On famous people as influencers.

I don’t read Vogue magazine. In fact, I don’t read such magazines at all except when I go to the hairdresser’s. So I am unlikely to read the one guest-edited by Meghan Markle. It’s one of those odd things: if you are famous for one reason or another you have the ability to edit magazines, news programmes, television programmes or almost anything at all. If I were a professional in those fields I might be a little insulted.

Of course I know that the famous people concerned must get a lot of help and really just put their names to it in the end, but still ... they get credited with skills that they almost certainly don’t have. Poor Meghan, of course, has received a lot of stick before her edition is even out on sale. She chose the wrong women to highlight! She is showing false modesty by NOT agreeing to appear in the cover of Vogue herself! After all, her sister-in-law displayed no such false modesty or self abasement. All of these things that Meghan does wrong! The mind boggles! But then Kate is much better at accepting/adopting the role of model-royal. It must be remembered, however, that Kate has a good chance of being queen one day and so must knuckle down. Meghan has no such future ahead of her. Consequently she can be Fergie to Kate’s Diana - well, sort of!

Anyway, speaking for myself, I am just a little fed up of hearing about how good these famous people are at advising us on life-style. And now it seems that Meghan has been involved in creating a collection of women’s work clothes. She has been working with a number of designers and big stores on “her own capsule collection of classic options for a workwear wardrobe” for Smart Works, apparently an organisation supporting unemployed women in dressing and preparing for job interviews, of which the duchess is the royal patron.

“We have seen time and time again how finding the right clothes for women when they come for their first interview outfit makes a huge difference – you see the shoulders go back, the head held high, the huge smile on their face,” says Kate Stephens, the CEO of Smart Works. “We are hugely grateful to the duchess for driving this capsule collection, and to the generosity of the brands involved. It will make a huge difference to thousands of women’s lives across the UK.”

However did I manage to dress myself for interviews and for the workplace without such people to help me? Oh, don’t get me wrong. I am not really knocking such organisations but there is a cynical bit of me that feels that maybe they are a vehicle to let some people make some money and a name for themselves. And of course the Duchess of Sussex, now that she will almost certainly not be able/permitted to act again, has to have some kind of occupation. And now that her husband has declared that, for the sake of the environment, they plan to have only two children, she’s not really going to be a full-time mum for ever.

Here’s an aside for the royal-family-feud watchers: is that decision an unspoken criticism of William and Kate with their three offspring? Then again the whole charade could be seen an yet another way of keeping people happy. Nothing like a bit of royal gossip to keep the bread and circuses routine going!

By the way, here are some statistics about why it is good to have only two children, or indeed only one, or none at all:-

“Research from Lund University in Sweden found that by choosing to have one less child, a parent would reduce their CO2 emissions by 58.6 tonnes a year during their lifetime; over 25 times more than from any other action. Getting rid of the car, avoiding long-haul flights and going vegetarian are all well and good, but these actions, say the researchers, save very small amounts of CO2 in comparison with having one less child.”

There’s more where that came from:- “Over a lifetime, the average British-born babe will emit up to 150 times more CO2 than one born in Ethiopia.”

There you go. Our daughter, about to have her fifth child, is clearly an environmental disaster!