Susan Morrison: I’ll bring the Kardashian clan crashing back down to earth

It’s entirely possible that you, like me, were completely unaware of Kardashians. Indeed, it’s possible that you may have thought a Kardashian was breed of over-groomed dog.

Well, you’re not absolutely wrong – there is an entire breed of them. They live in Beverly Hills. They are an entire family who’ve become famous for ummmm . . . well, you got me on that one. They are, to use PR puff-speak, the stars of a reality TV show.

There’s a mummy and a daddy. I don’t know what he does, but he’s very rich. He must be. His fridge is the size of my kitchen. I don’t know what mummy does either. Her face doesn’t move. The family don’t seem to be alarmed by this.

There are also daughters. I think there are three, but they all look alarmingly similar and move around a lot, which makes counting them fairly difficult.

The programme unflinchingly documents the trials and tribulations of this super-rich family as they navigate their way through such horrors as hitting the shops of Rodeo Drive armed only with daddy’s credit card, which has a limit so high the man could easily finance a pay-off package for someone who’d failed to build a tram network.

Searing modern issues are raised, such as how to make a marriage last. Well, last longer than 72 days. Imagine that. Not even time to send out the thank you notes for the fish knives, but plenty of time to cash the cheque for the TV and magazine coverage.

Just think of it as The Scheme, but with whiter teeth. Teeth, come to think of it.

Kardashians have crashed my consciousness because a fearsome headteacher has suddenly announced that Kim Kardashian, she of the short-lived marriage, is entirely responsible for the downfall of western civilisation. Well, Dr Helen Wright, headmistress of St Mary’s Calne, you go, girl!

I thought the Kardashians were just a sort of bizarre turbo-charged Jane Austen scenario for the 21st century. Suddenly, they’ve been elevated to the status of civilisation crushers, right up there with Attila, Genghis, Visigoths, and those nasty aliens in Independence Day.

Apparently, Kim has been voted the hottest woman on the planet by some lads mag and has been photographed in her underwear for the front cover. Dr Wright, in fine fury, has identified this photo as the moment western civilisation started its terrible destructive downward trajectory, like the Hindenburg slowly burning to the ground.

Well, Dr Wright, when you start the fight back to save humanity from Kim Kardashian in her pants, I’m right beside you. We shall not go gentle into that good night, no we won’t. We will fight the Botoxed beauties and battle the uplifted bosoms, and we will prevail. We shall raise regiments of wrinkly faces and saggy bosoms and crush this danger to civilisation.

Card prank was daddy of all wind-ups

I HOPE all you hard-working dads out there had a lovely Father’s Day last. I must admit to giving myself a little treat. I sent a Father’s Day card to my husband and simply wrote “Guess Who?” and watched him sweat for two hours. Made me laugh . . .

App gets on my wick

MIND you, there are moments when you look at what we call civilisation and think, wellll . . .

Look at the applications on mobile phones. Some of them are fairly useful. There’s one that tells you when the next bus is due. Now, that’s handy. Indeed, I’d say that’s a pinnacle of ingenuity.

But there’s an application that replicates a flickering candle. Yup, that’s it. Someone designed that. I imagine Dr Wright has fairly trenchant views on that.

When shall we three put our pants on?

Alan Cumming never struck me as natural Macbeth material, to be honest. I see Macbeth as a big warrior, who spends a lot of time on battlefields, possibly to stay away from the women in his life, notably that power-mad wife, and not forgetting those three barking mad witches. If ever a man should have married an airhead in her pants, it was poor old Macbeth.

Mr Cumming has gone for a modern approach, and is conquering reviewers with his performance.

When I was studying Shakespeare at school, our English teacher was the redoubtable Miss McKenzie, 52, never married, sooked pear drops all day.

She was thrilled to discover that Glasgow Citizens Theatre was staging her favourite play, Macbeth. As a treat, the entire sixth year was bundled off to see it. I believe David Hayman played Macbeth. He won with a knockout. Miss McKenzie was so transported by the evening she failed to notice that the witches, played by ladies in what we could refer to as the Crone Age, were stark naked.

Trust me, the boys who saw Macbeth that night were given a life lesson in what to expect when real women shed their undies.