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Tiger's handicap? Failure to grasp just how fast the truth will out
Sebastian Shakespeare4 Dec 2009
Tiger, behave! The Tiger Woods scandal is a perfect example of Arthur Schopenhauer's dictum about how all truth passes through three stages.
In the first stage truth is ridiculed, in the second stage it is violently opposed; in the third stage, which is of course where we are now, it is accepted as self-evident.
During the first phase of the Woods saga, the golfer issued a statement through his agent which dismissed the internet rumours of a dalliance with New York socialite Rachel Uchitel as “malicious”, “unfounded” and “irresponsible”; Tiger went on to praise his wife for “courageously” coming to his aid with a golf club.
In other words, it would be preposterous for anyone to dare question Tiger's goodie-two-shoes image or impugn his wife's loyalty.
When the rumours persisted and more details emerged about the bizarre nature of his car accident (why did his wife need to smash BOTH rear-side windows in order to rescue him?), Tiger's language turned more angry and intemperate. Such speculation about his private life was now “utterly false and malicious”.
It was only a matter of time before the true facts emerged. Within days, cocktail waitress Jaimee Grubbs claimed she had had a 31-month affair with Tiger.
And now another alleged lover, Las Vegas nightclub promoter Kalika Moquin, has come out of the bunker. The truth is self-evident: Tiger, the paragon of sporting heroes, is just a common-or-garden love cheat.
It was the legendary journalist Claud Cockburn who said: “Never believe anything until it has been officially denied.” Politicians are champion deniers — hence our innate distrust of them.
Remember Saddam's weapons of mass destruction?
Celebrities employ PR mouthpieces in order to deny things on their behalf as it absolves them of lying.
What is remarkable about the Woods debacle is the speed with which his story has unravelled. In just one week he has gone from hero to zero.
Can he bounce back? Schopenhauer got into terrible scrapes with women and would surely have sympathised with Woods's plight.
The German philosopher became involved in a bizarre lawsuit after Caroline Marquet accused him of pushing her, and she claimed damages, which he was still paying off 20 years later.
When she died, he wrote on a copy of her death certificate, Obit anus, Obit onus (“The old woman dies, the burden is lifted”). But there is arguably no greater burden, as Woods will discover, than the burden of truth.
Mon dieu - le sexe is no joke!
Jonathan Littell's The Kindly Ones carried off the 17th annual Bad Sex prize this week.
I was delighted, as I had nominated the Franco-American author for the gong and thought he was a worthy recipient.
The novel may have won the Prix Goncourt in 2006 but clearly the French were unconcerned about all the bad sex.
There were so many absurd passages in his book worthy of commendation (“I came suddenly, a jolt that emptied my head like a spoon scraping the inside of a soft-boiled egg”) that I couldn't submit them all.
Sadly, Littell wasn't there in person and his British publisher accepted the prize on his behalf.
“He's baffled,” said his publisher. “What's funny about sex?”
And there you have the French-English cultural divide in a nutshell. The French take themselves oh-so-seriously, whereas we can laugh at ourselves until the vaches come home.
Gordon's had his fill of the cult of celebrity
Reese or Renée? Gordon Brown couldn't tell his Renée Zellweger from his Reese Witherspoon in Parliament this week.
“I'm very grateful that Renée Witherspoon is leading this campaign,” Brown told baffled MPs, as he paid tribute to Reese Witherspoon's campaign against domestic violence.
He compounded the error by saying he remembered that Witherspoon had spoken “movingly at the funeral of Anthony Minghella”. Er, except it was Zellweger who spoke at the service.
Could this be proof that Gordon, at last, is moving away from the cult of celebrity? Two years ago he famously said in a newspaper interview that “We're moving from this period when, if you like, celebrity matters, when people become famous for being famous.”
What better way to move away from the cult than to get all your celebrities muddled up.
Tweet off
A teacher has been appointed the country's first Twitterer-in-Residence by his home town.
College lecturer Mike McTimoney will be paid £140 a year to write tweets about Darlington, the County Durham market town where he teaches IT.
Does anyone want to join me and offer £140 to Mr McTimoney not to tweet about Darlington? Or on second thoughts, does anybody want to pay me not to tweet about my private life? Don't say you haven't been warned.
