Column

Just when you thought “monkey” was the worst insult you could hurl at somebody, our great-great-great grandparents have been displaced by an obnoxious “weed”!

I’m sure even the weed is surprised with the importance bestowed upon it ever since Matthew Hayden dipped into biology instead of zoology to find an appropriate description for Harbhajan Singh.

Poor Bhajji spent the day asking his teammates the meaning of weed before realising he’s been equated to a nuisance plant in lawns and gardens! Now the whole country wants to run a lawnmower over Hayden!

It’s probably a reflection of our times that Symonds is offended being referred to as a representative of our forefathers and an entire state is upset about a certain Mrs Jodhaa Akbar though nobody is quite sure that she actually existed!

While Dhoni has proclaimed sledging as an art that needs to be mastered by the next generation of cricketers, for their benefit I dedicate this column to some classic examples of insults traded in showbiz that should be their benchmark!

For starters, funnyman Walter Matthau didn’t mince words when he told Barbara Streisand, “I have more talent in my smallest fart than you have in your entire body!” Similarly, Bette Davis had this to say about Joan Crawford: “Joan cries a lot. Her tear ducts must be close to her bladder.”

For those of us left breathless by Sharon Stone’s incredible performance in Basic Instinct where she expressed so much with so little by crossing her legs during an interrogation scene, Katherine Hepburn conveyed her disapproval by saying, “It’s a new low for actresses when you have to wonder what’s between her ears instead of her legs.”

Dame Margaret Kendall made a similar observation about actress Sarah Bernhardt, “A great actress, from waist down!” But nothing to beat producer Michael Todd’s opinion of Elizabeth Taylor, “Every minute this broad spends outside of bed is a waste of time.”

But the really nasty one was reserved for Madonna. “She is so hairy,” said TV presenter Joan Rivers, “when she lifted up her arm, I thought it was Tina Turner in her armpit!”

As for Tina Turner, she was referred to as “all legs and hair with a mouth that could swallow the whole stadium and the hot-dog stand” by journalist Laura Lee Davies. And someone once called Margaret Thatcher “Attila the Hen”…

Hopefully, the future of sledging is classier than monkey and weed!