Hallo Readers,
So now we have the role of dishonour. The Grenfell inquiry named and shamed the guilty parties and it did not mince its words. The three companies responsible for the defective cladding and insulation products, Arconic, Celotex and Kinspan, behaved with “systematic dishonesty” and “engaged in deliberate and sustained strategies to manipulate the testing processes, misrepresent test data and mislead the market”. Arconic “deliberately and dishonestly concealed from the market to the true position”. It knew “the sale of the product had been obtained on the basis of the British board of Agrément certificate which it was well aware gave a misleading impression of the way the product in cassette form reacted to fire”. Kingspan engaged in “deeply entrenched and persistent dishonesty… In pursuit of commercial gain coupled with a complete disregard for fire safety… the effect… was to create a spurious market for a polymeric insulation product suitable for use on high-rise buildings generally which drew in Celotex as a competitor.” And Celotex “embarked on a dishonest scheme to mislead its customers and the wider market” and tested and marketed the insulation in a “dishonest and cynical way”. In a surprise to absolutely no one, the three companies deny dishonesty and claim that they tested and marketed their products properly. So that’s alright then. They meant well. It was just very unfortunate that what was supposed to be fire retardant turned out to be exactly the opposite, leading to the deaths of 72 residents, 18 of them children. They are awfully sorry about what happened, what with all those people dying and all, but it is nothing to do with them and that is their story and they are sticking to it. And even if you could get them over here from France and Ireland to stand trial, it will drag out for years while highly paid lawyers argue the toss. Meanwhile, in the years since the disaster, the bosses of these three companies have not donned a hair shirt and sat in ashes like the king of Nineveh. The CEO of Celotex’s French parent company raked in £11.7 million in the four years to 2021 while his successor has banked £15.8 million. The founder of Kingspan has trousered a total of £149.3 million in share sales, dividends and pay and his son has earned £26 million. Nice work if you can get it.
And there are a depressing number of incompetent, arrogant, unqualified people who contributed to this fiasco. Labour and Tory Governments ignoring the evidence the buildings were unsafe. Ministers boasting about their contribution to deregulation, as if rules dedicated to keeping people safe were to be deplored. The richest borough in London bristling at the impertinence of council tenants, many of them immigrants or from ethnic minorities, daring to raise concerns about the fire risk which was their home. The man described by the inquiry as “ill qualified” in charge of fire safety for the Tower inventing some of his experience and qualifications to do the job, Rich wankers demanding that Grenfell must be clad because it looked ugly from the windows of their £10 million mansions. Profit and hubris at the expense of people whose voice was consistently derided and ignored. This is a perfect microcosm of the society that we live in. Lots of people have said they are sorry and it will not happen again but do they really care? You only had to look at the way that the House of Commons Chamber emptied after Prime minister’s Question Time and immediately before the Prime Ministerial statement on the report to know the answer…
******************************************************************************
We start our review of the week’s dismal dresses with Momager Kris Jenner wearing head-to-toe Chanel while out and about in Paris, accompanied by her beau Corey Gamble.
WTF cannot find much fault with the shorts suit, but here’s the thing. Being a woman d’un certain age, one’s thighs tend not to be box fresh, so Kris naturally opted for tights. The trouble is, the tights she opted for are so shiny that they can probably be seen from Mars. They put WTF in mind of those beams of light they used to have in New York on 9/11 to mark the absence of the Twin Towers.
Now we are in Venice where the Film Festival trundles on and celebs various perambulate along the Rialto wearing very silly clothes, like Cuban/Italian dancer Megan Ria wearing who can even say what?
There is big and there is oversized. This left oversized back in Rome and is currently berthed at ridiculous. Further, other than a plain black bra, it is not at all clear what else Megan is actually wearing other than black boots last seen on the principal boy in Cinderella at the Cleethorpes Christmas Panto.
Next up, we meet model Eva Herzigová on the Festival Red Carpet wearing Etro.
Er… OK. She looks as if she has been tattooed like some fearsome Maori warrior.
And this is actor Kate Beckinsale at the Venice amFAR gala wearing Sabina Bilenko.
WTF likes a laugh as well as much as the next bitchy fashion piss-taker but this is tragic. Kate has been going through some stuff of late, which explains the boniness and lollipop head, but turning up in public wearing a frilled and feathered baby’s romper, a corset, an old net curtain and silver sequinned ingots on her feet is just not on. And her bag has fallen open. Is that a box of issues in there? Deodorant? Answers on a postcard please…..
Hosting the Gala was actor Eva Longoria (she popped up in WTF’s favourite show, Murders in the Building and she was funny in it) wearing Alberta Ferretti.
It is fine down to the waist and then it all goes horribly wrong with arse cheeks on show. But it is even worse from the front. Be brave now…..
It is a veritable vulvarama! Some readers, gay or straight and/or gynaecologists, may enjoy a vulva viewing but WTF is not one of them. Not even at all.
This is a newcomer, actor Emma Laird, at the Venice premiere of The Brutalist wearing Louis Vuitton.
It was baking hot this week in Venice and yet here is Emma in a corset and boots. The boots put WTF in mind of the Duke of Marlborough, he of Blenheim fame. His wife Sarah was alleged to have written to a friend “Today His Grace returned from the wars and pleasured me twice in his topboots.”
Here we are in Norway at the wedding of Princess Märtha Louise and American self-styled shaman Durek Verrett. This is not them, but two of their guests artist Harald Austad and body positivity model Margie Plus.
Blimey! Were they a Prince tribute act?
And finally, here is actor Taraji P Hensen at the launch of a new Peacock TV series Fight Night. She is wearing something by Retrofête over a pair of tits, which at least they seem to be her own.
First, WTF deplores two-tone tits almost above all things. And second, where is the rest of the outfit? Did she steal the top from the wardrobe of the late, lamented Liberace?
This week’s It’s Got To Go comes from WTF aficionado Ruth from Islington, not to mention loads of other people, who are sick to the back teeth of Noel and Liam Gallagher, the Oasis reunion, the price gouging ticket agencies, the hype and the whole bloody financial fleecing that is going on. It is being treated like the Second Coming and it is nauseating.
People spent hours online last week to get their tickets, only to find that the £150 standing tickets they wanted now cost £400+ And now it is alleged that a hotel chain has cancelled all pre-comeback-announcement hotel bookings in towns where the resurrection is happening so that they can charge another fortune for a bedroom normally a quarter of the price. Shysters. If Liam and Noel had any decency, they would refund fans half or more the inflated ticket charges. They will still make a mint, as long as they don’t kill each other within 48 hours of the first show. They’ve Got to Go.
OK Readers, that’s your lot for this week. Keep your tip top comments coming through and your splendid suggestions for It’s Got To Go. Let us meet again next Friday, Be good x