THE GREAT LEVELLER

WHEN IT comes to vulgarity, mine is of the highest taste and I indulged it to the full by buying a copy of the first 1994 edition of Hello magazine.

The difference between me and the unknown woman in County Cork, who shares a similar passion, is minimal. She rang the editor to enquire where she might buy drapes exactly like those hanging in the drawing room of a junior member of the British aristocracy – whereas I used a magnifying glass to decipher the brand name on the pack of biscuits lying on the table of Elizabeth Taylor’s kitchen. Some of us want to copy the rich, famous and high born; others just want to know what kind of lives they lead, down to the last detail of what they eat for breakfast.

The real joy of reading Hello is its confirmation that between piss and shit are we conceived and born and all the perfumes of Arabia cannot wipe out the stains on a family’s escutcheon. To that end, the exclusive pictures of Donald Trump’s wedding to Marla Maples, in the latest edition, provided the ultimate thrill of schadenfreude. (Pleasure in another’s misfortunes, in case you don’t speak German or need a boost to socialist morale.)

Mr Trump, the New York millionaire tycoon, has just married for the second time. He proved to be as mundane as other mere mortals in that he invited both families to the nuptials. Thankfully they all accepted and the photographs are a foul-mouthed, mean-minded, mentally-shallow person’s joy. They shall have pride of place in the reading rack of my toilet.

Mr Trump’s mother is a freeze-dried replica of Barbara Cartland, step-grandmother of Princess Diana. To his credit, and the undying shame of Queen Elizabeth who kept Ms Cartland away from her boy‘s wedding, Donald had his mammy up there, up front, in the first row.

She wore a low-cut, off-the-shoulder ballgown. She should be given free life tenancy in her pick of retirement homes in Florida where it is firmly held that age shall not wither nor custom stale the infinite variety of ghoulish horror up to which a geriatric can get.

PRESERVED EGGS

Donald’s family is civilised compared to Marla’s. In her front row, Marla placed her paternal stepgrandmother, Patsy Maples, who, as you can figure out having given the matter a full hour’s thought, is her father’s father’s second wife. Also there were her mother and stepmother, and her father and stepfather. All the women had orchids tied to their wrists and nameplates were doubtless stapled onto everybody’s back to help sort out the various monkeys hanging off the family trees.

The only person missing was Donald and Marla’s first baby, which was born just before the marriage as is the modern custom, but otherwise the occasion was conducted in strict accord with traditional practice: nineteen interlocking wedding-cakes were baked for the occasion, so that all involved and absent cousins at the third remove could have a wee bit as a take-home memento.

Donald and Marla exchanged wedding rings, of course. The rich, as we see, are not that different, but it occurs to this columnist that the day is coming when another love-token will be devised for those who can afford to indulge the cherished values of the extended family.

We’re nowhere near the breaking point of that particular piece of stretched elastic, mark my words. Remember that you read it here first: howsabout two little his and hers boxes of the preserved eggs of the aborted female foetus which, for whatever reason – even the rich have their problems in that department – could not be brought to full term while awaiting the divorce that would allow re-marriage?

Such eggs, as you know, can now be re-used and hey presto, aborted baby Jane’s offspring becomes Jane’s mother’s daughter or son. all you gotta do is label the box carefully (use superglue) and stick it in the fridge at home. Pop the contents back into the womb after the second marriage and what we have here, on this our wedding night, is nothing more or less than the abolition of abortion. Enter the era of the deferred pregnancy.

Hello helps you to think like that. Great little magazine.