Hallo Readers,
One of WTF’s favourite movie moments is in a Neil Simon movie from 1975 called The Prisoner of 2nd Avenue starring Jack Lemmon and Anne Bancroft (click the link and go forward to 1 minute 45). Lemmon is having a breakdown as a result of losing his job. He comes home one day only for his wife (Bancroft) to tell him that they have been robbed. “What do you mean robbed?” he asks. She explodes. “Robbed! Robbed! What does ‘robbed’ mean? They come in and they take things out. You used to have them and now they’ve got them. They used to be yours, now they’re theirs. We’ve been robbed!” And that’s how WTF feels about Royal Mail. We used to have it and now they’ve got it. It used to be ours, now it’s theirs. We’ve been robbed.
In the many cock-ups involving Governments selling off the family silver, this one takes some beating. The taxpayer pumped zillions of pounds into Royal Mail only for Call Me Dave and his Business Secretry Vince Cable to announce, at extremely short notice, that they would be flogging it off. With the benefit of shite advice from Useless, Useless and Useless at a total cost of some £12.7m (our £12.7m) 16 potential buyers were approached and in effect were invited to indicate what price they would be prepared to pay. Unsurprisingly they all indicated that Royal Mail was not worth much, assuring Vince that £2 60 – £3 30 a share was the top whack, that they would not pay a penny more and that neither would anyone else. Rather than bartering them up, you know, like you do in negotiations or better still putting the shares up for a blind auction, Vince duly set the price at £3 30 so that these 16 buyers could provide a stable ownership for the new company. The shares increased by 38% on the first day of trading last October with the buyers busily flogging them off to hedge funds and they are now worth £5 65. It’s a result but not alas for the taxpayer. This week the National Audit Office reported that the sale was undervalued by £750m. Which, Readers, is a lot.
Vince once referred to hedge funds as “spivs and gamblers”. Yet the hedge funds now have the bulk of the shares, having purchased them from the very financial bigwigs and institutions in whom Vince placed his trust. However, he is unrepentant, describing the fuss as “a good deal of froth” – which is the nearest either he or the taxpayer have got to a good deal in this fiasco. Time was when politicians used to resign over stuff like this but now no one takes responsibility for anything, not even a cockup which any fucking idiot, apart of course from Messers Useless, Useless and Useless and members of Her Majesty’s Government, saw coming a mile off. Quite apart from the undervalue, when we sell off public utilities certain consequences follow as night follows day. They stop being run for the benefit of the public and start being run for the benefit of the aforesaid spivs and gamblers so deplored by our Business Secretary. The prices go up exponentially (utility companies, anyone?). The service levels fall in proportion to the rise in the prices. They used to be ours, now they’re theirs. And they sure as hell aren’t interested in our benefit.
From one set of disasters to another, starting with film producer Trudie Styler, aka Mrs Sting, looking frightful at the Empire Film Awards in London.
The ruching. The lace see-through skirt. The ridiculous leather fingerless gloves. The red shoes. All very bad. But the very worst thing is that prolapse ribbon, which looks as if something has slipped out.
We now meet actor Jeremy Piven aka Mr Selfridge dressed not so much casually as catastrophically.
Yurgle. WTF is sorry to say this but he looks like a prat. She is undecided what is worse – the baker’s boy hat or the ever-so-snug jeans jacket or the voluminous sweat pants or the flip flops (thongs to you Aussie Readers). Ghastly. And that is kind.
Here we are in Leicester Square for the premiere of Noah and one of its stars Jennifer Connolly wearing Alexander McQueen. Note the watery carpet. Noah. Geddit?
They say a picture speaks a thousand words. That rock is a fashion critic. As WTF noted at the time on @WTF_EEK (look, we keep having this conversation…..) she looks like a yeti hiding in a rosebush.
It’s Rita Ora. Again. This time wearing Roberto Cavalli.
The skirt has been caught in the shredder and the dead poodle draped around her shoulders cannot disguise the tits squished in tighter than a camel’s backside in a sandstorm. Memo to Rita – Daphne Guinness wants her hair back.
This week’s target on It’s Got To Go is smoking. WTF is biased. Two of her grandparents and her brother died from lung cancer and she also coughs to being a former smoker with all the smug zeal of the reformed. But why the hell are people still doing it in 2014? On Thursday the Health Minister stood up in the House of Commons to announce draft regulations to ban branded fag packets. Some Tory MPs nearly had a seizure. Sir Gerald Howarth MP denounced this latest example of the Nanny State and the interference with people’s right to choose what to do with their lives. Interestingly, this is the same Sir Gerald who loudly denounced the introduction of equal marriage as a stepping stone for “aggressive homosexuals”. In Sir Gerald’s world, people should have the freedom to kill themselves and others (WTF’s grandmother did not smoke but was probably smoked to death first by her husband and then by her son-in-law) but they should not have the freedom to commit themselves publicly to a stable relationship. Work that one out.
We continue with a newcomer to this post, German actress Eva Habermann at The Echo Music Awards in Berlin. WTF would love to tell you what Eva is wearing but sadly she has no idea.
A leather dress with Robbie Williams’ face on it and a tail worn with nude fishnet tights and sparkly shoes is downright unnerving, as if Robbie had been beamed onto her chest from Outer Space. Mind you, the way Robbie behaves that is entirely possible.
Here is burlesque artiste Dita von Teese, née Heather Renée Sweet, wearing Maria Lucia Hohan. Three names, it seems, are mandatory.
Admittedly, one does not expect a burlesque artiste to cover up like Mother Teresa of Calcutta but it takes a certain genius to design a dress for the most perfect pair of tits in showbiz and make them look awkward in an ill-fitting bodice which looks as if it has been stuck to her with industrial strength glue. The whole thing is just tacky.
Finally we encounter former TOWIE “star” Lauren Goodger wearing a onesie by The Boutique. This has got to be the worst £90 anyone has ever spent.
The orange plastic tits spilling forth are bad enough, not to mention the cameltoe and the split seam in her left leg. But all that is as nothing in comparison with what lies behind.
Lauren has nothing to commend her in terms of looks, brains, talent or personality and so has to prompt the interest of The Daily Mail either by tweeting endlessly about her intent to lose weight, an aim hitherto unrealised, or by wearing ghastly outfits. This piece of translucent tat shows us more than we would ever want to see and makes her legs look like a couple of over-stuffed sausages left too long on the BBQ.
OK Readers, that’s your lot for this week. Keep those comments coming in and your suggestions for It’s Got To Go and let us meet again next Friday. Be good x
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