Let Them Eat Bananas

Image credit: Dan Murrell / New Statesman (20 May 2018)

I.

Let them eat cake is the standard (slightly inaccurate) English translation of the French phrase Qu'ils mangent de la brioche.

A phrase, according to Rousseau, spoken by a great princess upon learning that the peasants had no bread and thereby displaying either her callous contempt of the people, or her inability to comprehend the grinding, desperate reality of poverty.

Commonly attributed to Marie Antoinette, there's no record of her having said it. And so it could just as easily have come from the lips of some other overly-privileged royal cunt; Maria Theresa of Spain, for example, or, indeed, the retired Hollywood actress-cum-Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle ... 
 

II.

I don't know why the latter decided to pay an impromptu visit to the One25 charity in Bristol last Friday - an organisation that helps women who used to be called prostitutes, but who have now been rebranded as sex workers - nor, indeed, do I know why she would drag poor Prince Harry along with her.  

One assumes the royal couple went along to meet volunteers and demonstrate their support by helping to assemble parcels of food, warm clothing and condoms for the women on the streets; something which is not quite pandering, but is arguably enabling a lifestyle of vice and (unofficially) giving the royal seal of approval to such.    

And the fact that Meghan - entirely off her own bat - decided to inscribe the bananas that were being handed out with inspirational messages only lends weight to this argument. But it is also peculiarly offensive to tell vulnerable women leading dangerous, often desperate but otherwise depressingly ordinary lives, that they are strong and special. 

American schoolchildren might find such patronising bullshit empowering, but surely the whores of England aren't such snowflakes as to be taken in by this ...? Indeed, one might hope that the next time the lovely Meghan decides to slum it in a red light district they tell her exactly what she can do with her bananas.

Note: for those interested in seeing filmed footage of the Duchess personally signing pieces of fruit, click here. 

Let Them Sing Carols

Ding dong merrily on high ...

The phrase Let them eat cake may never have passed the lips of Marie Antoinette, but it's still commonly attributed to her and has significantly helped tarnish her reputation within the popular imagination. 

Similarly, Angela Merkel's suggestion this week that German citizens address their growing anxiety over the perceived threat posed by Islamism to their way of life - be it secular-liberal or Christian-conservative in character - by singing a few Christmas carols accompanied by someone playing a flute, is likely to prove something she'll never live down and which will be remembered long after her disastrous Chancellorship has ended.

Admitting there are very real concerns - and very real grounds for concern - over her policy of admitting over a million Muslim refugees into Germany last year alone, Merkel told an emergency congress of CDU members in Wittenberg that the way to counter terrorism, rising crime and the creeping Islamisation of European culture, was for German families to gather round and break into a rendition of Silent Night.

Unfortunately, however, all isn't calm and all isn't bright and we can none of us afford to sleep in heavenly peace whilst the barbarians are at the gates and the enemy is already within ...