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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Comment
Barbara Ellen

Breaking up is hard to do, but surely it doesn’t have to be a toxic car crash?

Ioan Gruffudd and Alice Evans in 102 Dalmatians in 2000; the real-life couple’s split has been closely followed by the red tops.
Ioan Gruffudd and Alice Evans in 102 Dalmatians in 2000; the real-life couple’s split has been closely followed by the red tops. Photograph: Everett Collection Inc/Alamy

An essential truth about relationships is that everything runs smoothly. Then, actual human beings become involved. Maybe, like myself, you read the piece detailing the gruesome explosive meeting-up of the Daily Mail writer Liz Jones and her ex-husband, Nirpal Dhaliwal, and thought: “Finally, a former couple whose unresolved relationship issues are such a burning wicker man, people like me get to feel relatively smug and well-balanced.”

Jones observes: “There is zero self-awareness. No filter. He doesn’t take the blame for anything.” Even after being extensively (and what must be wearyingly) written about by Jones, Dhaliwal surely doesn’t feel justified in writing of their meeting, “I was mortified at being photographed with her, the whole world knowing I had married her”?

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