses. Well, I say dresses….

And here is the rear view….

Keen Readers may recall Nadine as the runaway winner of the Summer Stinker Poll 2013 where she took the phrase “Minge Moment” to a whole new low. Nadine, whose client list appears to consist exclusively of soap stars and WAGS various, designed these see-through, flesh-flashing sparklefests for Nicola’s 40th birthday party which apparently had a 1970’s theme. WTF can say with some confidence that no-one in the 1970’s went around dressed like this unless they were doing a turn in Billy Smart’s Circus, although she does acknowledge Nadine’s Wonderwoman headpiece. The birthday girl is showing buckets of untanned side-boob, Stephanie’s dress is quite pretty from the front and deeply vulgar from the permatanned back and as for Nadine, she looks like a man in drag who has rubbed himself with used teabags. It is all so awesomely terrible. Is this really what British women aspire to look like?

OK Readers, that’s your lot for this week. Keep your comments coming in and suggestions for It’s Got To Go and let us meet again next Friday. Be good x