| I'm forever indebted to my lovely wife Rosie Millard |
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BBC producer Phillip Clothier reflects on media treatment of his wife's revelation on their debts Sunday: My wife Rosie Millard comes upstairs brandishing The Sunday Times. Her article about middle-class debt has been given almost as good a showing as coverage of the Pope's demise. It's not as if the story of our financial descent is designed to cheer up the readers. Her article says we have overspent on nearly everything and that now forms a new sub-section of the middle class: the impoverished professionals. She says we have four credit cards each with a limit of pounds 10,000. The headline concludes we owe pounds 40,000. The Daily Mail rings to ask for a follow-up with further photos. Can it capture our four sprogs and us on a lunchtime stroll on Hampstead Heath? We ask politely if we can duck out. We go for a walk on Hampstead Heath, mildly speculating that the Daily Mail photographer might be sent along anyway. Monday: Today we are 'flat broke': despite our protestations the Mail has persisted with, repeating the best quotes from The Sunday Times but jumbling up the order of our lives so that we now seem like financial ingenues. They've also dredged up an old photo of Rosie spilling out of a dress. My former boss from World In Action texts me to say he is having a whip-round and offers me his spare room. Sadly, he lives in Manchester and I live in London. Rosie rings to say the Mail has been in touch again. Now it is offering hard cash for an exclusive insight into our bank statements. Rosie says she might chat about our apparent financial demise in an Islington restaurant, although the paper can't come to the house. Tuesday: Rosie stands down the Mail (as well as the rather large cheque). Never mind, The Guardian is merrily running its version. How can this be news I wonder. I suppose the readers might be titillated by stories of our 'agreeable' lifestyle laced with designer suits, expensive haircut habits and a mass of debt. I like this article more because The Guardian reckons our credit card debt is now only pounds 20,000. My former colleague the reporter Donal MacIntyre offers me a free dinner. The bank manager's assistant rings to remind me that I am over my limit " again. In a moment of unusual efficiency I chase the electricity bill company as it hasn't billed us since we moved into our new house in November. It says the electricity bill this quarter will be pounds 900! I start turning off lights. I also discover that the builders who performed miracles in rehabilitating this one-time squat sadly left the immersion heater switch on when they left in November. Wednesday: The tone is turning nastier. The Times has devoted the front cover of its second section to middle-class debt with waggish illusions to somebody called Anna Normous-Dett and The Bank of Envy. The writer reckons that Rosie's article patronises other, less self- indulgent families. He concludes that we are the envious ones, propelled into debt by our wish to keep up with our (more successful) peers. The article is a litany of insults dressed up as cod psychology. Two weeks ago I was discussing a piece about debt with the same newspaper: the result of a year-long investigation into a pounds 1bn company that charges poor people up to 500 per cent for loans. The piece was written but never run. I'm left to wonder why a piece of frippery about Rosie's credit cards can instead inspire such a lengthy piece. Donal MacIntyre comes round brandishing his credit card but we decide that it will be cheaper to eat in and save on baby-sitting costs. After the third bottle of red, we conclude that the media frenzy is down to broadsheet newspaper editors having a very specific middle-class view of their readership. We mutter darkly about the newspapers' obsession with even neo-celebrities. Thursday: It's beginning to dawn on me that we've been had. My phone is full of texts from concerned relatives and old friends. The talk in the BBC canteen is of how we are being got at. I point out that we are architects of our own downfall " I say 'our' because it was my idea to write the article. My hero status inspired by this brilliant idea is slipping away. I'm starting to get slightly irksome looks from my partner: even more so once The Daily Mail appears. Today we have been transformed from financial goons into property millionaires. The paper wants its readers to know that we own five properties, including a small flat in Paris. The photographers at the Mail have been hard at work. Its request for an interview spurned, the paper has now snapped the exteriors of our four London properties. A taxi driver friend who's been chortling all week brings out a wad of cash before remembering he needs it for betting at Aintree. We've been offered a ticket and lunch at the Grand National but in our new faux economy drive have decided to watch it from home with the kids. Friday: A bunch of flowers arrives from a big film company that knows Rosie. The accompanying note says: 'Here's to a decent haircut and some designer clothes'. Rosie's mother calls to say that a Daily Mail reporter has just knocked on her door to ask if her daughter 'has been in debt since she was a child'. The reporter was invited to mind her own business. There's a threatening letter from our French bank. There are insufficient funds in Rosie's bank to pay the mortgage on the French flat: the letter says Rosie may be banned from using her cheque book for five years if she doesn't immediately send funds. Thank God we don't live in France.
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