JAN MOIR names her deliciously waspish heroes and villains of 2021

From 007 heaven to Hancock hell: She’s daft about Daniel and gaga for Gaga… but look out cheating ministers and Instagram chefs – JAN MOIR names her deliciously waspish heroes and villains of 2021

• We thought 2020 was bad enough, with the arrival of a deadly pandemic that forced us all into not one, but THREE lockdowns 
• Throughout it all, there were those who made us glad to be alive despite the pain and anguish
• Then there were those who annoyed each and every one of us (Yes, I’m talking to you Matt Hancock 
• JAN MOIR presents her list of the biggest heroes and worst villains of 2021 . . . 

Well, what a year it has been! We thought 2020 was bad enough, with the arrival of a deadly pandemic that forced us all into not one, but THREE lockdowns. 

But there was light at the end of the tunnel: the game-changing, miraculous vaccines, which ensured a way out of the darkness we have endured for almost two years. And this time we even managed to save Christmas — hurrah! 

Throughout it all, there were those who made us glad to be alive despite the pain and anguish. Then there were those who annoyed each and every one of us (Yes, I’m talking to you Matt Hancock). So here is my list of heroes and villains of 2021 . . .

Daily Mail columnist Jan Moir:  ‘Well, what a year it has been! Here is my list of heroes and villains of 2021 . . .’

HEROES

DANIEL CRAIG

We have been expecting you, Miss Moir . . . Readers, if you think I am going to bow out of 2021 without paying homage to the greatest Bond who ever lived, then you are very much mistaken.

After 15 years and five films, Daniel Craig left the James Bond franchise with a swansong performance in No Time To Die. Some critics complained that, at 163 minutes, the film was far too long. But many of us could have happily watched another hour or two, especially if it involved Daniel crashing around in his tighty whitey grandad vest looking tough but tender, as he peppers bad guys with bullets while tucking Mathilde’s crochet bunny Dou Dou into his braces for safekeeping. In the bumper Bond box of chocolates, our guy was still a hard nut, but one with an increasingly liquefied centre.

I would like to thank Daniel Craig for his 007 service personally, but the restraining order is still in place, so I will have to do it here, instead

I would like to thank Daniel for his 007 service personally, but the restraining order is still in place, so I will have to do it here, instead.

From the opening scene of Casino Royale to the approaching missiles in the final scenes of No Time To Die, it’s been a blast. Craig remains the only Bond to be a halfway credible cold-blooded killer and lady-killer. Extra hero points for the pink velvet Anderson & Sheppard jacket he wore to the London film premiere, something only a real man could wear. Perhaps it is no time to cry at his demise, but that is not going to stop me.

EMMA RADUCANU

Don’t you just love her? Not just for winning the U.S. Open in September, but doing so with such grace and good cheer. Despite only finishing her A-levels this summer, 19-year-old Emma has the maturity and cool poise of a champion. She is physically graceful and completely inspiring.

Even more remarkably — unlike the many taciturn, introverted top seeded players we know all too well — she seems to be full of joy about tennis and her role in the sport. ‘I didn’t know I had some of those shots in me,’ she exclaimed, after one win.

Lady Gaga was the least experienced amongst the all-star cast of hit film House Of Gucci, but she somehow managed to keep her head when all around her lost theirs

LADY GAGA

She was the least experienced amongst the all-star cast of hit film House Of Gucci, but she somehow managed to keep her head when all around her lost theirs. Al Pacino and Jared Leto played their characters as if they were criminally insane instead of mildly eccentric while Adam Driver as the doomed Maurizio just bumbled around in a polo neck.

As the murderous Patrizia Reggiani, Gaga may on occasion have sounded more Russian than Italian, but her performance was terrific.

MICK JAGGER

This year, we spoke about Mick in the same way we once spoke about our grandpas. Look at him! Doing so well for his age! Still as giddy as a spring goat!

But 78-year-old Mick is not over and out yet. During the Rolling Stones tour this year he became an unlikely Instagram hero, posting photographs of his adventures between shows.

He visited tourist spots in St Louis, sat on the beach in Miami, walked the Strip in Las Vegas and sipped a beer in a Charlotte dive bar called the Thirsty Beaver. Remarkably, no one noticed it was him. Why does he do it? ‘I don’t want to be stuck in a hotel room watching TV,’ he said. After six decades on the road, that is heroic, in its way.

Rod Stewart’s wife Penny (pictured) could just sit at home and marinate in all the luxury that being married to a multimillionaire rock star entails. Instead, she has trained as a Special Constable and is now on the beat in London, dealing with the unsociable crimes and misdemeanours that can make our cities so unpleasant

PENNY STEWART

Rod Stewart’s wife could just sit at home and marinate in all the luxury that being married to a multimillionaire rock star entails. Instead, she has trained as a Special Constable and is now on the beat in London, dealing with the unsociable crimes and misdemeanours that can make our cities so unpleasant

Example? She collared a man who urinated in public, making him buy a bottle of water to clean up his shame. Bless you, Penny — and everyone else who puts on a uniform and deals with the daily grot on our behalf.

CANDACE BUSHNELL

I really can’t be bothered with Sarah Jessica Parker and all the Sex And The City actresses. But I do love Candace, the journalist and writer whose original newspaper columns inspired the hit television series.

This year, the 63-year-old took to the stage in her one woman-show, in which she praises the ‘bonus years’ of late-life singledom and throws hair scrunchies into the audience during the encore. And just like that, she’s the real heroine of the whole thing.

KATARINA JOHNSON-THOMPSON

The UK’s world champion heptathlete had to bow out of the Olympics when a calf injury scuppered her chances during the 200 metres. Although she was disappointed, she refused the wheelchair brought on by officials and limped across the finishing line under her own steam. She said: ‘I started the year in a wheelchair and I was not willing to end my Olympic campaign the same way.’ Heroine.

CAMERON OF LOCHIEL

Who he? Only the poor highland laird who had the misfortune to appear as a character in a torrid new historical romance by the Duchess of York. Fergie’s 187th book features Lochiel, a ‘rugged’ Scotsman with a ‘cultured Highland lilt’ who is called upon to have a romantic clinch with the headstrong, red-headed heroine Lady Margaret, a character whom Ferg has affectionately based on her good self. Margaret is so comely and her embrace so warm that Lochiel has to ‘rearrange his kilt’ afterwards.

Truly, the man with the lilt has a tilt in his kilt that will not wilt. I’m not saying it’s a stilt. It’s just the way he is built. But, please, no more sex scenes from Fergie in 2022. That is all I ask for.

VILLAINS

MATT HANCOCK

Matt Hancock was Health Secretary when his affair with aide Gina Coladangelo was exposed. He lost his job, left his wife and three children, and tried to pretend that somehow, none of it was his fault. ‘I had blown up every part of my life and I concentrated on my personal life first,’ he said. ‘It was the right thing to do.’ No. The right thing to do would have been not to have done it in the first place.

Matt Hancock was Health Secretary when his affair with aide Gina Coladangelo was exposed. He lost his job, left his wife and three children, and tried to pretend that somehow, none of it was his fault

SALT BAE

He charges £630 for gold leaf wrapped tomahawk steaks and £100 for a golden hamburger at his London restaurant. But Salt Bae — aka Nusret Gokce — is not the real villain here. It is the fools who go and pay those prices.

CHEESE AND WINE

Cheese and wine should get over themselves and stop turning up uninvited at important Government meetings.

JONATHAN CHEW

The trial of one of the idiots accused of assaulting Chris Whitty in a London park in June recently came to court — and dissolved into farce. Jonathan Chew claimed to have coronavirus and appeared in front of Judge Goldspring via a video link, lying on his bed in a dressing gown. The brief transcript of the trial says everything you need to know about the victim culture of today’s youth.

‘I feel like I’m innocent,’ said Chew.

‘A remarkable recovery, I might say, from where you were two minutes ago,’ said Judge Goldspring.

‘I’ve got diagnosed coronavirus,’ cried Chew. ‘Are you saying corona is not real now? I feel like what you’re doing now is victimising me. You’re calling me a liar.’

Judge Goldspring said calmly: ‘Your cavalier approach to the severity of these proceedings is breathtaking.’

‘What does cavalier mean?’ said Chew. Little wonder that his own lawyer withdrew from the case because he was ‘professionally embarrassed.’

And now the trial has been rescheduled. He should be banged up for stupidity and wasting everyone’s time.

Salt Bae — aka Nusret Gokce — is not the real villain here. It is the fools who go and pay his prices

H

After nine years, H the villain was finally unmasked in series six of Line Of Duty. But viewers were far from impressed to discover it was dim bulb Ian Buckells, the Brummie stooge who was the supposed mastermind. It was like discovering Jasper Carrot was Batman. It was the letdown of the year.

JAKE GYLLENHAAL

Jake was outed as the rotter who broke Taylor Swift’s heart. In an admirable act of revenge, she chronicled his romantic shortcomings in her ten minute — ten minutes! — hit song, All Too Well.

Crimes Jake is guilty of?

These include not turning up to her 21st birthday party, ignoring her when his chums were around, being charming to her dad, holding his coffee cup the wrong way, not returning her scarf, not telling her that he loved her and wearing a plaid shirt.

‘You call me up again just to break me like a promise,’ she sings, rather brilliantly. ‘So casually cruel in the name of being honest.’

He only went out with her for three months! But Taylor is making sure that he never forgets.

78-year-old Mick is not over and out yet. During the Rolling Stones tour this year he became an unlikely Instagram hero, posting photographs of his adventures between shows

THE SCOTTISH POSTMAN WHO DIDN’T DELIVER

In February, Scottish postman Thomas McCafferty walked away and left an injured OAP lying in the snow outside her Falkirk home — because he was too tired to assist.

‘I can’t help. I’m knackered. Absolutely knackered,’ he told 72-year-old Patricia Stewart, who was crying in pain with ‘a lump as big as an egg’ on her head.

What on earth has happened to humanity? At least the Post Office sacked McCafferty, which gives me a glimmer of hope for the future.

ANTI-VAXXERS

Oh, so very tired of them and their pygmy beliefs; their misplaced certainty that all the health experts in the world are wrong, while they are right. They think Covid is ‘just the flu’. That governments are scaremongering. That the whole thing is a Spectre-ish conspiracy, designed to control and kill all of humanity — except them and their bobble hats. It’s like trying to reason with an earthworm from Flat Earth.

Cheese and wine should get over themselves and stop turning up uninvited at important Government meetings

SILVER MEDALLISTS

At this year’s Olympics, British sporting stars started viewing their silver medals as shameful. Instead of being gracious in defeat and accepting their silver or bronze awards with dignity, they acted like sulky children who had been handed a booby prize.

Boxer Ben Whittaker was one of the worst culprits. The 24-year-old light heavyweight from West Bromwich sulked and did not congratulate his winning rival, Cuban Arlen Lopez. He later apologised, saying he was just ‘disappointed’. The England football team acted in a similar fashion when they lost the Euros final to Italy in July.

So unBritish! The important thing in life is not always to have won, but to have fought well.

GILLIAN ANDERSON

For her ridiculous depiction of Margaret Thatcher in The Crown. Yes, the wig was great and the costumes impeccable, the handbag the correct model — but as Mrs T, Gillian shuffled around like a post-stroke, half-shut knife.

In some scenes, she appeared to be hunchbacked; a female Richard III walking the corridors of power, with a stoop so profound it suggested Maggie had developed a keen interest in her own kneecaps. The lady is not for gurning, as Mrs T almost once said, but that was what it looked like onscreen.

Despite this, Gillian bizarrely won an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama in this role.

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