Tales of the City: introducing la shagmonster Française

You may have heard of Catherine Millet, the lady who is scandalising all of France with her super-explicit memoir, The Sexual Life of Catherine M. (published in June by Serpent's Tail). In its 186 pages, she chronicles, with admirable matter-of-factness, her thousands of sexual encounters in beds, trucks, washrooms, the Bois de Boulogne, the Chez Aimé swingers' club, where she enjoyed 20 partners in an evening, a car bonnet somewhere up the Avenue Foch (30 lovers), the terrace of a sports stadium at Vélizy, a workman's shed on a building site (100 labourers, paying five francs each – oh no, sorry, that was just a fantasy).

Due to the positions she likes to adopt, Ms Millet can only identify 49 of her past lovers with any confidence (the ones whose faces she could see); the rest pass her by in a blur of suction and frottage and clasping and invasion and sundering. Remarkably, she says she has rarely indulged in any seductive behaviour, never gone out on the pull, and only once tried prostitution (but she couldn't cope with the conversational side of it).

It's a remarkably passive book to come from such a shagmonster as Ms Millet, a little unsmiling and relentless about the multiple encounters she describes, as if her enjoyment of being pleasured by every itinerant male in France was something she barely noted, a detail among other details. But you look at the pictures of Ms Millet, jeune and slightly more vieille (she's 54 this year), and wonder: how did she get like this, where she cannot pop out to the local supermarché for some milk and bananas without ending up, replete, collapsed behind a skip, with gallons of sperm in her hair? The answer comes at the start of the book: as a child she would wonder about the multiple identities of God and his son – the Christmas baby, the dead victim on the Cross, the thundering voice that makes men obey – and she wanted, so to speak, all of them.

So French. Ms Millet will be in London in June. I'd like to meet her, but how odd it would be to meet someone whose perineum you know more about than the back of your hand.

Tory or not Tory, that is the question

It's frankly a relief to hear that the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art has been giving government ministers lessons in theatrical skill. I was in the Press Gallery of the House of Commons last week, watching the Hon Members going through their oratorical paces, and thought at the time, how inept they were at acting being politicians. They were a disappointment in the flesh, because they lacked even a basic understanding of drama. They're hopeless at acting. When it comes to radiating gravitas or consequence, or even a Shakespearian fatal flaw, they're non-starters. At the dispatch box, the Prime Minister always speaks too fast, with a busy, Can-we-please-get-on-with-it urgency that suggests a man anxious to be elsewhere (Washington?). Charles Kennedy does a convincing juvenile-lead smirk, but he doesn't know how to stand – when he moves, his whole body moves round with him, like a Thunderbirds puppet. Even that master of hellfire preaching, Dr Ian Paisley, seems mysteriously reduced when standing up in the Commons – his head bowed, his speech muffled, his desire to rip out the throat of anybody who disagrees with him apparently on hold. Michael Howard has the plummy, super-precise delivery of a light comedian, but comes across as too ingratiating, too pleased with himself – too (frankly) Richard Briers – to be any good.

Will Rada make a difference? Ministers have been taught how to get "maximum interest value" from what they say, and how to apply "principles developed from the classical art of rhetoric". I'm not sure any training could transform, say, Stephen Byers from a tight-lipped, irritable, self-righteous gauleiter into an amiable, tankard-toting Falstaff just by applying some classic principles, not change the vocally robotic Chancellor into a romantic swashbuckler along the lines of Rostand's Cyrano, but any transformation would be welcome.

What's alarming is the news that, "Clever use of breathing patterns is learnt [by MPs] so as to give time to think of a reply after being questioned". What kind of breathing patterns are "clever"? One pictures John Prescott confronted by a killer enquiry about, say, taxation, and employing these very patterns, his nostrils dilating, his face a sneering rictus as he silently breathes in and out, in a cleverly reply-deferring way. The danger is that, if given a really difficult question, he might stop breathing completely and turn blue in the face, eyes bulging and cheeks puffing out like a hyperventilating bullfrog's, as he deploys his clever respiratory technique...

Hurley learning

"Today, the most exciting, exhausting, emotional and controversial nine months of Liz Hurley's life to date has reached its climax", reads a communication sent to me by Mothercare. "The physical and emotional burden of giving birth is an experience that no woman forgets, whoever she is..." Absolutely. And in their helpful, Mrs Doubtfire-ish way, the baby-products chain-store is proffering some "sound, non-judgemental advice". They recommend that Ms Hurley keep a checklist of Things to Do, products to buy, cures for new-mum ailments, and all those baby-management details that can slip your mind. They don't spell out exactly how Liz should spend her time after the first six days of motherhood, but I expect we can do that for her:

Day 7 Stay in £1,000-a-night Portland Hospital as long as possible, building up colossal shrine of flowers, telegrams, etc, in manner of wildly successful actress being feted for opening of triumphant new hit play. Who needs the real thing, eh? Also, is perfect backdrop for interviews with national press, Vanity Fair, People, Heat, Resting Actress, Pregnant Celebrity Weekly...

You'll probably be very tired still, so keep visitors to a minimum, eg, Mum, perhaps one very close friend, agent, bank manager, Richard Desmond.

Remember, breastfeeding is best possible nutrition for baby. Also allows reporter from Daily Sport to run headline: "The Luckiest Sucker in the World is Baby Damian".

Day 8 Leave hospital for fashionable Kensington home. Phone to check builders have finished nursery extension, and installed electronic wall with screen for 24-hour Infant Stimulation Audiovisual Module.

Don't do anything too strenuous. In between morning feeds, take calls from OK! magazine about baby wardrobe. Should your infant be photographed in broderie anglaise, slubbed silk or plain old cashmere blankets? Don't forget extension lead for the overhead arc lights, and three-plug adaptor for camera-crew equipment. Also, sandwiches, beer, ashtrays, etc, for riggers and cameramen, plus hi-fi playing tasteful classical stuff in background of Channel 4 documentary.

Day 9 You may experience first stage of postnatal depression, so combat it with Prozac tabs and by opening large cheque from Famous Baby magazine (Milwaukee). When feeling better, feed kid and prepare lunch for self (cherry tomato, bay leaf, black grape, 3 Marlboro Lights, 3 glasses Piper Heidsieck).

In afternoon, see DNA people to sort out parenthood issue. Such a bore, having baby prodded with needles, but $400m fortune at stake here.

Day 10 You may feel wearied by the pathetic screaming and clamouring for attention, morning, noon and night. This is normal with people from The Mirror. You must just get used to it.

Results in. Hurrah! Sell DNA story to Daily Express, International Herald Tribune, Le Figaro, El Pais, LA Times, New York Times, Rich Bastard Monthly and Paternity Suit Weekly... Ring NafNaf, Oilily, Joanna's Tent – and have them send best clothes round for celebratory fashion shoot. Lunch with Hugh somewhere discreet where no-one can see you. Maybe Kensington Place...