To be fair, very little will achieve the miracle of marital reunification once you've set your groinal compass to south and hitched a disappointingly predictable ride to Cheatsville. '"Hot tub-worthy", early-twenties blonde, with a fondness for threesomes and bikini tops required to help celebrate sixth wedding anniversary!' Even a Premiership footballer would respond, "Oh come ON Ashton. Really? MUST try harder.' It's the sort of scenario which would rank many, many rungs under Louis Walsh's weekly X Factor feedback on the International Not-Really-Very-Ground Breakingly Original Ladder*.
As we all know - except deaf and blind people holidaying in Narnia - in a set-up seedier than a box of figs (and possibly as clumsy as that analogy) Two-And-A-Half Men star Ashton Kutcher (33) allegedly decided to marinade himself in vodka and nakedly investigate kiss-and-tell-merchant-in-waiting Sara Leal (23). This, whilst superstar, actress, wife and Rosette-winning hot mom, Demi Moore (48) was busy not being there, not partying in a bikini top and definitely not having her photograph taken with her face attached to a bong.
Despite all of the tutting and head-shaking surrounding this torrid scandal, a few guiding principles emerged, of use to us all if we care to consider them over tea and biscuits. Or vodka. Or a bong.
Whatever.
(1) Nothing good can ever come of a hot tub scenario
The universal symbol of the playboy/girl, tacky indulgence and overblown swagger, nothing that started in a hot tub ever came to any good. The only things that thrive in them are infidelities. And verrucas.
(2) Nobody likes an age-disparity partnership
As Caitlin Moran wryly pointed out in her The TimesCelebrity Watch column last week, it is an unspoken belief held by the public at large that 'a 48-year-old woman going out with a 33-year-old man is against all of nature, reason and showbusiness...[covered by the press] in the same manner one would cover the high-profile marriage of ...a moose and a wardrobe.'
ERGO: Collective world consciousness is working against you. It is unconsciously willing love's Quantum particles to disperse and reform elsewhere in a right and holy way, thus curtailing any age-based love atrocity as inherently wrong as a fish milkshake. It will never work. Humankind says 'no!'
(3) Romance tragedy means speedy weight loss
Dukan be damned, it's heartbreak not protein that's THE way to drop pounds. That we are secretly experiencing the emotion that dare not speak its name (i.e. envy at a troubled female's shrinking arse-size) is knowingly exploited by the media who will print shots of a dwindling celeb to appease our guilty but fascinated eyes. And if they can't, they will find an angle come what may.
The Daily Mail, denied a shot of Demi's face as she made a sharp exit from her Kabbalah infidelity counselling session (tm) managed a fleeting snap of her legs. Which they described in the absence of her coupon, as 'pale and gaunt.' Leading theweemo to ask: how feeble can a suggestion that a celebrity's health is suffering become, before it's too feeble? "A statement issued from Demi today was typed on painfully thin paper." "Demi stepped out today carrying a starved-looking handbag with jutting handles."
(4) Camping WILL NOT save your marriage
Camping is like being at war at the best of times. It always rains, there will be creepy-crawlies in your sleeping bag and you'll run of bog roll and have to resort to using the pages of your Torah. These are NOT conditions conducive to conflict resolution. Arguably it might just be a Demi thing: she has a daughter called Scout. Her ex-husband was in a film called The Last Boy Scout. She has been in talks about releasing a fragrance called 'Damp Tarpaulin' by Demi Moore. Her middle name is Baden-Powell. I think, readers, that theweemo has made her point and best stop before things get any more tenuous (or even more completely and utterly fabricated).
*Not available at B&Q