MOMENT IN THE SUN: BARBIE
Hard to believe but Barbie turned sixty years old this month. You have to hand it to her, she still looks great.
Where many sixty year old boobs are already heading south for the winter, hers are still pert and up there, even if they’re not quite the impressive rack we remember from our youths. (She’s been re-sized, people!)
Shouldn’t she have a moustache by now? And bingo wings? Shouldn’t she look more tired, worn out by all the menopausal sleeplessness and restless legs she’ll have been suffering from?
Apparently not.
For Barbie is ageless. A bit like Carol Vorderman who, at 58 comes about as close as is possible to Barbie’s proportions.
This week Carol was papped in tight leggings which highlighted what she describes as her ‘huge arse’ and a snug orange top which showed off her 38DDs. She credits HRT for her impressive attributes.
Meanwhile, Mattel is doing its best to combat accusations of body fascism by creating a range of Barbie dolls in more realistic sizes to better reflect actual women who aren’t Carol.
Ok, so ‘supersize Barbie’ is no more than a size 16, but it’s a start, right?
I have a lot to thank Barbie for. She has provided hours of debate for me and my feminist friends.
Yes, her original proportions were comic and anybody whose head was that big and feet that small would fall over. (Even more often than Anastasia in ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ who seemingly couldn’t walk along the pavement without falling off the curb.)
And yes, Barbie was quite definitely modelled on a novelty ‘adult’ doll – Bild Lilli – who started life in a German cartoon strip as a saucy, high end escort, but, she was allowed aspirations!
Barbie went to work and what a CV she created. She’s been a sergeant in the Marines, she’s been a nurse, a computer engineer, a baseball player, an ambassador and she’s been President of the United States four times!
And that makes me soften towards her a bit. Because it’s important for little girls and boys to play with dolls who make these careers seem possible for people with breasts. God knows it’s hard enough in real life.
Mattel have done for America what the Democrats and Republicans have been unable to do. They got a woman elected!
I imagine there are plenty of folks sitting in offices in the White House who’d give their bottom dollar to be answerable to Barbie in the Oval Office right now.
Carol Vorderman has a pilot’s licence. Her fabulous bust does not, apparently, get in the way of the joystick and take off is not a problem. She has a role with NASA and hopes one day to make it into space.
Barbie of course, got their first.
As I get older, it seems more important than ever than women are seen to continue to have aspiration and ambition. And to unashamedly present their ageing bosoms to the world.
Go Barb! Go Carol!
UNDER A CLOUD: FARROW AND BALL
Farrow and Ball the specialist posh paint company beloved of the monied middle classes is not having a great time.
Earlier in the year it revealed a dip in revenue which it put down to the low levels of housing transactions and depressed consumer spending resulting from continuing Brexit uncertainty.
I don’t suppose it can have helped that David (insert your own expletive) Cameron admitted to having painted his garden shed in Farrow and Ball’s ‘Mouse’s Back.’
However, Holland Park School has done its best to come to its aid, spending £15000 on F&B paint (along with £6000 on Jo Malone candles).
Why, critics asked, couldn’t they have used a bog standard paint from B&Q like every other school in the land? At a time when some schools are having to ask parents to supply loo rolls and A4 paper, is it financially credible or even prudent to spend the maintenance budget on upmarket paint?
It’s financial lunacy, of course it is.
But oh how I would love all schools to be so well funded that buying Farrow and Ball was actually in the realms of possibility.
