Hallo Readers,
This week Sir Nicholas Winton, an astonishing 105 years old and still sharp as a tack, was honoured by the Czech Government for his work 76 years ago when he saved 669 Jewish children by arranging their safe transport out of Czechoslovakia and away from the gas chambers that consumed their parents and grandparents. At that stage, Britain was the only country willing to admit unaccompanied minors. Sir Nicholas makes you feel humble and also proud to be a member of the same human race. By coincidence, this week also saw an announcement sneaked in under the public radar by the Minister of State in the Foreign Office, Baroness Anelay, a person of whose existence WTF and probably anyone else was previously unaware, by way of a Parliamentary written answer. Her Ladyship informed us that Her Majesty’s Government no longer intended to contribute towards the air and sea rescue of refugees in unseaworthy vessels. She said “We do not support planned search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean. We believe that they create an unintended ‘pull factor’, encouraging more migrants to attempt the dangerous sea crossing and thereby leading to more tragic and unnecessary deaths”. The migration policy of Her Majesty’s Government appears to be reduced to two words – Fuck ‘em. A similar policy has been advanced by the Australian Foreign Minister Scott Morrison. He ignored the advice of his own department in refusing visas for refugees. The High Court ruled against him and so he developed an alternative strategy, namely to use some obscure public interest section in the Migration Act to deny them visas. That too is under challenge in the High Court.
WTF is descended on both sides from refugees. Her paternal grand-parents came to Britain from Poland to escape the pogroms. Her mother and grandmother got out of what is now Moldova by the skin of their teeth and were lucky enough to find safety from the Nazis and their pals, the Iron Guard. Friends of my mother and grandmother were lying dead in the street which they witnessed as they left the cellars where they had been in hiding for a week. (The night before their boat was due to leave for Istanbul, there was an earthquake and my mother also witnessed an apartment block collapse. And yet she was the sunniest, life-embracing woman WTF has ever met). Many of those whom they left behind were either murdered or tried to sail to freedom and sank in unseaworthy vessels. So, Readers, you will readily understand that WTF is unsympathetic to the Fuck ‘em school of migration policy. It is one thing to have an immigration policy. It is quite another to watch people drown in order to teach them a lesson. Sir Nicholas reminds us that there was and is decency in the world. It is just a pity that it doesn’t seem to have found a home in either Canberra or Westminster.
Let us start the sartorial roll of shame with actor Alan Cumming at the Elton John Foundation – Enduring Vision Gala in New York.
Alan loves his native Scotland so much that he has just applied for US citizenship. He looks like a Caledonian circus clown minus the curly ginger wig. Were you standing next to him, you would be in fear of being squirted in the eye by his water-pistol bow tie. And WTF are those boots? Is he romping through the frozen tundra back to his Manhattan apartment?
Next we have Kate Moss out of the razz at Annabel’s in her pyjamas.
Let us begin with her right leg which is at a most peculiar angle as if someone has half twisted it off. Let us then progress to the creased high-waisted satin jim-jams worn with a black polo neck and a pink feather boa that even Dame Barbara Cartland would have scorned. Just terribly, terribly terrible.
We meet couturier Jean-Paul Gaultier wearing his own creation.
He has worn skirts before but now he is wearing maxis. Creased ones. It just makes you weep….
Next up, a real treat for you. Meet Vogue Contributing Fashion Editor Lynn Yaeger looking, as she normally does, utterly bizarre.
What is that mouth? Like a Russian doll….
And what is she wearing? The velvet dressing gown is rather fabulous but the frilled black sparklefest is like something you would see on the Dowager Duchess of Grantham at the Downton Abbey Servants’ Ball. Only she would not have worn hers with footless leggings and jazz shoes.
Last week, super-strumpet Maitland Ward shocked and appalled us with her revolting leather see-through dress with Minge Waterfall and built-in fart flap. Ever mindful of her responsibilities to her Readers’ health and safety, WTF then spared you the other dress she wore ON THE SAME NIGHT also by J. Loren for Adolfo Sanchez. The Governor of California should be seeking some sort of injunctive relief as a matter of emergency. Here’s the “front”, if that is the word WTF is looking for, which it isn’t.
This amounts to no more than a series of triangular bit-covers. And here is the rear, which is DEFINITELY the word WTF is looking for.
One hesitates to comment on the dark red outline, like a monkey’s buttocks, but WTF is never one to hesitate for long. What is it? Whatever it is, it should not be on display.
And now a triumvirate of Designer Disgustingness from the amFAR Inspiration Gala in New York. It is of course laudable that celebs do their bit to assist in the fight against AIDS. It is just not clear why they have to strip near-naked in order to do it. And whatever they may be inspiring, they are not inspiring young women to dress with self-respect. First we have super-model Alessandra Ambrosio in Zuhair Murad. Watch out when you click the link – Brazilian samba music comes right out at you….
Dad dah, dah dah! Minge Moment alert! The dress is scaly. And horrible. And worse still – the nip-tips! Or pasties as our American friends call them….
After making AIDS history, can we make sheer history? Please?
Then we have Rihanna dressed as a two bit tart wearing Tom Ford. Tom Ford!
Rihana dressed as a two-bit tart is nothing new. Indeed, it is the norm. But Tom Ford!!!! The man who used to be the by-word for class. As Mark Antony remarked in Julius Caesar, Oh what a fall there was, my countrymen…
And then there is Miley Cyrus dressed as an S&M princess. Also wearing Tom Ford.
Many months back, WTF warned that Tom Ford was on the Julien Macdonald Way to Wankiness. She rests her case.
This week’s It’s Got To Go comes at the suggestion of WTF aficionados Stephen and Helen of Potters Bar as well as Yvonne Ridley, all of whom are outraged and then some by the umpteenth return to Coronation Street of Jim MacDonald played by Charlie Lawson, so he is. Although he might have left again, so he might.
Jim, who comes from Northern Ireland, so he does, finishes every sentence with some faux-Irish exclamation. Charlie Lawson is, by some distance, the worst actor on television, so he is. The producers should stop bringing him back, so they should, before WTF, Stephen, Helen, Yvonne and many others turn off Corrie for good.
OK Readers, that’s your lot for this week. Keep your excellent comments coming in, as WTF does enjoy them, as well as your suggestions for It’s Got To Go and let us meet again next Friday. Be good x
