So you know how you thought last week's "Sienna Miller to play Margaret Thatcher in Oliver Stone's biopic of the Iron Lady" story would be hard to beat? More fool you, o faithless readers! Only Wednesday and I reckon it's safe to say we have our story of the week: "Guy Ritchie breaks his gamekeeper's arm and loses a member of staff." Servants, eh? Just can't find any decent ones these days, can you, Guy?
Apparently, gamekeeper Martin Taylor and his friends liked to "take the mickey" out of Guy (can't IMAGINE what they would find laughable about the director of Swept Away) and, in a responding "play fight", Guy broke the cheeky monkey's arm. There was some "simmering tension" after Guy failed to apologise and so Taylor threw in his cloth cap. Apparently, this was the final straw after Madonna insisted that the gamekeeper stop keeping his game because shooting birds violated her kabbala belief. But one sarky joke at a time, OK?
To be honest, LiS is surprised this hasn't happened sooner. Guy has always suffered a kind of schizophrenia when it comes to his self-image. On the one hand, there's his "Gor blimey, down the dog and duck I saw me ol' China from 'oxton and I gave 'im one for a couple of ponies" east end gangster mask. And on the other, there's his "Oi'm awff to shoot a brace of partridge for the missus' Sunday roast" British toff role. Now, these might be indistinguishable to (sniff) an American who seems to think talking like Mary Poppins before she's left Heathrow will make her as British as Nancy Mitford. To the rest of the human race, groping for two opposing sides of the British class system was always bound to end in tears or, even more aptly, belting your gamekeeper.
