Spencer's the ermine-clad proof some men are born cads

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Love is blind: Karen Gordon and Earl SpencerThis June, when the sweet peas are in frilly bloom at Althorp, Earl Spencer will marry for the third time at his grand Northamptonshire seat. As the guests gather for the ceremony, to be held near the lake where his sister Diana is buried on a small island, perhaps they will hark anew at the wonder of aristocratic love once more triumphing over common experience. Yes, it is indeed a miracle of sorts. The wreckage of two marriages, the fallout from a brace of bitter divorces, the complications of myriad mistresses and girlfriends, not to mention the pesky business of being engaged to someone else just five minutes ago? None of this can thwart our Charlie boy, a romantic cavalier who seems not to woo women in the conventional sense, but who mounts raids, who captures and conquers, and who is determined, like a despot, to own outright and reign supreme. In matters of the heart, he is not what you might call a new man. In fact, hes a total Genghis Khan. Consider his romantic history which is more than any of his girlfriends or wives seem to do. Earl Spencer proposed to his first wife, model Victoria Lockwood, within weeks of meeting her. Yet according to her, he had myriad affairs throughout their marriage. He left his second wife, Caroline Freud, when their youngest child was only a few months old, walking out with a love-struck American reporter who had come to Althorp to interview him. Key question: Where are we going for dinner?TV reporters, models, minor aristocrats, show girls, other mens wives over the years, they have all been scythed down like pretty wands of hay by Earl Spencers combine harvester appetites. Vroom, vroom, parp, parp, here he comes lock up your daughters.

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And youve got to admit, he cuts a pretty mean furrow. No messing about with Earl the Peril. The Earls last but one fiance, poor Bianca, Lady Elliot, was almost home and dry. She had the glittering engagement ring on her finger, she was installed at magnificent Althorp, she was living the countess dream. She came within a gossamer whisper of capturing the castle. Yet within four swift months, Bianca was unceremoniously turfed out and replaced by Karen Gordon, a 38-year-old (ahem) American divorce whom the Earl will marry this summer. Really. Youve got to ask the question: what first attracts all these women to the ginger lothario, the serial cheater, the loaded landowner and multi-millionaire aristocrat that is Charles Spencer? It is, indeed, a mystery. However, I do wish the newly minted couple well and have much enjoyed the official photograph released by the Earl and his countess-in-waiting. He looks like a smudged, carroty thumbprint as usual, while she has a raven whip of hair and one of thos! e dreamy , Angelina Jolie-type middle-distance stares that is meant to suggest the wisdom of the ancients aligned with a very modern and thoughtful benevolence. Sure enough, Karen styles herself as an international social entrepreneur whatever that might be and has established her own charity to help improve the care of abandoned children in orphanages and other institutions around the world. Good for her; there could hardly be a more worthwhile cause. Yet I cant help but wonder if those institutions might include stately homes such as, for example, Althorp? Youve got to admit, the irony is piercing. Orphan saviour Miss Gordon is marrying a man who left five children bobbing around in his wake as he steamed ever onwards in his lifes pursuit of fresh romantic conquests. You might imagine he would be the type of man she would cross continents to avoid. Instead, she is marrying him. Yet rosy with the first flush of love, Karen has probably convinced herself she is the one woman who can change the Earls ways and his family-wrecking habits. Isnt that always the way with a certain type of fiance? Again and again they fall for cads like the Earl, believing themselves to be the ultimate instrument of change and revolution at the heart of the home. Yet men like Charles Spencer will never change. He is the bullish, walking, talking, ermine-clad proof of that. However, Karen seems unbothered by his past and appears not to have a best friend who could shake her shoulders and ask: Are you out of your tiny mind?Watch this space. The one between the ears of all romantic dreamers everywhere.

Fans driven gaga in the cheap seats!

Lady Gaga steps out of a translucent egg to perform her new song Born This Way Puff, puff, is that the summit? Are we nearly there yet? Fear not, viewers. There is only the (admittedly delicious) Oscars to go the ceremony that is, well, the Oscars of awards ceremonies and the! n the se ason will be over for another year.
This week alone, we have had the Helena Bonham-Baftas, the Grammys (enlivened by Lady Gaga, above, hatching from a giant egg) and the laughable, home-grown Brits.
If viewers wanted an accurate snapshot of British society, of the haves and have-nots, all they had to do was look at the layout of the Brits audience.
All the fans the stalwarts who actually go out and pay good money to buy the music and concert tickets are corralled in the cheap seats at the back of the auditorium.
From there, there have a lovely view of all the music business executives, stars and hangers-on gorging themselves at elegant tables groaning with plates of free grub and magnums of Champagne.
What a sight! No wonder people are beginning to tire of awards ceremonies in general and the Brits in particular.
On Wednesday night, more people tuned in to watch My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding on Channel 4 than this sorry Big Fat Marketing Exercise on ITV.

Memo to the middle-aged woman who joined the screaming crowds greeting pop heart-throb Justin Bieber in London this week. Yes, I mean you, madam.The flushed lady at the back holding up the sign that says: Justin I am old and ugly but I still want a kiss. Get a grip. Get a life. And go home before you get arrested.

DON'T LET PUSHY PARENTS RUIN HER

Simon Cowell has signed up a ten-year-old girl he spotted singing on YouTube. Yes, Heather Russells voice is terrific, and she is obviously extremely talented. The little girl from Canada (pictured) writes her own songs and has already been hailed as the next Mariah Carey. Well done her. Yet I cant help but feel a little uncomfortable aboutmore and more of these kids singing grown-up songs of love and loss being shown off and advertised by their parents on YouTube. Its not exactly Pimp My Kid. But its not exactly healthy, either. Im not s! uggestin g that Heather, pictured, should put her hair in ringlets and skip around singing My Boy Lollipop. But Id also hate to see her childhood and girlhood rubbed out by the vaunting ambition of her parents. Or to read about her in ten years time shoplifting tights from the Beverly Hills branch of Saks. Just like all the other troubled kid starswho had to grow up too quickly.

We know who to blame, Gordon

Gordon Brown: Blames youth unemployment on everyone from Thatcher to CameronListen. Can you hear it? The sound of a bear who has finished licking his wounds and is preparing to face the public again? Deep in the heart of Scotland, something stirs. It is none other than former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, returning to life. He has finally put down that DVD box set of The Wire, dusted the sausage roll crumbs from his wool-rich sweater, and roused himself to start playing the blame game again.In an essay published in a Scottish newspaper this week, Brown wastes no time in blaming rising youth unemployment on everyone from Thatcher to Cameron. He says the Tories do not believe in creating life chances for our children, and insists that the Coalition stands guilty of condemning a whole generation to nothing more than the vacuum and waste of unemployment without bothering to mention his own corrosive role in the proceedings. What a joke. Yes, it is depressing beyond all measure that the UK youth unemployment rate is now at 20.5per cent the highest figures since records began in 1992. Yet the seeds of this catastrophe were sown long before the Coalition came to power: Browns energetic dedication to dishing out benefits served only to ensnare more people in the system. Elsewhere, taxes were raised, expectations were lowered, and Labours constant meddling in schools including its enthusiasm for dumbed-down teaching modules only resulted in more and more youngsters leaving school barely able to ! spell th eir own names. And from there to enter an environment where it is financially more rewarding not to work than to work.Blaming this on the cuts and on Conservatives is laughable. Gordon and Tony ran the country for 13 years. Or are they too busy making fortunes writing books and making speeches to remember that little fact?

This week, publicist Max Clifford gave advice to Silvio Berlusconi on his current PR difficulties.The Italian PM is about to stand trial on charges of abuse of office and paying for sex with an underage prostitute.Male opinion isnt a problem for Berlusconi, breezes Max. Virtually every man, apart from the father of a young girl, or someones husband, is going to have admiration for him. Its the women he has got to win over.Agreed that women are, indeed, appalled by the priapic, old, hair-plugged monster. Yet can it be true about men admiring him, even with Cliffords careful caveats about husbands and fathers? That might be the case in the sleazy hothouse of footballers and rock stars, where Clifford plies his trade. Yet I dont believe that most men would be so crass. Am I wrong?