We had to get up and close the window again in the small hours of this morning. It was actually raining in! The rain and wind have continued on and off today. No running along the prom. Further south, in places like Caiscais and Nazaré, they have been having phenomenally high waves. People have been turning out to watch, of course! With all this rain and wind it feels like a storm to me. The weather is certainly worse than we experienced in the Northwest of England in the fairly recent named storm. So why have I not found this current weather, with its yellow and orange alerts, named as a storm? Life is full of mysteries.
Christmas is fast approaching. Marks and Spencer, John Lewis, Barbour have released their Christmas adverts, designed to make us either go kAah! How cute!’ or throw up on the spot! Here in Figueira they were putting up Christmas lights the other day - not yet lit - and shops are playing Christmas music!
One of the consequences of buying stuff online is that companies then have your email address and bombard you with emailed adverts. One of the latest I have received is from Gap, who are advertising matching pyjamas for the whole family. Our daughter likes to buy matching pyjamas for her children, especially at Christmas. It was a little odd to see the little ones in last year’s Christmas pyjamas in September and October but there it is.
Surely matching pyjamas only have a point if you like to sit as a family watching a movie in your jimjams! With popcorn! Neither of which appeal to me. But then, even when I was working it never appealed to me to change into my pyjamas for the evening when I returned home from my daily commute.
The best/oddest/most amusing part of all in the Gap advert was pyjamas for dogs! For £25 your dog can join you and match you watching a movie … with popcorn … and dog treats, I suppose.
And for another £25 your dog can have this cosy hoodie!
Friends and family know full well that I am not pets-person. I shudder at the idea of being woken by a cat leaping onto my bed! Or a dog sitting cuddled up next to me on the sofa! But I am aware that some people think that such things are quite charming.
New York has a new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, Democrat, immigrant of Indian Muslim descent - goodness! Trump is not best pleased. But it’s not Mr Mamdani but Mrs Mamdani who interests me at the moment. Rama Duwaji, an artist, becomes New York’s First Lady and as such is featured in this fashion article. Because every male politician these days has to have a First Lady.
It has always struck me as a very American thing. President’s wives are given quite important roles. In the UK we never used to see much of the spouses of PMs. Mrs Wilson kept a low profile. We knew who Denis Thatcher was but he wasn’t involved in policy. Then along came Cameron and his missis appeared with him all the time. In France I think it was Carla Bruni, Mrs Sarkozy, who set the trend for Première Dame.
As far as I know, And Burnham seems to run Greater Manchester without an obvious First Lady.
Is there a Signore Meloni to accompany Giorgia? Research tells me she was in a relationshipmwoth a TV journalist Andrea Giambruno, with whom she had a daughter, but he and La Meloni parted company in 2023.
There you go.
First ladies and feminist ladies. Here’s a little anecdote about the actress Lily Tomlin, an actress worth watching:
“In 1973, Lily Tomlin made feminist history with a bold move on The Dick Cavett Show. When fellow guest Chad Everett casually referred to his wife as "the most beautiful animal I own," Tomlin stood up mid-show and walked off the set. No shout, no lecture—just a silent act of defiance that spoke volumes. "I couldn’t sit there and smile while he called his wife an animal he owned," Tomlin later said.”
Hurrah for Ms Tomlin.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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