Someone’s been reading too many self-help books…..

Is it just me, or have I caught Elle Macpherson on a really bad day? It’s 9.30am, and as the 44-year-old businesswoman shooshes two yummy-mummy girlfriends out of her front door, there is a distinct prickle in the air. “Oh. Uh, hi,” she says briskly, ushering me in and bounding upstairs, all speckled spaghetti limbs, purple and green underwear flashing under her short Alexander McQueen sundress. “Don’t talk about the house,” she says. “In fact, don’t talk about where I live at all, please.”

She crosses her legs in a way that means business. “Listen . . .” she says, pointing to my note pad, “once you’ve done your bit, I’ll need it passed by me. Just so you know when you’re writing, there are going to be things we’re looking at. It’s really important that you’re responsible in your journalism.” Huh? She continues in clippy Australian tones: “I’m just managing a business, and businesses should be managed appropriately. I’m not here to talk about my life for the sake of it. This is business. You have a job to do and I have a job to do. It’s out of respect more than anything else. Certainly not out of mistrust. It’s just really important you print what your perception of the truth is, or as near to it as possible.”

Um, last time I checked a journalist was not a publicist. When you do an interview with a newspaper or magazine (in theory), you don’t get to veto what is written about you. The whole interview is very funny and revealing. And now on the weekend, an Australian journo has come out and spoken about his encounter with Elle a few years ago which also went spectacularly badly and was swamped in meaningless psycho-babble statements.