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As Donald Trump’s bandwagon loses its wheels, a colour guru declares it an orangey-pink year.
Joanne Black
Many journalists are familiar with the Douglas Adams quote about deadlines: “I like the whooshing sound they make as they go by.” Lately, though, the whooshing most exciting journalists here in the US capital is the sound made by the wheels falling off President Donald Trump’s administration.
Wheeeeee! That was the President’s former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, who is off to prison in March. Whoooosh! That was the President’s former national security adviser, and retired three-star general, Michael Flynn, being given more time to cooperate before being sentenced for lying to the FBI. Last year ended with so much whooshing it was like being in a vacuumcleaner showroom.
A photo montage of Trump’s handpicked people who have been sacked, are under investigation or who have already been charged reflects poorly, in most cases, on the ethics and instincts of the President. It is well known that, when hiring, employers tend to pick people like themselves. I would not employ most of the ousted ones to serve ice cream in a dairy, much less have responsibility for national security.
For the media, which opines about the need for stability while secretly relishing mayhem, 2019 promises great excitement. In particular, reporters are drooling over the possibility that a member of the Trump family might be charged.
For the two years since Trump was elected, the evening news has been like Olympics coverage – a nightly highlights reel of such audacity that it takes your breath away. For the public, “I can scarcely believe what I’m seeing” could be the theme of this government.
Unlike the Olympics, in which the winners are known immediately, politics is a longer game. We won’t know whether Trump will triumph again until 2020, unless the wheels come off the administration before the next election. In that case, the chassis might throw up a few more sparks before finally graunching to a halt on the Beltway, being towed off to the side and picked over by spare-parts dealers, only for them to find that there is nothing worth salvaging.
Pantone, the guru of standardised colour reproduction, has declared an orangey-pink “living coral” as its 2019 colour of the year. It is a colour that shrieks 1980s bath towels, but Pantone’s vice-president, Laurie Pressman, says the shade represents “emotional nourishment. It’s a big hug.”
There is a place, I guess, for considering a bath-towel colour “a big hug”. Less so, I think, for considering the colour to be any form of nourishment, unless you chew your towels. Personally, I do not do that, although when I was young, my family had a Siamese cat that ate wool. Sometimes he ate socks, but his happiest hours were spent dining on blankets. He was discerning and eschewed manmade fibres, eating only pure wool. I still have holey wool blankets that were the work of Biggie.
Because it is the holidays and I have time on my hands, I have been reading “Ways to incorporate Pantone’s 2019 Colour of the Year in Your Home”. I have seen no mention of bath towels and think interior designers have missed an opportunity.
Instead, my favourite tip so far is, “Target rooms that may not get much light.” It might as well say, “Target rooms that no one ever uses”, because, let’s face it, living coral looks best in a reef.
Last year ended with so much whooshing it was like being in a vacuum-cleaner showroom.