Amy Winehouse Trashed By Vicious Glenda

Camden Council has given the green light for a life-size statue of Amy Winehouse to be unveiled next month: “The memorial, which has been designed by Scott Eaton, will be a life-size brass sculpture of Winehouse and will stand at the centre of the Stables market, a short walk from the townhouse where the 27-year-old died of alcohol poisoning in July 2011” told the Guardian.

Jan Moir: complaint generator extraordinaire

But, for the moralising punditry of the Daily Mail, such a move was a grave affront, and so Jan Moir, Dacre’s cattiest Glenda, who by no coincidence at all has also garnered a reputation for putting the boot into celebrities whose lifestyles do not conform to that decreed by the Vagina Monologue, has been ordered over the top to carry out her customary hatchet job and smear combo.

“Misguided monument to a talent so publicly squandered” readers are told, before she really lets rip. “Mitch Winehouse says he cannot think of anywhere more appropriate for a memorial to his daughter ... Actually, I could. Maybe privately, in a family garden perhaps? That would be a good start. Or in front of an addiction clinic as a warning of the fate that awaits”. And there’s more.

“Instead, the statue will be plonked down among the stalls selling teapots and scented candles and tatty T-shirts, making Amy a patron saint of tat. It is hardly a fitting memorial to anyone, and certainly not this local girl made good (and bad) ... One can admire Amy Winehouse’s immense talent as an artist but still see that she is no one’s idea of a great folk heroine, youth symbol or role model”.

Then she starts really whingeing: “How much longer before a glazed-eyed statue of Pete Doherty, drug paraphernalia sticking out of his pockets, is erected next to Amy’s? Amy has already been honoured with a month of events, and London’s Jewish Museum held a ten-week exhibition ... Everyone is carrying on as if she was some kind of benevolent angel, a selfless Florence Nightingale”.

No, they’re celebrating a rare talent, one that gave rather more positive pleasure to more people in her short life than Jan Moir and her fellow sleazebags combined will ever do. But she’s not done: there is a smear to deliver. Here it comes: “Some cynics might suggest it is in Mitch Winehouse’s interests to keep the spotlight of veneration shining on his daughter, especially with his own singing career to promote”.

That’s just plain nasty, as is Ms Moir’s conclusion: “What happened to Amy was terrible and sad, but she brought almost all of it upon herself ... Ultimately, hers was a life of dereliction and loss and missed opportunity”. Whereas Jan Moir, er, brought all the opprobrium on herself, and spent her time trashing others’ reputations, in a life of, well, missed opportunity. So now she’s just spiteful and bitter.

Amy Winehouse will be remembered fondly. Jan Moir need never run that risk.