2. Mamdani's snow shovelers and the 2-ID requirement.
3. Trump's re-tariffing gimmick.
4. Our war with Iran.
5. Photograph of Prince Andrew.
I'm not judging these stories to be inconsequential. I just have nothing to add, nothing that fits my approach to blogging anyway. I like them as items to list. The list signifies that I feel some pressure. They're nagging at me. But I'm resisting. Feel free to talk about them in the comments. They're actually all good topics. I'm just not feeling the value of my own yammering on them. Maybe you think I've already said too much, what with that one word.
"Gimmick" is "Originally U.S. slang," according to the OED, which defines it like this: "A gadget; spec. a contrivance for dishonestly regulating a gambling game, or an article used in a conjuring trick; now usually a tricky or ingenious device, gadget, idea, etc., esp. one adopted for the purpose of attracting attention or publicity."
The oldest appearance of the word is an entry in the 1926 "Wise-crack Dictionary": "Gimmick, device used for making a fair game crooked."
The Thames Valley Police said in a statement that it had “arrested a man in his sixties from Norfolk on suspicion of misconduct in public office and are carrying out searches at addresses in Berkshire and Norfolk.”
As British law requires, the police did not name the suspect, but the details provided in the police report match what is known about the public misconduct allegations. The police were seen on Thursday morning at the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, England, where Mr. Mountbatten-Windsor is living.
"... rejecting cheaper alternatives, while telling everyone he was a great ambassador for us all? And then being so indiscreet and arrogant in front of senior diplomats that onlookers couldn’t believe he would 'speak so openly' about matters of great sensitivity? One consul, on being asked to provide 'blondes,' said: 'I’m a diplomat, not a pimp.'... [N]o one in the Palace would want to tell Her Majesty that in Bangkok her second son had been sent 40 prostitutes. But she must have known about the cash, because when things got really bad, she was the one who bailed them out.... She showered them with gifts, money, land, yet it was never enough. What was she thinking? Nothing, clearly — Andrew’s faults were simply beyond her imagination...."
Why did Andrew have a puppet of himself? Was this sex paraphernalia that he brought to the encounter? No. Epstein and Maxwell gave Andrew a puppet — a very ugly caricature of himself — from TV show "Spitting Image."
But I read it and now you don't have to. I read it because I wanted to find an actual "pussy" quote from Trump. Short answer: There isn't one!
There's a new book, by Andrew Lownie, "Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York," and "pussy" is Lownie's word. If 2 men are having a conversation about sex with women, in Lownie's style, it's a conversation about pussy. Maybe the men used that word too, but I'm not seeing any quotes, and also, what difference does it make?!
She was one of the first women to publicly accuse Epstein, who died by suicide in 2019 in a New York detention facility awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges....
They keep using that word. Without scare quotes.
"Giuffre told the Miami Herald in 2019.... that she had confided in Epstein and Maxwell about being sexually abused as a child and running away from home. 'They seemed like nice people so I trusted them, and I told them I’d had a really hard time in my life up until then,' Giuffre said."
Meanwhile, last month, Giuffre wrote on Instagram that a school bus had hit her car and that she only had 4 days to live. Giuffre and her husband had separated and were fighting over custody of their children Christian, Noah, and Emily.
The rare moment of pathos was provided by the Ascension Choir, a selection of gospel singers from England, belting “Alleluia (O Clap Your Hands)” and swaying. You could almost see Meghan, whose 2018 wedding to Harry also famously included gospel music, smiling victoriously as the sun began to rise in southern California. (Perhaps she’s even pajama-clad on Oprah’s sofa for a watch party?)
AND: Visions of those who are on the outs but were in there nonetheless (and what they wore):
"... to remind the world what a magnificent monarch she has been, and what a great institution she heads.
But if Andrew had persisted in trying to fight his case, the cascade of humiliating details that would have erupted about his sex life, and his long-time friendship with sex offenders, would have wrecked all that goodwill.
Doubtless, [plaintiff's lawyer David] Boies would have quizzed Andrew specifically about conversations he’s had with the Queen about the allegations. The prospect of Her Majesty being dragged into this repulsive sewer at the age of 95, with all the salacious global headlines that would have inevitably ensued, was an outrageous, totally unacceptable situation which could have inflicted terminal damage on the Monarchy....
There can be no way back to any form of public life for the Queen’s second, and some say favourite, son.
He must be immediately stripped of all remaining titles and privileges that come with being a Prince and despatched [sic] to the ignominious obscurity that his appalling behaviour demands."
What is cowardly about sacrificing his right to defend himself, spending a great deal of money, and withdrawing into obscurity for the sake of the Queen? It sounds as though Morgan is miffed at that he won't get the spectacle of a public trial with all the gory details and royal squirming that he'd been hankering after.
Friends of Andrew say he has been doing “a lot of thinking and work on himself”.... There is much more thinking to be done as Andrew, who once described himself as “an ideas factory”, contemplates a permanent retirement devoid of flummery. Some in royal circles believe a safe option would be for him to run one of the Queen’s estates. Others, including the royal historian Hugo Vickers, think he should devote himself to a life of charitable rehabilitation.
“Prince Andrew needs to start up an animal sanctuary and work there, Profumo-style,” Vickers said. “The British love animals.”
Retirement devoid of flummery... "Flummery" is one of those words that gets my attention. Oddly enough, I have a tag for "flummery." I'm not sure how that happened. My favorite word is "flummox," as I've mentioned a few times on this blog. And yet I don't have a tag for "flummox," only for "flummery." It makes you wonder, what is flum? Is it like phlegm?
As I've discussed before — here — the OED calls the word "flummox" colloquial or vulgar and suggests it's onomatopoeic, "expressive of the notion of throwing down roughly and untidily."
But what about "flummery"? That's not connected to "flummox." According to the OED, "flummery" originates as the name of a food — a "coagulation of wheatflour or oatmeal." From there, it got figurative: "Mere flattery or empty compliment; nonsense, humbug, empty trifling" or "Trifles, useless trappings or ornaments."
Andrew B Brettler, who represents Andrew, 61, will argue that by including a reference to “royalty” in [the lawsuit that was settled, Giuffre] made the duke a potential co-conspirator, and that therefore he is covered by the terms of the release.
To use the legal term: Is Andrew a "third party beneficiary" of the release?
"Where are the people — sorry, men — who flocked to 'Paedophile Island' and flew on the 'Lolita Express'? The grotty liggers who turned up because they knew he had an unquenchable supply of young, willing women? The pervert bankers who took holidays in his waterfront mansion? The celebs who partied with underage models but 'saw nothing'? The most any single man except Epstein himself has suffered in connection with this case is the mild embarrassment of being snapped with him or, as in the case of Donald Trump, once making the mistake of saying he was a 'terrific guy.' And what will Maxwell get? She could get 65 years.
We know, obviously, about Prince Andrew, a terminally fat-fingered chaffering drongo who is slowly being comically lost in the snaky coils of Epstein’s former towel girl Virginia Roberts Giuffre. Will he ever end up in court? Who cares?"
I agree with the substance of this piece. That's why I'm quoting it. That said, I'd like to talk about grotty liggers and chaffering drongo. Those are 4 great words, and I only know "grotty" — short for "grotesque." So let's research.
It turns out that "liggers" are people who "lig," and "to lig" — which is a dialect variant of "to lie" — means "To idle or lie about (colloquial); also (slang), to sponge, to ‘freeload’; to gatecrash or attend parties." That's according to the OED, which gives us the quotes "It's a time for ligging in the streets and doing your thing, man" (1969) and "The Feelgoods, now ligging and gigging around America" (1976).
So, yes, obviously, these were grotty liggers.
By the way, the OED cites "A Hard Day's Night" as the first recorded use of "grotty": "'I wouldn't be seen dead in them. They're dead grotty.’ Marshall stared. ‘Grotty?’ ‘Yeah—grotesque.’"
On to chaffering drongo. To "chaffer" is to bargain or haggle. And to call someone a "drongo" — originally a type of bird — is to say they are a stupid fool. Fine to say that about Andrew, but it's a bit unfair to disparage the bird, which seems rather smart:
"'There is no way in the world he’s ever coming back, the family will never let it happen,' says a royal source. 'William is no fan of Uncle Andrew,' says a friend of the Duke of Cambridge.
Another source close to William says that one of the 'triggers' that 'really gets him' about Andrew is his uncle’s perceived 'ungracious and ungrateful' attitude towards his position, which William considers 'a risk' and 'threat to the family.'... One of Andrew’s problems is that he is not very popular. Mention his name in royal circles and courtiers roll their eyes. As one former aide explains: 'He’s not made any friends on the way up, so no one is helping him on the way down.' One Whitehall source describes him as 'a self-important bore.' A military source who has dealt with Andrew on several engagements does not mince words: 'I’ve got no time for Andrew. He’s a total dickhead, an arrogant shit.'"
Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein's accusers, claimed she was forced to have sex with the prince three times....
Speaking to BBC Newsnight's Emily Maitlis, the prince said: "It didn't happen. I can absolutely categorically tell you it never happened."... He said Ms Giuffre's account of him "profusely sweating" and "pouring with perspiration" when they danced at the club on the night in 2001 when she says they first had sex was impossible, because he had a medical condition preventing him from perspiring....
"I have a peculiar medical condition which is that I don't sweat or I didn't sweat at the time," he said, blaming it on "an overdose of adrenaline in the Falklands War". He said he had only started to be able to sweat again "in the recent past".
ADDED: My headline is a little off. I said that he said that he cannot sweat — present tense — but he can sweat now. He just couldn't sweat at the time he's accused of having sweated. So he says.
ALSO: From another BBC article, this one asking a "royal commentator" (Dickie Arbiter) why Prince Andrew did this terrible interview: "My guess is that he bulldozed his way in and decided he was going to do it himself without any advice. Any sensible-thinking person in the PR business would have thrown their hands up in horror at the very suggestion that he puts himself up in front of a television camera to explain away his actions and his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein." Arbiter also tweeted (with a glaring grammar mistake): "If #PrinceAndrew thinks he's drawn a line in the sand over the #Epstein saga he's in cuckoo land. Whomever advised he did this interview ought to collect his/her P45."
I had to look up P45: "In the United Kingdom and, until 1 January 2019 in the Republic of Ireland, a P45 is the reference code of a form titled Details of employee leaving work. The term is used in British slang and Irish slang as a metonym for termination of employment. (The equivalent slang term in the United States is pink slip.)"
A "royal biographer" (Angela Levin) is also quoted: "Unfortunately it was a sign of his arrogance. He has always been arrogant. The Queen's motto is don't complain don't explain. I think in her heart she will be extremely embarrassed. I know for a fact Prince Andrew does not listen to his advisers."
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