SIgn of the Lion

Have I forgotten about you?

Never!

I shall publish my weekly post tomorrow. 

Why?

Because today is....

My birthday!

What's in a Name?

This post revolves around a Shebug whose dry cut opinions aired on ITV's This Morning show sent far-reaching ripples as far away as the Land Down Under.

She is direct, ruthless and logical, like a man – her words, not mine. The mouth lacking a strainer belongs to a Ms Katie Hopkins. She is British, blonde, and a thirty-eight year-old mother of three. This reality star might have lost out on a plumy £100,000 year  contract working for British businessman, Alan Sugar of The Apprentice. But did she shed a tear or rip out her frosted locks? Hardly: she  went off to a tropical island and flashed her enviable abs in I’m a Celebrity…Get me Out of Here instead.

Rejected by the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, and later fired by the Met Office, Katie's plan to break into the media business has manifested big time. In true Shebug style, not even the country's general loathing of her vituperative tongue gets through her well-oiled plumage. She's having way too much fun raising everybody else's dander doing the talk show circuit. Her latest gaffe aired on ITV's This Morning had my eyes glued to the television.

If you think it’s because of her open dislike of people with ginger hair (Brit-speak for redheads), or because she says that working mothers over a size eight are lazy and are too fat to work, think again. Her latest uncensored stream of verbal consciousness sent mild-mannered television host, Holly Willoughby, and a studio guest, into a tizzy. Co-presenter, Phillip Schofield, did his very best to contain the sudden flare up. But it wasn't easy. 

Katie is a self-confessed snob. Sparks erupted in the studio when she announced that she judged her children’s classmates based on their first names. To her, little ones named Tyler or Chardonnay, Brandon or Kylie, are to be avoided in the playground because  they smell of 'working class' to her snotty nostrils. They are guaranteed to be bad students, according to Ms Hopkins, who will never amount to much. 

Names taken from nature or indicating a geographical location, also fall under her ax. This swift method allows Katie to cut to the chase with a surgeon's detachment and decide whether a child qualifies as socially desirable or not in seconds flat. No waffling for this Shebug: life is either black or white; the only shades of grey she knows may only exist within the pages of a book. 

Ms Hopkins blanked out on the fact that she named her own daughters Poppy and India. At that point, she could have been excused for experiencing early menopause. But when asked about judging children’s sir names (Brit-speak for last names), she claims that she doesn’t know any of them. 

This is an indication that Ms Hopkins suffers from Alzheimer’s or is an alien masquerading as a mummy. Here's what the Australians had to say about Katie's comments:

I know a name is just a name. But I would bet my bottom dollar that if Apple’s mummy showed up at her children's playground, Katie Hopkins would not snub the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow.

I also would wager that with a name like Grayson Perry, the image of a distinguished philanthropist, or maybe a Fortune 500 CEO would take form in her mind's eye...

Oops, she did it again!

Operation Breakfast at Tiffany's

Are diamonds truly a girl’s best friend? Apparently, not always…

A section of the FBI is busy prepping for Operation Breakfast at Tiffany’s. But this is no ‘smash & grab’ by masked thugs on motorcycles bearing axes and aggression.  This is an inside job recently discovered at iconic Tiffany & Co in New York.

The accused happens to be not just any Shebug. This time it is a ‘Corporate Creeper’. Chapter Seven in my satirical exposé, Shebug: Dissecting the Gold Digger, is dedicated to this power hungry specimen best to be avoided at all costs.

But this Corporate Creeper Shebug did a little more than step on, push out, discredit, frame, claim another’s idea or sleep her way up the corporate ladder…

Ingrid Lederhass-Okum held the position of Vice-President of Product Development at Tiffany & Co. As such, Ingrid literally held the keys to the Tiffany Treasure Trove and was able to access any piece she desired at any time. What she did not have permission to do was take permanent possession of items and then resell them to a Manhattan jeweller. I gather that somewhere along the line, after twenty years of dedication to dazzling wearable works of art, she fell under a spell and stepped into the dark side. 

Oh, how easy it would be to blame her Golum-like idée fixe for diamonds on a stingy husband who failed to provide her with highly coveted baubles…But not so fast: her very spouse acted as her accomplice in this $1.3 million heist!

A lover of all things beautiful, whether natural or man-made, I could not wait to read about the list of 165 gems Ms Lederhass-Okum selected. Feast your eyes, girls, because it looks something like this:

The couple reside in leafy Darien, Connecticut. Inside the walls of their magazine-cover home, the authorities discovered another 32 Tiffany & Co Metro diamond bracelets, each worth $10,000. 

Ingrid is charged with wire fraud and illegal interstate transport of stolen goods. She has been released after posting a $250,000 bail and has been issued travel restrictions until the courts reconvene in two week’s time. Naughty though she was, this slowly siphoning Shebug possesses impeccable taste.

The question begs which items of jewellery will she wear during her trail? 

The Vamp in the Veil

We humans are trusting by nature. And rightly so: it makes the world a nicer, more civilized place to live. Yet it is as a result of this generosity of spirit that Shebugs manage to creep and crawl onto the calm waters and soil the pond.

Their excessive boldness gene does not necessarily mean every Shebug gets to rattle our chains overtly; silicone breasts and trout lips stun most effectively, but there are a dime a dozen, frankly. For bigger ill-gained gains, more brain cells must be called into action, for this is a time 'creative camouflage' comes in very handy…

A Shebug’s goal is not always about milking a millionaire or poaching a billionaire. Her main aim is to fill her greedy coffers with as much abundance as she can, while she cans: currency, titles, corner offices, shares, jewellery and flashy cars. But property spells long term security for a leech and by amassing enough little houses in a row, she automatically garners a degree of legitimacy in the business world.

The British courts and the press are zooming their hot spotlights on a woman who goes by the name of Sara al-Amoudi. She is referred to as the Vamp in the Veil. (This ranks as an ideal disguise for a prowling London Shebug; only last month, men donning burkhas robbed of £1 million worth of watches at Selfridges...The possibilities are endless.)

The Vamp in the Veil claims to be an heiress to one of the largest fortunes. She insists on being the daughter of Sheikh Mohammed Hussein al-Amoudi, worth about £4.5 billion. But as far back as 2010, the Sheikh’s London-based spokesman said that Sara did not form part of his harem’s offspring.

Whoever she is, best beware. She comes equipped with a niqab, so you only see her green eyes and perfectly plucked brows – no more no less. Three bodyguards surround her and she needles her way up and down London streets in a chauffeur driven Rolls Royce Phanton VI. She has a penchant for alcohol, Swedish lovers, and a mobile numbers that end in 666.

Her ex-partner, from whom she siphoned off many millions, died of alcohol poisoning at the tender age of fifty. The Edinburg property developer’s portfolio was worth £25 million at the time they met.

Sara has hoarded an impressive amount of real estate for a thirty-one year old with no university credentials to show for. She owns places London’s top boroughs, West Sussex and Cornwall. It is claimed that the Shebug pulled off ‘a very accomplished fraud’ by simply convincing banks that she was a Saudi princess to secure loans, which she then used to create the illusion of astronomical wealth.

The Vamp in the Veil has since picked up the scent of fortune and easy flesh by way of the eighty-eight year old, Dominick Geoffrey Edward Browne, 4th Baron Oranmore and Browne, 2nd Baron Mereworth. Let us hope he reads the papers privately in a room equipped with a deadbolt and a Vamp-proof safe.

Meanwhile, the case continues with the Shebug’s real identity still at large. 

The Roman Lolita

I’ve recently returned from a writing sojourn in the Eternal City. Under the beating June sun, I retraced the bloodstained steps of Rome’s most infamous Shebugs: Valeria Messalina.

Marc Anthony was her great grandfather and her father, high ranking consul, Valerius Messalla Barbatus. Her noble birth garnered an even deeper luster no sooner the fifteen-year old Shebug became a member of Caligula’s household - by way of marriage. 

Her husband, the much older, physically disabled and simple-minded Tiberius Claudius Caesar, assumed the unexpected leadership of Rome when his tyrannical nephew, Caligula, was stabbed to death thirty times on Palatine Hill as a result of a plan hatched by the Praetorian Guard and Roman Senate. Valeria Messalina stepped into her new role of consort in no time at all.

The fifteen-year old bride, Tiberius’ third wife, possessed good looks and took lovers early on in their marriage. But Claudius, smitten and bewitched by the Roman Lolita, pandered to her every whim. Valeria’s debauched conduct became the talk of the town head when she challenged a prostitute-and came out the victor. Valeria even sent one of Claudius’ favourite nieces who was apparently highly skilled in the art of seduction, packing into exile and later terminated in an odd fit of jealousy. But Claudius turned a blind eye.

In ridding themselves of the despotic Caligula, the Romans hoped to secure figureheads that were beyond reproach. Despite his crippled physique, mild-mannered Claudius fit the bill - but his much younger wife did not. 

But did she care? Not a fig.

Valeria’s venom flowed alongside blood on every road leading to Rome. Anyone who opposed the Empress Shebug lost their lands and many their lives. She plotted and counter-plotted. Her inglorious greed became unmasked when she brought trumped up charges against a leading senator whose beautiful lands she coveted. Claudius believed her false accusations, which lead to the respected politician’s death. And so, the fabled Gardens of Lucullus came  into Valeria’s dirty little hands.

The unassailable Shebug ranks as the first century AD Mafia Mother of all Mothers: she sold her influence to anyone rich enough to buy it in exchange for imperial favours. But it was when she fell for the most handsome man in Rome, Cauis Silius, that Valeria Messalina crossed the proverbial Rubicon…

The young consul-delegate succumbed to the Emperor's in the hopes that the infatuation would die down and that he would be replaced by another paramour. Instead, Valeria all but handed over the empire to Silius – slaves, freeman, furniture…you name it.

Public opinion of the Emperor dropped to a new low so Messalina tricked her husband into a temporary divorce so he could save face. But as soon as Claudius granted his overindulged Empress her freedom, she shocked the citizens of Rome and wed Silius without delay.

The insult to the scorned Emperor became too heavy to shoulder. Reduced to putty by his courtiers, he had no choice but to order Valeria's execution to demonstrate some semblance of strength. Centurions were immediately dispatched; not even the wedding attendees were spared the rod. Cornered, Messalina tried to end her own life which was viewed as more dignified in ancient times, but failed miserably.

Armed with the Romans Republic’s full backing, the centurions’ blades of justice exterminated the despotic Shebug... in the Garden of Lucullus.