Bell Tents, Ridge Poles & Camping It

'Camp — informal adj (of a man) ostentatiously and extravagantly effeminate'.

I agree with Concise Oxford English Dictionary.  My notion of the adjective 'camp' involves small, portable dogs, walking from the hips, and eyebrow-waggling innuendo. (Innuendo?  Ooh, vicar!)  Dealing in the currency of amateur dramatics I thought I was pretty au fait with this.  I'd go so far to say an authority. But no, browsing through last week's Saturday Times (mid-week, and I'm still ploughing through the supplements, one for every breakfast) and I stumble upon an interview with the director, Wes Anderson, by Hugo Rifkind.

Now, I'm a fan of Hugo, a regular scribbler for The Times and quite amusing to boot.  I have been known to turn to 'My Week According To...' even BEFORE Caitlin Moran's intelligently written and coherent treatises on absolutely nothing.  That's how big a fan I am.  Afterall, Hugo is the mastermind that brought us the classic Guy Ritchie homage, 'Desperados with Avocados'.  Yes, you heard right,

It's another sign of quite how highly I value this seminal contribution to mock-gangsta culture that I provide you with the link.  Hugo is also, less interestingly, the son of former Cabinet Minister, Malcolm Rifkind, a fact I found out only today via Wikipedia.  So it may or may not be true.  (That's pretty much the extent of my research — lazy, surface, and thoroughly modern.)

Hugo Rifkind:

"... Anderson is often spoken of as a sort of heir
to Tim Burton.  In truth he's actually far less
 accessible, and with none of Burton's
sickly witchy-witchy campness."

Firstly — Tim Burton, camp?  I missed that tweet.  Dark, gothic, macabre, inventive, sinister, bloody brilliant... yep, I can tick off all those on my Tim Burton check-list.  Secondly — Burton's work sickly?  As in overly sweet, saccharine?  I don't remember slumping into a diabetic coma watching the blood spray in Sweeney Todd, but then I suppose that's the point of comas, isn't it, everything being a bit vague?  But you'd think I'd at least notice a neuropathically gammy toe after Batman, or Sleepy Hollow. 

And, come on, Hugo — "witchy, witchy"?  Bitchy, bitchy, darling.  As my mother might say, quite unnecessary.  It's like you've found a new BFF and consider your old one everso slightly rubbish. 

In my view, Tim Burton's only crime is wearing ill-advised spectacles out in public  — big, ugly, eff-off spectacles that have the temerity not to be even in the slightest bit camp.  See?

Tim Burton's snog prevention strategy

In future, Hugo, kindly leave the definition of campness to the OED.