JAN MOIR: Charlotte Church's got a rather nasty case of Emma Thompson-itis!

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Charlotte Church was singing outside the Shell headquarters in London in protest at their plans to drill in the Arctic

This week, Charlotte Church was to be found singing outside the Shell headquarters in London, in protest at their plans to drill in the Arctic. And if that doesn’t stop them, nothing will.

For her big oil protest, organised by Greenpeace, the Welsh singer was dressed in sequins and her maquillage was powder-puff perfect. 

She posed outside the building with that pained but gratified look common to the celebrity activist actively being active, while cameras actively record her activism: Look at me. See how much I care.

Charlotte was really being max-sincere. She sang a song called This Bitter Earth, with the urgency and passion of a lovelorn musk ox marooned on a shrinking iceberg. Know what? She had seen what happens up there in North Pole land, and it made her sad.

‘I can’t see how anyone could see footage of the Arctic melting and not feel moved,’ she cried. ‘It’s terrifying to think of what we’re doing to this planet.

‘This song just felt so appropriate to why I came here today. I wanted to capture the sorrow and regret that feels tied up with the melting ice, and the bitter irony of Arctic oil drilling.’

I understand her pain. I feel the same way about ice melting. Especially when it starts to dilute my gin.

Yet isn’t the issue of the oil giant’s drilling operations rather more complicated than Charlotte’s characteristically knee-jerk take, which is that Shell is being ‘unbelievably dumb, exploitative and nonsensical’?

She is also flipping dead-annoyed with the American government for allowing the drilling operation to go ahead. No doubt President Obama has locked himself inside the Oval Office, terrified she is going to come over and sing at him, too.

Look. I don’t question that Miss Church sincerely holds these views about this serious subject. And in many ways I admire her, because doing something is always better than doing nothing.

However, can’t poor Charlotte see she is being used? Horribly used.

I don’t admire Greenpeace for dragooning this malleable Welsh crooner into promoting its latest cause. It smacks of cynicism and the kind of mindless PR opportunism for which this once-admirable organisation is becoming notorious.

Once upon a time, I supported Greenpeace and many of its conservation protests. Yet today’s increasing dependence on silly stunts, instead of reasoned debate to get the message across, does little to help its standing.

For her big oil protest, organised by Greenpeace, the Welsh singer was dressed in sequins and had the words 'Save The Arctic' written on her hands

I mean, Charlotte? Was Bianca Jagger otherwise engaged? Couldn’t they get Helena Bonham Carter to pose naked with a narwhal whale or something? Oh, that’s right. Helena did that with a tuna earlier this year for a marine life awareness campaign.

Charlotte’s many attempts to transit from a successful child star to prosperous adult singer have failed, leaving the former Voice Of An Angel with a lot of time on her hands to think about stuff.

Over the past year or so, the plucky firebrand has reinvented herself as an industrious campaigner and activist for hire. What’s she rebelling against? Whaddya got?

On the day following the general election, our Charl was on the streets of Cardiff waving a placard that read: ‘I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more.’

Know what? The silly electorate had ‘masochistically condemned itself to a Tory government’ and she was furious. Well darling, that’s democracy in action for you.

Like many fashionable campaigners, Charlotte believes that anyone who disagrees with her is mad and wrong. Note that she turns a blind eye to the mess the Welsh Labour government has made of running the NHS there, while accusing the Conservatives of ‘selling it off’.

She sang a song called This Bitter Earth, which she said captured the 'sorrow and regret that feels tied up with the melting ice, and the bitter irony of Arctic oil drilling'

She posed outside the building in London with that pained look, while cameras actively record her activism

The mother-of-two has declared that she would happily pay tax at 70 per cent if that helped to protect vital public services.

Yet why wait for a government she despises to greenlight her generosity? If she really means it, she could donate extra right now. Don’t hold your breath.

However, what Charlotte mostly seems to be against is rich people getting richer — which is a bit ironic, considering she has spent much of the past ten years doing exactly that herself. Pin her down on issues and she is anti-austerity, anti-Tory and pro-Pussy Riot (the Russian feminist punk group whose brand of ostentatious activism rings a very loud bell in the Charlotte church).

Gah. No doubt she means well, but what is so annoying about her brand of celebrity crusading is the opulent fog of self-satisfaction and piety that trails in her wake. This is a well-known condition, sometimes called Emma Thompson-itis in its more severe forms. It is also known as latent Fryism, or a chronic case of the Bonos.

The tacit suggestion is always the same. Because these people have a talent for singing or acting which has brought them fame, it has somehow also imbued them with moral superiority and a certitude that they know best.

We mugs can only gape on the sidelines, less worthy and somehow contemptible should we dare to disagree, reduced to ashes in the blaze of their do-gooding nobility.

So I look at Charlotte singing her heart out on the steps of Shell, mostly because she’s got nothing else to do. And yes, I do understand exactly how she feels — because it makes me as mad as hell, too.

Amanda Redman has admitted to having fillers and Botox and wouldn't rule out future treatments

Who'd begrudge Amanda her Botox?

Ageing is something that every woman approaches in a different way.

Amanda Redman has suddenly emerged looking like a younger version of her imaginary little sister - and says there's not a woman alive who wouldn't like to be 18 again.

The New Tricks actress has had fillers and Botox and says she wouldn't rule out doing it again - which means that she she's already booked the appointments.

And why not? She looks fabulous. 

Former Baywatch star Pamela Anderson says she's stopped Botox because she didn't 'look like me any more', while ITV's Lorraine Kelly embraces getting older and is happy to model designs for the mature woman. Pass the box pleats, please.

Cindy Crawford and her supermodel chums have posed for reunion photos, happy to let the passage of time tell its own story, while a survey suggests that women spend two years of their life applying make-up. For me, that is every second well spent.

It’s easier for older men such as Simon Cowell, who just grow a beard. We could do that, too — but we wouldn’t look quite as gorgeous as him!

Colouring in? Oh, do grow up

Grateful publishers are calling the new trend for adult colouring books the ‘Peter Pan market’.

It is incredible. Sales of these kidult books have rocketed over the past few years as adults rekindle childish joy in pencils and crayons. Lesley O’Mara, of publishers Michael O’Mara Books, told the New Yorker magazine that her company had ‘never seen a phenomenon like it in our 30 years of publishing’.

They are on their 15th reprint of some titles and cannot get them on the shelves fast enough.

Grown men and women who are old enough to know better report that they find colouring in therapeutic and relaxing.

I mean, for God’s sake. Will everyone please get a grip? What’s wrong with scribbling a moustache on photographs of David Cameron or pencilling stubble on to model Elle Macpherson’s legs, like we used to?

Grow up, the lot of you.

I'd tune in to Nicola's tartan telly

Nicola Sturgeon wants another Scottish TV channel — as if Grampian and STV hadn’t inflicted enough suffering.

She wants a new BBC radio station, too, of course she does. One that broadcasts shows called Why The SNP Are Great and Let’s Have That Second Referendum Now.

Making a speech at the Edinburgh Television Festival, the Scottish First Minister urged the BBC to get with the programme and air more Scottish things for Scottish audiences in Scotland.

Where is this all going? Everyone is so busy box-setting Game Of Thrones and obsessing over Bake Off, there can’t be much demand for updated versions of the White Heather Club and Runrig concerts on a loop.

Drama? I still mourn the 2003 axing of Scottish soap Take The High Road. It was filmed in a wee village where the jackets were waxed, but the women’s legs weren’t. Entire plot-lines developed around Mrs Mack’s scones and whether or not Dougal the crofter had a thing for Big Morag.

Is this the kind of McShow that Nicola wants us all to watch? Count me in.

Nicola Sturgeon told the Edinburgh International TV Festival (pictured) that she wants another Scottish TV channel and a new BBC radio station

All aboard the Lady Express

Jeremy Corbyn has been criticised over the proposition that rail networks should have women-only carriages on trains to cut the risk of sex attacks.

Shriek! It’s as if we had burrowed right back to the Seventies, where everything was our fault, including not having the tea on the table at 5pm sharp and speaking out of turn.

Perhaps we could also wear train-friendly burkas, so as not to inflame the passion or anger of men while travelling?

At least Corbyn has suggested consulting with women before shunting us off into a gender ghetto.

But before we get too outraged, I seem to recall that Reading railway station had a women-only waiting room until very recently. As did the stations at Frinton-on-Sea and Stockport, to name a few. There were no complaints about them.

And some men seem to think it is a positive move. My very own in-house brute thinks it is a brilliant idea, as trains won’t need designated quiet carriages any more.

He said it, not me.

Carol Vorderman tweeted that she injured herself after falling off a treadmill while running naked

Oh dear! Carol Vorderman tweeted the news that she has injured herself by falling off a treadmill while running naked — wearing only her trainers and a knee strap.

At least she had the decency to do this in her home and not at a public gym.

But what exactly was she doing? ‘Don’t ask,’ the shameless self-publicist told her 334,000 followers on social media.

Carol, I am not going to ask because I think I can guess.

Was this fruity nogs-jog:

a. A plea for help because she hasn’t been in a newspaper since Cilla’s funeral?

b. A pre-emptive explanation for some odd bruises caused by secret cosmetic procedures?

c. An experiment to see what bit of her unfettered body jiggled most at trotting speed?

d. A sly encouragement for her panting male admirers to perve even more over her curves?

e. All of the above?

Answer: e.

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