Never wrestle a pig

There's that popular quote, isn't there: "I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it."

Nobody seems to know exactly where the quote comes from, but when con­sid­er­ing the invit­a­tion extended by Piers Morgan to Ariana Grande yesterday evening it totally hits the spot.

The back­ground here is that Piers has taken exception to the way Little Mix have been promoting their album, which must come as a blow to the band as of course they're totally aiming for Piers Morgan's demo­graphic with this release.  He didn't like the fact that they weren't all wearing hessian sacks, or something. Anyway Ariana Grande piped up in support of Little Mix, and now Piers has gra­ciously invited Ariana onto breakfast television.

Morgan's stance on Little Mix's promo seems confusing. In the past he's taken his own clothes off in exchange for cash, and a few years ago the former Sun employee defended Page 3, saying it was "a tragedy" the feature had to go. (Strange that he happily defends nudity intended to titillate men, but condemns nudity intended to empower women.) The models got paid well and "loved their jobs", he argued, adding: "Aren't we over being scan­dal­ised by that kind of thing?"

Piers evidently isn't over it, unless his current outrage is — surely not! — entirely performative.

And this is where the pig wrestling comes in. Because why would someone (let alone Ariana Grande, who it's fair to say has better things to be doing) go on TV to debate this topic 1 or any issue with a man whose opinions change direction depending on how much noise he can make, who's paying him, and how many people he can get watching his TV show?