THE BECKHAMS are preparing for a court case which they hope will disprove the claim from some quarters that their marriage is less a marriage than a merger. That is, a cynical, hypocritical sham designed to reap the maximum financial rewards from a public dazed by their apparently perfect union and desirous that a little of the fairy dust might rub off on them if they put their hands deep enough into their pockets.

I don’t know if the Beckham’s marriage is a hollow scam — but I know for a fact that it has certainly made me more cynical (yes, it was possible) than I used to be. It has made me cynical to the extent that when I heard about their son’s illness, my first thought was “Oh, that’s convenient!”

Of course, I know now that their son is genuinely sick, but I resent the fact that I didn’t believe he was, so weary are we of the relentless attack of the Beckham publicity machine. I am not by nature a cruel or heartless person, but I do believe that I have been made to feel this way by the way everything about this marriage, from their wedding photos to their pet names, has been sold for public consumption. But I’ve had the last laugh — hollow though it is — as the very beast they sought to tame and ride appears to have turned on them, stripping them of every bit of dazzle and appeal they possessed.

From the word go, the Beckhams sought an audience for everything they did together. The way they tempted fate now makes them seem like Siegfried and Roy toying with a particularly dangerous white tiger — and we know what eventually happened there. “I see us as the perfect couple,” Mr Beckham was unwise enough to muse in his autobiography — you might as well send an invitation to Herr Hubris himself, saying: “The Beckhams, At Home, If You Fancy Coming Round And Giving Us A Good Kicking.” “I have a camera up my backside almost 24 hours a day,” he went on, and Terry Eagleton noted that it was hard to tell whether this was a boast or a whine. My bet would be that it was once the first but is now the second, as what the camera captures has become increasingly bleak.

It’s hard to feel sorry for a show-off, though, and I say this as a hardened boaster myself. The difference is that I have never expected sympathy when various things have gone tits-up for me, whereas the Beckhams really seem to. But who can feel sorry for the self-anointed Perfect Couple, when there are so many other ways to describe a satisfying union without sounding a complete and utter tosser? “An odd shoe fits an odd foot,” say the Italians wisely.

I don’t agree with the uptight, curtain-twitching theory that marriage is a sacred chalice and a public concern, and I say that as a Christian and a socialist. In my view, it’s about: (a) finding someone you don’t feel completely cross with at the prospect of having to turn down sex with other people for; and (b) finding a refuge from the demands of public life — that’s why it’s called a private life. When that marriage becomes about a brand, becomes public, becomes about the marketplace, it is surely doomed, no matter what the short-term rewards.

A good marriage, among other things, makes us all that much tougher when faced with the prospect of going out into the big bad world every day. It renders us far less vulnerable to outside aggravation than would otherwise be the case. It halves problems and doubles fun. But once daylight — or worse, flashbulbs — is let in upon this magic, I can’t help feeling that, bit by bit, it disappears; there is nowhere to hide.

Other cultures can’t help it? Don’t give me that rubbish

SO, THE French really don’t wash! We’ve known for ages now that they went in for cowardice, collaboration and cruelty to animals, but still we cherished the belief that the nasty things our parents told us about their personal hygiene wasn’t true. And now it’s official; only one French person in 10 regularly uses soap, one in 25 doesn’t bathe or shower and one in 33 doesn’t clean their teeth, statistics that come not from a xenophobic red-top but from Le Point magazine.

There is a smug, superior sense among wet liberals that the only reason people do not care for certain cultural groups is because of ignorance — and that if we learnt about all cultures, we would respect them all. Thus in my part of the world, Sussex, we are forever being treated to exhibitions “aimed at fostering greater understanding” of the “history and culture of Gypsies and other traveller groups”, to quote one recent example. But in my experience the opposite is true. It is easy to like, say, Gypsies when walking around an exhibition of their attractive handicrafts; not so easy when you learn the truth about their reactionary attitude towards women and homosexuals, let alone the risibly Hyacinth Bucketish snootiness of the “Romany” Gypsies towards the rather less picturesque “travellers”.

The same with Islam. When you’re a kiddy it all seems part of the colourful tapestry of exotic Otherness come to cheer up boring old Britain — Diwali, Eid and all that. Strange clothes and henna tattoos and spicy food — what could possibly be wrong with that? Then when you learn more about the individual faiths rather than seeing them as a big exciting alien blur, you realise that while Sikhism and Hinduism have their faults like other religions, they also have a great sense of fun and beauty. While the Islamic attitude to women, homosexuals, atheists, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, drinking, dancing, chess, kites — in fact, any manifestation whatsoever of fun and freedom — makes the Puritans look like regular party animals.

Repulsion at certain cultures arises not from reactionary ignorance of them but rather from knowledge of how reactionary they themselves are. Put simply, why should we tolerate reactionary attitudes from people of other cultures which we would not tolerate from our own? Surely this is a kind of racism — “Oh, they can’t help it!”

Until guilt-ridden liberals get their heads around this simple fact, it will be well nigh impossible to move forward on tolerance and human rights. In the enlightened Netherlands, they have reached this state of grace, which is why they are so enviably upfront about banning the burka. But in damp old Blighty, liberal ignorance is still bliss.