The huge baby Trump protest balloon, allowed by London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, to float above Westminster during Donald Trump’s visit next week is childish, pointless… and absolutely brilliant.
There’s an argument that all the protests planned around Trump’s visit, including the wailing, nappy-clad baby, are going to achieve precisely nothing, zip, zero, zilch. But is that true? One hears that Trump has already put together an itinerary that carefully avoids the capital (and baby Trump and the London protests) as much as possible – a significant response from one of the biggest attention-junkies going.
Even Trump’s supporters (including a certain Nigel Farage, still frantically trying to signal his devotion from the cheap seats) would have to admit that he has less of a presidential mentality and more of a showman/celebrity one – which is a polite way of saying that Trump is one painfully needy White House Barnum. Yet a sly and realistic one too. If he couldn’t get his public validation high, as Obama did on his visits, he’d have settled for the synthetic PR-methadone of an orchestrated show of establishment acceptance. Now Trump can’t go anywhere in central London without his cry-baby avatar bobbing mockingly in the background. A man like that, so thin-skinned he’s translucent – in the right light, it’s rumoured that you can see Trump’s internal organs jostling about – it will be killing him.
Some might argue that however Trump behaves, his office should remain respected. Moreover, that it’s crucial not to stoop to his level. In Zen terms: we cannot control this terrifying narcissist’s behaviour, but we can control ours. (And so endeth the liberal lesson, amen). Usually, I’d agree – you stoop; you don’t conquer – but, at the moment, every time I close my eyes, I see frightened refugee children in cages, crying for their parents, and, suddenly, just like that, a giant comedy balloon doesn’t seem like the very worst thing that can happen to a person.
To be practical, Trump is unlikely to be back in the UK on a big political visit in the near future, so this is our chance. So what if the protests achieve nothing? Most protests don’t necessarily change things, especially not overnight. That’s not the point. It’s about making voices heard, speaking up, showing up, getting a bit of pride back, some fire in the belly. And if there’s some mischief in the mix, then that’s all the more British – because isn’t this all so quintessentially us? No fighting, violence, threats, just a huge cheeky piss-take balloon, a display of defiance that is as peaceful and humorous as it is pointed and effective.
And one that I hope generates loads of international news coverage that might inspire other countries to follow suit. In fact, I can visualise baby Trump going on international tour, like a swaggering (well, bobbing), latex, helium-filled rock star – appearing wherever Trump visits, just by sheer coincidence, mind. Bring on baby Trump – even a big silly balloon is better than doing nothing.
At last, I can learn to use my phone before it’s obsolete
Mobile phone technology may have stalled. It’s becoming difficult to add technology while keeping the phones sufficiently cooled. This problem also affects laptops, and a possible solution involves some kind of heat-dissipating crystal.
Frankly, I don’t understand any of it, and I’m not even sure that I care. At the risk of sounding like one of those Victorians who looked at the penny-farthing and mused, “Technology can’t get any better than this!” perhaps a mobile phone tech-breather wouldn’t be so bad.
I’m not even sure that I’m properly using the smartphone I have right now. Some of us (I mean, me) daren’t even press those update-thingies, in case something else appears on the phone that we don’t understand. I must have postponed the latest update more than 20 times now, which is probably going to may end in disaster. “Nah, you’re OK, update-alert, I’m fine as I am. Ta very much though!” A few days later: “Hey, why doesn’t my phone work anymore?… Goddammit!… You never got any of this with those old Nokias!”
The only people a slowdown might upset are the tech gurus who must look forward to their time in the limelight, swanning around onstage, in black polo-neck jumpers, launching new products with all the pomp and ceremony of people who’ve simultaneously discovered a new inhabitable planet only an hour’s space-travel away, and discovered the cure for cancer. When, in fact, the “exciting new developments” usually amount to a few new emojis, an inferior battery life, a new plug socket, so you have to keep buying new plugs, and a slightly different size so that none of your covers fit any more. What price progress?
So, perhaps it’s not devastating if technology stalls while they work out how to prevent phones exploding in people’s hands. It may even stop tech gurus pushing their luck with pointless new products.
It’s dangerous to dissect any marriage, even if it is the Beckhams
The photos and footage of David and Victoria Beckham’s body language at a recent school sports day seemed like manipulation – an obvious attempt to paint a picture of their marriage being as rocky as rumoured. And it worked on me.
The images were predominantly of Victoria hugging and smiling, while David was stiff, seemingly unresponsive. Seeing them, I winced. Here was the everyday agony of someone trying and failing to get another person’s attention. Not even romantic attention, just normal casual interaction, but still failing to get it – arguably the biggest “tell” that a relationship is in terminal decline.
However, life is full of moments. What if the cameras had been focusing at another point of the same day when it was David who was all over Victoria, and she was distracted? Perhaps the Beckhams are feeling generally self-conscious in public these days to the point where acting normally feels abnormal.
And if the Beckhams are having marital problems, wouldn’t it be kindest to leave them alone to get on with it? Sometimes pictures don’t paint a thousand words. It all depends on how they’re filtered – and I’m really not talking about the camera.
• Barbara Ellen is an Observer columnist
