The actor and TV presenter offers his thoughts on the 11th anniversary of the twin towers attacks
You may recall LiS's dismay a couple of weeks ago at the British public's waning interest in the doings of celebrities following the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics. It seems that its wise words fell on deaf ears. Since then, the situation has only got worse. Last week, it was announced that Hello! magazine was undergoing a "market repositioning", "a fundamental, important and strategic shift to the placement of Hello! magazine in the minds of our many publics", wrote its publishing director, "a move away from the celebrity sector, and its obsession with madeup stories, scurrilous gossip …" From here on in, as far as Lost in Showbiz could gather, Hello! was going to resemble a cross between New Scientist, FR Leavis's Scrutiny and the Harvard Review of Philosophy.
And so it proved. The magazine is now unrecognisable from its previous incarnation, as evidenced by the current issue, which scrupulously avoids the celebrity sector in favour of concentrating solely on more substantial and hard-hitting news: Peaches Geldof's wedding, Brian McFadden's wedding ("Danni Minogue wore a dress from her own Project D collection"), Katie Melua's wedding, the wedding of a woman Lost in Showbiz has never heard of called Lady Mary Charteris, some photographs of Lady Gaga riding a bike, the revelations that Robbie Williams likes prawn cocktail crisps and that Nicole Kidman "is reported to suffer from eczema".
And yet this blow came in a week where celebrities once again revealed their incalculable worth to society. You can hardly have failed to notice that it was the 11th anniversary of 9/11, once again posing the question of how to commemorate such a momentous and world-changing tragedy adequately. Let us be thankful, then, for the celebrities of Twitter, there to provide us with an appropriate response. Of all the tributes, perhaps the most poignant and striking came from actor and TV presenter Danny Dyer, star of The Football Factory, Danny Dyer's I Believe In UFOs and – if LiS may be permitted to pick a favourite moment from his cinematic oeuvre – a YouTube film of a recent personal appearance at Rockafellas Night Club in Corby, Northants, that seems to largely consist of Dyer visibly struggling to get both his eyeballs to point in the same direction at the same time and saying weakly: "I'm a bit off me fucking nut."
But cometh the hour, cometh the geezer: here, finally, was the man with the insight, empathy and erudition to summarise in a few powerful words what we all felt about the terrorist attack that changed the world. "Can't believe it's been nearly 11 years since them slags smashed into the twin towers," he tweeted, "it still freaks my nut out to this day."
LiS confesses its own nut is a little freaked out by the boundless possibilities inherent in this outbreak of what rappers call "real talk". It can only turn and address the nation's broadcasters. You have a year to assemble an appropriate tribute for the 12th anniversary of 9/11. The answer appears to be staring you in the face. Working title: Them Slags What Freaked My Nut Out – A Personal Reflection On 9/11 By Danny Dyer. Opening shot: footage of the doomed World Trade Centre gleaming in the morning sun. Voice-over: "Looks like laaahvley normal day, dunnit? Well, just you FACKIN' wait!" Pausing only to say the words "dramatic recreations", "Nick Love as director", and, most enticing of all, "former soccer hardman Vinnie Jones in a keffiyeh", Lost in Showbiz feels it can end its pitch there.
Programme directors of Britain, it awaits your call.