Bare

Madness takes many forms and many are taken by madness in their dotage, throwing off their clothes and wandering naked in the street, much to the anguish of all those who care about them. Rending garments is an oft-invoked cypher for distress. Wandering unclothed in the rain is how many deranged movie victims have been portrayed; it is practically a meme for madness. Naturism is something a few oddballs indulge in away from the prying eyes of voyeurs. Stripping for money has become almost respectable these days, so ubiquitous is it, but de-robing for protest loses its potency after the first mild-shock encounter.

So what do we make of the Naked Britain woman? The daft doctor Victoria Bateman (and what a name for a rabid feminist) is bating men by getting her kit off and ... well, what? In her own mind she thinks she has a worthwhile message but she intones her script like a robot preaching at rather slow children. She has meaningless graffiti scrawled on her flesh ‘Brexit leaves Britain naked’ it says, but the only naked thing here is her and her obsession... and she is clearly stark-staring mad.

Bateman’s muff has trended on Twitter, her tits are all over TV and her snatch is on snapchat

People click the links, or go to see her on stage out of a sense of voyeuristic horror – she is a freak show, the kind of crazy lady they used to stone and drive out of the village. Quite what she hopes to achieve, apart from frightening the children, is unclear. Yes, she’s against Brexit but so what; the entire establishment is against Brexit and they have made their point more forcibly while fully clothed. In fact you might even conclude that Sticky Vicky’s baring all actually detracts from the message.

She is a Cambridge economics ‘fellow’, which nomenclature almost certainly leaves her hopping mad, but nobody is interested in her economics. She may be in favour of the laissez faire free market or planned, centralised control, but who knows and frankly who cares? She just wants to wave her angry vagina at everybody. She stripped off during her interview with Jon Humphrys a couple of days ago – a perfect example of radio’s real value – and she has challenged Jacob Rees Mogg to debate sans ensemble, to what purpose is unclear, as all of her interviews invariably go much like this:

·         Why are you naked?

·         MEN OPPRESS WOMEN

·         Yes, but did you need to take your...

·         BREXIT LEAVES BRITAIN NAKED

·         Surely, though, you can make the same point fully clothe...

·         MEN ALWAYS CONTROL WOMEN’S BODIES

·         Well, not yours, it seems because

·         DON’T OPPRESS ME

·         Why do you think people will listen if you appear naked?

·         BREXIT LEAVES BRITAIN NAKED

Her body... not that WE get much choice.

Well, she wanted the attention and she’s got it, but for all the wrong reasons. Nobody is listening to a word she says, but she’s lucky, really. Corporal Klinger in M*A*S*H couldn’t get posted home because his catch 22 was the real deal – to feign madness was clearly sane. Cambridge University has enough nutters that they won’t bat an eyelid at batty Bateman’s body, but for many an employer, to go about flaunting your flabbies in public would be bringing them into disrepute. And that is the bare truth of it all.