The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Finnish PM’s blazer of a fashion shoot has keyboard warriors all fired up
You’d think people would have more on their minds
With all that’s happening around us, happening everywhere and showing no signs of stopping any time soon, you’d think people would have more or their minds than a woman’s apparel.
But no. Some of us still have space in our crowded psyches to have an opinion and feel we have the right to comment about the sartorial choices of a female in public life.
Angela Merkel’s colour-bloc blazers no longer cut the mustard.
The New Zealand premier may be taken slightly to task, in spite of a recent landslide election victory, for her neat little shifts, wrap-round coats and the fact that a local designer has created a mini-skirt with a Warhol-style print of her face on it.
But at least where her coiffure is concerned, she is married to a hairdresser so she’s all right, Jacinda. And in America, Democrat vice- presidential hopeful Kamala Harris’s wearing of sneakers has made more of a mark than her explanation of whether she holds socialist views or not.
Now, it’s the turn of Sanna Marin, prime minister of Finland and, say it in hushed tones, a young woman. For that, read: “Someone who can only be judged by her appearance.”
Well, there obviously wasn’t any problem with the Finnish electorate when they voted her in, but now that the PM has appeared in a magazine wearing a rather low-cut jacket without the benefit of a coverall semmit underneath, she has taken vast amounts of stick from all kinds of folk who seem to think that one fashion picture gives them the right to make value judgments on her career choices as well as her sartorial picks. How can anyone take her seriously? Woman has breasts. Alert the media…
You may recall that our own Theresa May got it in the neck, or somewhat lower down, for sporting a racy scarlet ensemble that revealed a bit of shadow around the chestal arrangements. That and kitten heels, too?
What a lack of gravitas, sobriety and essential sense of seriousness about the job in hand. No wonder she couldn’t get her Brexit deal through with all that skin going on and all that time she spent riffling through the Freeman’s catalogue.
It does make you wonder, however, in a non-gender-specific kind of way, what Boris Johnson’s excuse will be? He is usually so badly and untidily attired that it has been remarked that you never see him and Worzel Gummidge in the same room.
But for some, that comes over as endearing rather than indicative of a lack
of grip. Which so far has manifested itself in many other fashions rather than the content of his wardrobe. And he hasn’t even got a Brexit deal not to get through. Let’s hope he doesn’t lose it completely and start borrowing clothes, as well as everything else, from Dominic Cummings…
Tiers making for square eyes
Tiers, levels and restrictions rule our lives at the moment and very probably will for the foreseeable future. So we should, obviously, take Scottish Government medical adviser Professor Jason Leitch at his word and accept that we’re going to have a “digital Christmas” in Scotland. Which I interpret as “staying in the hoose in front of the telly”. No change there then…
Money reigns
News came in last week that a man in Chongqing province in south-west China, allegedly under the influence of drugs, was detained by police for “treatment” after
scattering a “heavenly shower of banknotes” on to crowds of confused commuters below, from the window of his 30th floor apartment.
I have to say that my first reaction was: “I didn’t even know that Rishi Sunak was in China…”
It appears, however, that the Chongqing area has previous on this kind of activity. Only last year, a man having a bad day at work in the very same region, disposed cavalierly of hundreds of thousands before asking for it back.
And a little while before, a woman “in a bad mood” spread a little happiness by flinging caution and several thousand yuan to the winds. Goodness knows what kind of altruistic philanthropy she might have attempted if all had been right for her.
Give her Marcus Rashford’s phone number, I say, especially as, on reflection, I think this all might stem from the everalert Chinese culturally appropriating that good old Glaswegian habit of “flinging pieces oot a 20-storey flat”.
And if Mr Rashford’s sterling efforts on behalf of many more than 700 hungry weans comes to nothing, it may yet come to that in many areas of this increasingly Dickensian nation.
Or if we continue with the Sunak connection and the increasing likelihood that he is plotting to betray Boris and reach for the top job, he might just want to start practising his aim of flinging 30 pieces of silver oot the top floor bedroom window of No 11 Downing Street.