The Beckhams should be left in opulent peace

It's a great irritation that the word "flamboyant" has taken on rather a more specialised meaning than any dictionary recognises. These days, as the commentaries on Pim Fortuyn's murder lavishly showed, it only really means "gay", or as newspaper style guides apparently direct journalists, "openly gay". If more newspapers told their readers that Fortuyn was "flamboyant" than mentioned that he was a Dutchman, you would search high and low for any application of the word outside a homosexual context. It might, even, by now, look like innuendo if applied, say, to an openly straight man.

Which is a great shame, because the two people who utterly deserve the description are that unquestionably straight pair, Mr and Mrs David Beckham. If people have been calling things flamboyant since Dowden's life of Southey in 1879 – I've just looked it up – it was, surely, in a spirit of trust. Since their wonderfully get-her wedding, there has hardly been a week when the nation has not been thrilled by some detail of fabulous profligacy. The diamonds, the parties, the photo-shoots, the outfits, the spending as if there is no tomorrow; they make Liberace look as tasteful as Lady Helen Taylor.

The latest moment in this giddy ascent, their party to celebrate the opening of the World Cup, has been massively touted all over the place. The dress code – white tie and diamonds – has been mentioned, and, though I die for the sight of Teddy Sheringham dressed like Her Majesty's Ambassador to Ruritania, I do think Mrs Beckham would be better advised to give some nice big rubies a trial run. The cost has been discussed; the food has been put into a press release (flash Japanese, rather than Korean pickled cabbage, of course); and everyone knows that the guests will be greeted by geishas.

Even if the general public is not absolutely gripped by the promise of Beckhammania – and, though he is a wonderfully elegant footballer, no one very much seems to buy her records any more – the entire media certainly thinks they are. Mr Beckham's tattoos, her new pregnancy, the decor of their house, a new hairdo, their outfits assessed and costed up, and, not least, one of his startlingly, teasingly gay-boy photo-portraits, all oil and camouflage drag; any of these is enough to fill an entire page of any given newspaper, and whole feet of sober commentary. Rather like this.

But, to risk the appearance of gross hypocrisy, I must say that I honestly don't think any of this is anybody's business but their own. They seem extremely happy and in love; they are clearly good parents; they undoubtedly enjoy their own money. Despite the fact that they play the publicity game with good humour, and never give the impression of jealously guarding their privacy, there is no real justification for anyone who doesn't know them commenting on any of this.

They are private people, who have made their money out of exploiting their talents, and even if David Beckham plays for England, we don't have the right to comment on their private lives and their extravagant tastes in the way we might in the case of politicians. No one has forcibly contributed to the Beckham coffers, and no one has the right to see how their money has been spent, still less to deplore it. For the moment, they seem quite happy to show their exuberant lifestyle to the world, but it is rather improper to discuss it, and it would be perfectly understandable if one day they simply said "No more; this is not your business."

There is a general and a growing assumption that, above a certain level of opulence, anyone's life is of public concern. Journalists cheerfully reveal the annual incomes of the rich – and how would they like it done to them? Nicholas van Hoogstraten, the property magnate building a gigantic pile in Sussex, was repeatedly asked whether his property would be open to the public; his rude refusal seemed, unaccountably, to surprise people. You don't even have to be very rich; I'm always absolutely astonished, whenever I publish a novel, at the number of people who ask directly and without any kind of embarrassment what the size of the advance was. To live part of your life in public does not mean that you must submit to scrutiny, and that, rather than the Beckhams' Olympic-size jacuzzi or their habit, if they had one, of wearing matching tiaras for breakfast, constitutes the really bad-taste spectacle here.

For the moment, let us enjoy the sight of two handsome, happy, loving people living out their blissful fairy-tale ending with benevolence. If they want to tell us about their lives, fine. But one day, they will want to close the gates, grow fat and grey together, and retreat into happy privacy; and at that point, we should tiptoe away, accepting that we were only ever admitted on their generous sufferance.

p.hensher@independent.co.uk