Would you want to be a princess? Before you go misty-eyed at the thought of sparkly tiaras and swirly ball gowns; and having designers at your beck and call; and never having to brave a changing-room mirror; and having a hairdresser by your side at the slightest hint of humidity frizz; think twice.
Being a princess means a lifetime of being unable to cross your legs or rest your arms on armrests. It’s a lifetime of hands folded neatly in your lap, of sitting down with your feet to the side in a slant. A lifetime of being unable to slump on a chair after having had to stand up for hours, and a lifetime of always sitting two inches away from the back of the chair with your knees and ankles pressed together.
It’s a lifetime of having to attend lunches and dinners, making polite, preferably witty, conversation with people you have never seen before – while eating small, tiny morsels. The mouthfuls have to be miniscule enough that you can swallow them after chewing only twice, and then keep on counting so that you pause after every fourth bite to make conversation, which means, no matter how famished you are, you’ll never finish your plate (this is why you’ll never see an obese princess).
It’s a lifetime of getting in and out of cars with photographers snapping your every move. And, you can’t jump in the car right leg first – it has to be patata first – lowering yourself in the seat and somewhat swinging your legs and knees in at the same time. Also you’d have to be obsessed with waxing and laser, as any big sufa (hair) will make the front page of The Sun.
It’s a lifetime of smiling, different set of smiles: empathy smile, frowny smile, what-fun smile, even if you have period pain and what would really make you smile is hugging a hot water bottle in bed.
If you ask me, I can’t think of a worse job to be than a princess. At work, we recently published a book called Il-Kulleġġ tal-Prinċpijiet Perfetti (The College of Perfect Princes) in which the princess character doesn’t want to do princessey things but wants to become an architect. I don’t blame her. In fact I just can’t get the Disney movies – I’m sure Rapunzel was happier in her tower prison.
It’s all becoming one big celebration of gluttony now – and we’re all drowning in the hideousness of it all
Having said all this, last Saturday week my daughter and I didn’t budge from the living room, to watch a woman who gave up her thriving acting career to become a princess (a duchess really, but that’s just a technicality). We sat there, watching the Royal Wedding, our backs moulded in the sofa, feet up and crossed, eating egg-mayo sandwiches in big bites, while chatting to my mother, my sister and my girlfriends over the phone. The men of the house popped their heads round every now and then, only to roll their eyes and mutter “humph is this thing still on?”
“Wah! Wait, she’s coming out of the car!” we shouted at one point, daughter and I gripping each other in excitement. “I love the dress! Do you?”, “Yes I do too!”, “Isn’t it a bit too plain?”, “Oh I love that boat neck!”, “Look at the veil!”, “Aw, the flower girls, how cute”, and on and on we went.
And we lapped it all up: the way Prince Harry gave his bride The Look; the way they held hands; the way they laughed; the straight-out-of-Sister-Act gospel choir; the movie-like archbishop.
It was, indeed, a celebration of love. And as a friend once told me, we all love a wedding, especially when the couple is visibly in love, because it makes us feel good.
I would add that we all needed this – in a world that is going topsy turvy – including the land of the Royal Family itself. At the end of the day we all want to see beautiful things – we all want to feel like the emoticon of eyes in shape of love hearts.
There is another wedding in the spotlight at the moment but this one has nothing to do with love, instead it’s about money, greed and power. I hate having to talk about this ugliness, but we must, for it’s the only way justice can prevail one day.
It’s the wedding of Ali Sadr, the owner of Pilatus Bank – not a bank at all but a guise for money laundering. The guests of honour for that wedding in Italy, back in 2015, were our Prime Minister and his chief of staff Keith Schembri, the latter having pulled all possible strings for the opening of Pilatus. (Also present was the Malta KPMG representative, Juanita Bencini, who carried out the due diligence for the licence of Pilatus, giving it the all-clear.)
Ali Sadr has since been arrested in the US, and charged with money laundering. Last week US prosecutors claimed that the money used to set up Pilatus Bank in Malta came from criminal activities in Venezuela.
There is no more doubt now that the Prime Minister’s chief of staff has an account in a criminal set-up. Plus, last year, assassinated journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia had reported that the Prime Minister’s wife was the ultimate beneficiary of some one million dollars that came from Azerbaijan and deposited in a secret Panama Company – Egrant – via Pilatus Bank. The information was denied by the Prime Minister and his wife.
But it’s all becoming one big celebration of gluttony now – and we’re all drowning in the hideousness of it all.
krischetcuti@gmail.com
Twitter: @krischetcuti