Harris’s memoir will be a rude awakening for Sleepy Joe

According to Harris, Biden wasn’t suffering from incapacity. “But at 81, Joe got tired.” The White House letting the Bidens decide was “recklessness”. An intervention on her part would have been perceived as “poisonous disloyalty”. Harris also accuses the White House of undermining and sabotaging her, which anonymous sources strongly contest. Is there gracelessness here?

Evidently, Harris doesn’t subscribe to Michelle Obama’s fabled formula for political honour: “When they go low, we go high.” Here is Veep – Armando Iannucci’s acerbic White House comedy – reshot as a vérité documentary. It exposes the fault lines of the VP gig: supposedly a feelgood politico buddy movie, but sometimes those fellow Type As just want your job.

The same applies to the deputy leader position in the UK, now up for grabs: stamp duty issues aside, Angela Rayner’s “loyalty” to Keir Starmer always seemed like a cobweb to chop through whenever she chose. But it’s allowed, isn’t it? Ambition? Harris was the first female, the first African-American and the first Asian-American vice-president. She’s entitled to speculate if a late-starting campaign cost her becoming Potus. Still, et tu, Kamala… if Biden was “tired” at 81, how might it feel reading your memoir at 82?

At the Toronto film festival, Sydney Sweeney spoke about putting on two stone of weight training for Christy, the imminent biopic of super-welterweight Christy Martin. Evidently, Sweeney was committed, but, in less enlightened times, this was known as “ugly-ing” up for a role to attract awards.

Charlize Theron deserved her Oscar for playing Aileen Wuornos in 2003’s Monster, but all the talk was of how she looked a fright. As if Theron’s real achievement lay in sacrificing her beauty. Now there’s an acceptance speech: “I looked like crap for 109 minutes – hand over the gong.” Similarly, Renée Zellweger’s weight gain for the first Bridget Jones film was gasped over as if a softer waistline was the ultimate expression of cinematic female martyrdom.

For men, the supreme example is Robert De Niro in the boxing epic Raging Bull. Generally, when men do it, it’s ascribed to the method school of acting. With women, there’s more a sense of them feeling they need to Hide The Pretty just to be taken seriously. A trusty barometer of how sexism in Hollywood is still going strong.

Talking of which, is that chauvinism sizzling in the saute pans? MasterChef is to have two female hosts, following the departure of Gregg Wallace (accused of misconduct, including sexually inappropriate comments) and John Torode (alleged racist language, though he says he has no memory of it).

The new hosts are Grace Dent – food writer/longtime MasterChef guest judge – and Anna Haugh – chef/previous judge of MasterChef: The Professionals. A clear anti-Gregg/Wallace power play by the BBC, but it’s still an eyeroll how this – a female presenting duo with MasterChef credentials – is framed as a dangerous radical move.

There’s a helpful precedent. Recall if you will when host Bruce Forsyth left Strictly Come Dancing and Claudia Winkleman joined Tess Daly. Considering the fuss, you’d have thought the ravens had left the light entertainment tower. Two mere women presenting, without a man – an abomination! – be this witchcraft? Of course it worked out absolutely fine. As undoubtedly it will for MasterChef, and would for any TV show at all. A chef’s kiss to female presenting duos everywhere.

Photograph by Anna Moneymaker/Getty