'Everything that is wrong with the human race': inside Hollywood's bizarre war on the leaf blower

For 18 years, Cate Blanchett has railed against the hated garden gadget - and she's not alone. From Hugh Grant to Danny DeVito, the backpack blower has united stars in unlikely, furious contemptConsider the great Hollywood feud. Perhaps Bette Davis and Joan Crawford's mutual loathing comes to mind? Or Marlon Brando's 40-year-old beef with Burt Reynolds? Maybe the more recent tensions between Olivia Wilde and Florence Pugh? Well, let me tell you: these are absolutely nothing compared to Cate Blanchett and her indefatigable animus towards ? the leaf blower. Seemingly every single leaf blower.Truly, this is one of the greatest celebrity animosities of this century. The earliest extant Blanchett-rant on the subject is a W Magazine interview, way back in 2007, when she ambiguously characterised leaf blowers - a lot of fence-sitting here - as "everything that is wrong with the human race". Continue reading...