Call that a cake, Mrs Beckham?
VBECKHAM had a birthday “cake”. That’s right. Her “cake” was so not a cake it had to be in inverted commas. Posh’s 44th birthday was “celebrated” (this time the commas are all mine) with a pretend cake made of watermelon, strawberries and blueberries. You will note there was not a hint of banana or whisper of mango. Victoria’s “cake” featured nothing but almost 100 per cent water-based fruits with the lowest calorie content on earth.
Transparent slices of melon, slivers of strawberry and tiny filaments of blueberry were piled one on top of the other in a gateaux-shaped construction.
There was not a swirl of buttercream, a millimetre of icing or an individual multicoloured sprinkle to enliven the creation. In short, a single white candle plonked into a sodden clump of fruit salad was Posh’s nod to a jolly “let’s cut loose and have a laugh” birthday bake-off.
Can you imagine anything more depressing than a fake cake sans sugar, sans jam, sans cream, sans everything? Think of the joyless privation of a life so rigorously dedicated to staying wafer slim you can’t even plunge into a trifle at your own birthday party!
I know, I know. I have this all wrong. VB is an internationally renowned WHY don’t Meghan’s whingeing relatives simply put a sock in it?
One minute we hear from the estranged half-sister trying to dish the dirt. Next the half-brother, peeved not to have been invited to the nuptials, chirps up with his halfbaked attempt to – as the youth would have it – throw shade in her direction.
The juiciest morsels either of them seem able to rake up are that she used to be one way, then she landed a role in Suits, flew to Canada and “changed”. Of course she changed! fashion designer with the gamine physique of a finely honed Twiglet. I on the other hand know the ignominy of having my generous behind plastered all over the front cover of a magazine with the headline: “Oh dear, Vanessa!”
I am hopelessly wedded to the misguided notion that sugar equals fun, tiramisu is the embodiment of earthly happiness and the genius who invented Krispy Kreme doughnuts should be beatified. I’ve never managed to wave the dessert trolley away without feeling acute pangs of withdrawal. I’ve confused cake with comfort, custard tarts with recreation and lusted after the Milk Tray man.
Lord knows the havoc I have wreaked on my teeth, arteries and long-extinct waistline. Actually everyone knows. There are decades of paparazzi shots of Yours Truly billowing out of frocks and snaffling 99s available online for the viewing pleasure of anyone.
Be that as it may I still can’t bring myself to contemplate an existence in which peanuts are measured in single figures, lunch is a whisper of baked fish and pudding is a single raw fig. Kate Moss says nothing tastes as good as skinny feels. Can she be right? Or would you rather stand with our Bunterish Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson who states: “Where cake is concerned I’m vastly in favour of (a) having it and (b) eating it.”
MEGHAN’S WHINGEING RELATIVES
Everyone changes when they are promoted from post-boy to undermanager or vice chairman to CEO. They are supposed to change. We all do whenever circumstances, status, income or romantic situation alters.
If Meghan had made it utterly untransformed she woud be downright weird. She will change again when she marries Harry and we will be watching and encouraging every alteration.
They, meanwhile, can watch the wedding on TV and try to work out why their presence was not required.