Youp van ‘t Hek discusses the heady mix of showbiz and lawyers.

As I was peeing in the shower doing my bit for the environment, my thoughts drifted to the mad cleric who wants to plaster the walls of his church with pictures of deserters of the faith while asking the remaining three believers to pray for them. If Bram Moszkowicz were to do the same thing in the hallway of his Amsterdam office, would he put up a very big picture of Estelle or just a blurry passport photo?

Estelle has left Bram. She has found another. A certain Nico. Nico immediately started laying into Bram, as you do. Nico accused Bram of incontinence. He allegedly leaked information to the Telegraaf and Boulevard. Every time Nico and Estelle met in a certain Amsterdam hotel camera people working for these two quality media were lying in wait. And Bram put them up to it.

Gossip magazine

Boulevard boss and great Moszkowicz friend Albert was furious. How dare people think this of him and Bram? For shame! When I read about Verlinde’s television tirade I laughed till I cried. He also called this paper (NRC), which broke the story, a gossip magazine. I’m sorry I missed it. I would have loved to see Albert, preferably wearing his glasses, pronounce the words gossip magazine, lips pursed in righteous indignation.

There was more: for three rides of about a hundred metres to the said hotel, Bram wanted €1,800. But Estelle wasn’t that blond. She promptly used Nico to make Bram’s invoices public. In the pubs of Amsterdam it is being said that Bram used The Nose Holleeder’s scooter (now laughingly called the hooter) for transport with Vestia’s Erik Staal as driver. He wouldn’t get to an amount like that otherwise.

I love the sight of lawyers slagging each other off. It’s so deliciously vulgar. And very different from how it used to be. When I was growing up, a lawyer was a man who inspired confidence. He was as tight-lipped as a family doctor. And when he did open his mouth he was so well-spoken as to be completely incomprehensible. Only those at the hockey clubhouse knew what he was talking about because there everybody talked that way. Now they come into television studios pushing a cartload of shit to offload onto their learned colleagues’ heads on Nieuwsuur. After Holleeder’s College Tour Twan Huys should be able to cope with anything thrown at him but even he couldn’t hide his surprise. The bar at the Hilton hotel used to be the venue for fights like this but no more. We can all enjoy them now, on tv and in this newspaper, and enjoy them I do.

Joke

I could do with a lawyer myself. I’m losing sleep over a crime I allegedly committed in the past. At the end of my Christmas song Flappie I suggested I, at age seven, had killed my father on Boxing Day 1961. And if the hullabaloo surrounding my colleague Theo Maassen is anything to go by I fear a trial may not be far off. A big show trial. I will maintain that it had all been a joke and that I didn’t really do it. They were only words! Hopefully the thing is beyond the statute of limitations. On Monday I will say this to Evert in Shownieuws and lawyers Spong and Hammerstein will be delving into it some more on Pauw&Witteman. Matthijs will have a panel of experts at the ready.

But I won’t budge. It was a joke, your honour.

A joke!

Youp van ‘t Hek is one of the Netherlands’ best loved comedians and writers.