The world is a dangerous place and Trump has singlehandedly taken on the Augean task of making it safer by bombing other countries, abducting their presidents, stealing tankers and their oil and threatening Greenland.  But he might get brain freeze (not that many people will notice) if he takes a bite on that icy country as it not only has 2 dogsleds to defend itself with but also a vast reserve of snowballs.

While Trump continues to party it up to the strains of Y M C A as a backing track at his rallies, he would desperately like to play hide-the-sausage with Melania, but she has been playing hide-the-crumpet for the last 20 years ever since he destroyed her trust with a Stormy tryst whilst she was birthing what turned out to be a 6’7” gormless Donald lookalike complete with a slicked back hairstyle from the 50s.  

Currently her hide-the-crumpet tactic is like the street shell game in which you’ve got to guess under which of the three cups the prize is hidden.  In her case, she could be at Mar-a-Lago, or Trump Towers in New York, or the White House.  That’s probably the reason why Trump trashed the East Wing which was the preserve of the First Lady and so cut down on her hidey holes.

She might have been happy to stay out of the limelight, but she was probably jealous of all the money the grifting Trump grime family was squeezing out of the presidency.  Light bulb moment – make a movie about herself and get Donald to lean on his billionaire supporters to fund.  And fund it, Jeff Bezos of Amazon did. The movie cost $40m ($28m to Melania) to make and a further $35m to hype.

You would be very wrong if you thought that this movie would lift the veil of secrecy on her enigmatic past (and present); how a poor little girl from backward Slovenia managed to catch Donald’s roving eye and hold on to it; or that she was an illegal immigrant using the H-1B ‘Einstein’ visa for exceptionally gifted people; and that she falsely claimed to have an Architectural degree.  It only looks at 0.1% of her life, the 20 days leading up to Trump the Stump’s Inauguration – Melania, Twenty Days to His Story (oops, I mean History).  What a pretentious movie.  It seems that my preconceptions were not misplaced as one critic remarked that it had more costume changes than The Devil Wears Prada.  How out-of-touch since Trump’s main focus when rallying the MAGA faithful, apart from insulting all and sundry, is affordability.

To hype her movie premiere (and it seems to need all the help it can get), Melania was interviewed by the Fox Newshounds, or should I say News lapdogs.  Since Trump’s favourite song that he does an old man’s dance to is Y M C A, they asked her what her favourite song was?  Somewhat confusingly she answered in her guttural Slavic accent, “It ees also, Y ‘iM Say I.”

No more nookie for the crookie!

For many people in the world, 2025 was confusing, just like a solar eclipse is to the animal kingdom – the world was turned upside down, day became night and east became west.  Political alliances were suddenly uncertain and global trade agreements were unilaterally (quite literally) upended. 

It was all due to one man, Donald J Trump, who was somehow allowed out to cosplay again as leader of the most powerful country in the world.  Apart from a rotting brain full of petty grievances, retribution and a simplistic world view he has pursued bewildering policies with the compliant help from Conservatives who control all levers of power.  All his bizarre actions ultimately have one goal – to see his name writ large. 

And he has succeeded so far. He is definitely the most talked about person in the world.  However, his orange tan addled brain does not realise that he will not be celebrated in fame, but infamy.

Most of the changes that he sought will be largely undone.  The creative destruction that his MAGAlites wanted might yield some lasting changes like woke policies becoming a bit more rational and an end to unfettered migration.  But the scars in terms of world trade, geopolitical relationships and alliances will fundamentally change.  The US has shown that its peculiar form of horse-trading democracy cannot be trusted and its guardrails are insufficient to prevent quasi-dictatorships or worse from developing in America.  Western democracies will not lightly accept American leadership in future world affairs again. Trump’s main legacy is to irrevocably hasten the end of American hegemony and Pax America and future domination by China will be brought forward by a decade or more.

History will also denote 2025 as the year that AI stopped lurking in the shadows, so together with ongoing climate change, the world will face many challenges.  However, these along with most of Trump’s outcomes will little affect the world in 2026 beyond that which have already occurred.  Hence, 2026 will be a year of upsetting and threatening actions but largely empty rhetoric and bluster while China continues to eat America’s lunch.

Braggadocio refers to empty, arrogant boasting or proud, exaggerated talk about one’s achievements, courage, or importance, often masking insecurity. It’s characterized by showboating, swagger, and self-importance. Sounds like a perfect description of Trump on a good day.

His thing with Marilyn Monroe aside, John F Kennedy was an inspirational President for America and, as such, Congress voted after his assassination that the Performing Art Center, completed in 1958, be named in his honour – The John F Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. In any case, just being assassinated while in office normally ensures immortality, but he deserved it. As opposed to Trump, he actually fought in a vicious war, WWII, and did not use fictitious bone spurs to get out of it. He commanded a small motor torpedo boat in the ‘slot’ of the Solomon Islands and was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for his heroic actions over a period of six days in saving his crew when his boat was rammed and sunk by a Japanese destroyer.

Fast forward to his presidency. His impact on geopolitics and American self-belief was significant. On January 20, 1961, he delivered his inaugural address with the conclusion that inspired a generation with the words, “And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country. …” He never boasted about his crowd size nor did he insult his predecessors or talk about himself. Rather he was unifying and focussed on the future of America and its leadership role in the world.

After the erection of the infamous Berlin Wall, he visited West Berlin to reassure them of US support by declaring “Ich bin ein Berliner” (I am a Berliner). Although lagging behind the USSR in the space race, in 1963 he committed America to landing a man on the moon by the end of the decade which they did with five months to spare.

But his biggest achievement was staring down the Soviet Union. The nuclear arms race was becoming deadly serious when US intelligence picked up in late October 1962 that Russia intended placing nuclear missiles close offshore in Cuba. Kennedy decided on a naval blockade of Cuba and although nuclear tensions ratcheted up, he stood firm until Russia backed down. This is diametrically opposite to Trump’s craven sucking up to Russia for personal enrichment in the post-war reconstruction.

Compared to Trump, JFK was a giant yet Trump had the temerity to have his tacky name tacked onto the Memorial Center’s existing name. The only thing he has in common with JFK is the name of John. When asked about the change, he feigned surprise and pretended he had nothing to do with it. Pull the other one.

Shortly after taking office, Trump fired all the Center’s board members, and replaced them with stooges, who then voted to make him chairman of the board. He teased the name change and, although superficially nothing was happening, a lot was obviously going on behind the scenes. This is witnessed by the fact that after the Board voted for the change, the extra signage was immediately installed on 18 December 2025.

It remains to be seen whether it will remain so. The original name was conferred by an Act of Congress, hence a change to it would also need Congressional approval. In typical Trump style, thinking he is master of the universe, he acts faster than the system and then dares Congress or the legal system to overcome their inherent inertia to thwart him. Perhaps it is appropriate that Trump’s name has been attached to the Center for the Performing Arts after all, since both of Trump’s presidencies have been a gigantic over-the-top metaphorical cosplay dedicated to himself.

It is said that there are five stages of grief, but it seems as if one only needs three stages of shaming to reach the depths of one’s depravity if one is a narcissist.  This is the level Trump has reached in his latest bout of childish pettiness.  I’m talking about the Trump Arab chic touch to the colonnaded walkway that connects the White House proper to the West Wing.  It is a pleasant walk along the front face of the White House complex with Lafayette Square and the city beyond as a backdrop.  Many heads of State and other dignitaries walk along this connection.

Stage 1:  A brain fart in the ‘wee’ hours of the morning kicked off the process.  While ruminating on the state of the presidential prostate, Trump conceives a brilliant idea.  Since his brain is like a child’s that can’t abide a blank wall without scribbling on it, he decides that he will line the wall with portraits of every president mounted in his go to gold baroque frames.  Not a bad idea except that in his pathetically childish and churlish way he could not resist sticking up a picture of Biden’s autopen instead of his face.

Stage 2:  He stood back and admired his work, particularly those of himself, and felt like God after he had created Adam.  But there was something missing.  Hmm, some décor touches maybe?  This thought nagged at his wizened little brain.  In another early morning brain fart between rants on Truth Social while on the toilet waiting for his prostate to behave, it came to him.  Eureka, I have it he shrieked as he rushed into Melania’s room with his robe flapping around the Royal white bum, but Melania was hiding in her cupboard.  Undaunted, he woke up his staff and explained what was needed.  Just like the Oval Office when all the portraits had been put up, he had added his chintzy gold applique tat on spare wall space to complete his personal Garden of Eden. And so it was to be for the walkway particularly since he had some spare tat leftover from the Oval Office décor upgrade.

Stage 3:  He still was not satisfied.  Just like God who demanded that he be routinely praised and his foes demonized, He wasn’t going to wait for his MAGA flock.  He was going to take that onerous job on Himself.  He conceived putting gold lettered plaques below each portrait describing the respective Presidents.  He doubled up plaques for himself and the two that give him irritable bowel syndrome – Biden and Obama.  Naturally his eulogy of himself was straight out of some book of fables (actually his Truth Social posts of self praises and false claims).  For Biden, in particular, he hauled out all his campaign slurs like, “nicknamed ‘Sleepy’ and ‘Crooked’ Joe Biden …”  Of course, the only person who used that nickname was the petty petulant President Himself.  Amongst other false claims, he reiterated his claim that Biden was, “by far, the worst President in American History,” as well as the comprehensively debunked claims of the 2020 stolen election.