Something Really Stupid for Jordan and Peter

Published on Thursday 13 April 2006 01:14

IT MUST be something to do with global warming. I'm sure the "silly season" - that hiatus from serious thought and political comment seemingly enforced by Parliament's very long holidays - is normally scheduled for July and August. But things have been getting so silly this week, I can only assume the calendar has been revised.

Fifty-thousand-pound chocolate Easter eggs studded with diamonds? How nice and crunchy for the tooth enamel. And with so many dentists working on Easter Sunday, a really shrewd gift. Then there's Jordan: not the nation or the river - despite their neglected seasonal relevance. I mean the model formerly known as Katie Price, she of the impressively enhanced frontage and Brigitte Bardot bedtime hair. Millions of internet celebrity gossip addicts were positively agog to learn that Jordan and her Australian husband, Peter Andr, intend to record a cover version of the old Sinatra hit Something Stupid, thereby launching a new joint crooning career.

The best thing about this decision is the shrewd choice of song title. I suspect it will be highlighted on legal documents in years to come, as a pivotal point in the marriage. A peak of cherished optimism before ... Well, who knows? But the evidence of other husband-and-wife teams who have embarked on joint commercial ventures speaks volumes.

THE thing is, you never really know someone until you work with them. If I may paraphrase Mrs Patrick Campbell: the deep, deep peace of the double bed is mill-pool calm compared to the hurly-burly of workplace one-upmanship. You may imagine that a joint commercial venture with your spouse should be no different from setting up home together - a series of small adjustments made in the spirit of benevolence, for a common good. But that is to ignore the pertinent fact that all of us are effectively several people, and we slip in and out of our roles as the situation demands.

I remember my mother telling me about her first and unexpected encounter with my father, the civil engineer (as opposed to my father, her new husband). She was sitting waiting for him in the car as he completed an inspection of a building site. As the time wore on, she got bored, left the car, and walked up the steps to the site hut. She was about to open the door when she heard a voice she recognised, cursing and swearing at alarming volume. She had never heard him so much as raise his voice before. She crept back to the car, and wondered if she had married Bluebeard. But (theirs being a very controlled generation) she never glimpsed the foul-mouthed engineer again. And she never told him what she'd heard.That was his bricks-and-mortar persona, which he evidently kept at work. They maintained their well-ironed, circumspect and courteous coupledom for another 40 years. But what would have happened if, say, my father had chosen to set up his own business and employ my mother in some capacity? There would be no chance of keeping his inner Rottweiler tethered indefinitely.

Would they have survived? Some do. Judy Finnegan and Richard Madelay fly the flag high for round-the-clock companionship. But apart from your own dear relatives and the local minister, how many other high-profile couples can you name who work together? They may start off convinced of the wisdom of the venture. Like Ike and Tina Turner or Sonny and Cher. More than 20 per cent of married couples meet in the workplace. But as soon as one partner begins to eclipse the other, loyalty starts to unravel.

If Dr Johnson was correct when he said that "you cannot put two Englishmen in a room together for ten minutes without one assuming superiority over the other", the same is true for working partnerships. And the fireworks can be most entertaining. Taylor and Burton, Fanny Craddock and the puppydog Major Johnny, Neil and Christine Hamilton ...

And just in case it looks as if it's the women who always win, there's always Claire Bloom and Philip Roth to consider. Of course, an actress and a novelist can't truly work together - Bloom had already tried that with her previous husbands, Rod Steiger and Hilly Elkins, and abandoned the task. But Roth's divorce petition claimed $150 an hour for 600 hours' work on scripts with Bloom. He labelled it "cruel and inhuman treatment".

Jordan is doubtless convinced that she and Andr will make sweet music together. And they may. But I'd suggest they both keep their headphones on, just in case.