London - Some of the brightest and most cunning human minds have been put to work for years to solve the great mysteries of our age. Yet there are some conundrums so fiendish, so mind-boggling, so baffling that they will probably never be solved.
Who was Jack the Ripper? Is the Loch Ness monster real? Are there really no calories in Diet Coke? And perhaps most unfathomable of all, what do women see in Russell Brand?
What is it? What kind of perplexing, dark urge makes otherwise sensible females stampede towards him in much the same way that turkeys hurtle unknowingly towards Christmas?
After all, he is a notorious womaniser with a poisonous record when it comes to love and marriage. He’s got all sorts of issues, from a nicely percolating persecution complex to assorted addiction problems.
As far as Hollywood goes, he has made a few not very good appearances in a few not very good films. His stand-up routines are for a strictly niche audience.
And perhaps most heinous of all is the fact that at the age of 38, Brand still affects to look like a seedy pirate on annual shore leave. One with layers of decomposing undergarments malodorously stewing away below his decks. One in need of a good, hot bath and a scrub down with carbolic soap, inside and outside his potty mouth.
Push him through the car wash. Unhook the power hose and blast his yoga pants. And stop him from talking in that whiny, baby voice, please. Yet none of this seems to matter to his legions of female fans. His hit rate is phenomenal.
Those who remain firmly undazzled by his charms cannot see quite why some women cannot resist him - the kind of women who like a bad boy and don’t care who knows it. These are the gals who can somehow stomach a bit of unshaven rough (ugh) and mock-intellectual banter (double ugh) over the vegan breakfast table every morning.
And what of Jemima Khan, who should know better and probably does, but has leapt into his tattooed yoga-toned arms anyway?
Forget the kids and the disapproving ex-husband on the other side of the world. Forget the billionaire family, the MP brother and the quiet, everyday responsibilities of a respectable mother-of-two about town. For Jemima, like so many before, has turned a blind eye to the fact that Brand has Totally Toxic stamped through him, like gothic letters inside a stick of rock. Yet they just go for it, even though it is bound to end in tears. With Russell Brand, it always does.
Why? Brand is clearly one of those men who overpowers women with the sheer force of his quirky personality. At first, it’s all fabulous. The sex is probably tremendous. After all, he’s had enough practice. Yet it seems clear there is a really mean streak lurking deep within him.
Never mind the chanting and the oh-so-peaceful transcendental meditation. A big pile of nasty grows like knotweed under the still pool of Brand’s supposed calm.
When it comes to the chicks, it’s no secret that Russell is in his element. In the past, he has confessed to commitment issues as being the very least of his relationship problems. He has managed to wean himself off heroin, but still seems to be addicted to sex - and there is no shortage of takers.
A ribbon of conquests flutters in his wake like a tattered flag of hollow victory. He is like a combine harvester in a ripe field of gorgeous girls, pedal to the metal, never stopping to think about the future or the past. He is one of those men who claims that he loves women, he adores them, he appreciates them, he loves everything about them. Then he treats them like dirt.
Consider his short marriage to the pop singer Katy Perry. A documentary Perry made during the time that she was still wed to Brand revealed that their relationship foundered over the issue of children. He wanted to be a father, he wanted children straight away. In the middle of a hugely successful pop career, the then 26-year-old Perry was not quite so keen. Not just yet, she appeared to be urging.
This was not good enough. Brand ended the marriage by text and they never spoke again.
He further upset her by claiming that making love to her was boring and that he fantasied about other women when they were in bed together. Even worse, he said all this in a stand-up routine, inviting his audience to snigger along with him.
Katy Perry once voiced fears that her comic husband would one day make fun of her and use her as the butt of his jokes. How right those fears turned out to be.
And now it is Jemima’s turn to step on the Brand wheel of fortune and take her chances with the tatty Casanova.
From Hugh Grant to Russell Brand - and let’s not forget his role in that grotesque call to Andrew Sachs crowing about having had sex with his granddaughter - via her vociferous support for that fraud Julian Assange, you’ve got to seriously wonder about her taste in men. Or lack of it.
Perhaps it doesn’t help that her beloved late father, Sir James Goldsmith, was a man who revelled in being unfaithful to the women in his life. Don’t forget, it was the famously libidinous Goldsmith who once said that when you marry your mistress, you create a vacancy.
So perhaps a romance between Brand and Khan was not surprising. In some respects, they have much in common.
Although from very different backgrounds, they are the kind of rich, hip ‘kidults’ who fondly imagine themselves to be subversive and anti-establishment bucaneers. Both also regard themselves as great intellectuals, please stop sniggering at the back.
That mutual bond will surely provide lots of interesting post-coital chats where they can agree with each other over cups of Fairtrade peppermint tea and cuddles.
After all, he’s just the boy next door - if you lived next door to a skip full of leftover costumes from We Will Rock You.
And as for Jemima? Why, she is just a normal, everyday heiress who wants to be left alone with her nice, new, sensible boyfriend without anyone interfering. Ahem, ahem.
How long will this one last? Until the scales fall from her eyes, until the bleeding obvious hits her, until she can see what everyone else sees.
Until then, watch out. - Daily Mail