No wonder Cecilia dumped him
No, it's not Carla Bruni. It's the one who got away just in time.
What an insufferable little man – and so much for Carla Bruni’s left-wing political ideals. I suppose it’s a matter of those ideals ceasing to be important when the chance comes along to become France’s first lady, get married before it’s too late, and get your picture in the papers again when you’re no longer young enough to be interesting or to sleep with Mick Jagger.
Something tells me that if all men were born tall, half of Europe’s problems would never have happened
From the New York Times:
France has no equivalent to the 14th Amendment, but the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who likes to be known as Sarko the American, also is fanning dangerous anti-immigrant passions for short-term political gain.
Last week, he proposed stripping foreign-born French citizens of their citizenship if they are convicted of threatening the life of a police officer or other serious crimes. Lest any voter miss the point that such a law would be particularly aimed at Muslim immigrants, Mr. Sarkozy’s interior minister, in charge of the police force, helpfully added polygamy and female circumcision to the list of offenses that could bring loss of citizenship.
Days earlier, Mr. Sarkozy promised to destroy the camps of the Roma and send them back to where they came from, mainly Romania and Bulgaria. Both countries are members of the European Union. Hundreds of thousands of their residents, in France legally, now risk being swept up and expelled in police raids.
And Mr. Sarkozy proposes denying automatic French citizenship to people born in France if their parents are foreign and they have a record of juvenile delinquency.
All of this in a country that has long proudly upheld the principle that all French citizens — native-born or naturalized — are entitled to equal treatment under the law. That applies to Mr. Sarkozy’s Hungarian-born father and Italian-born wife, both naturalized French citizens, and should apply to everyone else.
But immigrant-bashing is popular among nonimmigrant French voters and Mr. Sarkozy has never been shy about doing it. He built his 2007 presidential campaign around his tough record (and inflammatory words) as interior minister. Earlier this year, he ran a divisive campaign to define French national identity because he wanted to fend off the far right anti-immigrant National Front in regional elections. It didn’t work.
Now, with his political fortunes at a new low and the National Front resurgent under younger leadership, he has gone further, worrying traditional conservatives who still believe in the rights of man and the equality of all French citizens. They are right to be concerned, and he is recklessly wrong to ignore their cautionary advice.
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What is it that you have against short people? This is nothing personal for me as I am 6ft 1″. Somebody who met you recently told me that you are ‘very tall’. I am often surprised though in Malta when people equate tallness with sexual appeal. Not sure what to make out of this and I have often been surprised when such compliments were directed at me.
I certainly do not feel special and I actually feel short when in countries such as the Netherlands.
As regards the other short historical figures you make reference to – I suppose you are thinking of Napoleon – that is just a common misconception as he wasn’t short by the standards of the time.
Recently while speaking to Dr. Gonzi I did however notice that he is short and has very short legs – I was just wondering if he is any good at football seeing that he says he was good at it.
Take a look at what Dr. Gonzi looks like next to an ordinary man.
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/national/malta-agrees-to-host-%E2%80%98libyan-centre-for-education-and-formation%E2%80%99
Funny you should use that picture to illustrate your point. The caption, written by someone who’s done as much fact-checking as you have, claims the man greeting Gonzi is Libyan Prime Minister Baghdadi Mahmoudi.
It’s not. As it happens, the real Baghdadi Mahmoudi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdadi_Mahmudi) is quite vertically challenged himself, as you can see here: http://www.daylife.com/topic/Baghdadi_Mahmudi. Shorter than our own pint-sized PM, I’d wager.
Not that it means anything. As you say, (lack of) height in itself is never a real issue. It’s how it’s compensated for that makes the difference. If only Sarko had kept his compensation to hidden platforms, three-inch heels and tall wives, he’d still just be faintly ridiculous instead of downright dangerous.
Out of context –
What was Joseph Muscat doing at the August Moon Ball? Didn’t he say he’d rather be having a burger at Mc Donalds?
Not out of context at all. Short people were mentioned here, weren’t they?
I am out of context Grezz – Short people were mentioned not midgets
Once again, I have to step in and clarify. This law already exists. All that Sarkozy is proposing is to extend the range of crimes to which it is applied (e.g. attempted murder of a police officer).
The article contains countless lies (New York Times, yawn). Sarkozy does not like to be called Sarko the American. “Immigrant-bashing” is probably lowest in France. And Sarkozy is anything but tough on the subject of immigration. If anything, he’s veered to the left since the election.
Short people who come to mind, dery:
Pol Pot, Hitler, Menachin Begin, Napoleon, Mugabe to name a few. Additions will be appreciated, past not future that is.
@ 6’4″ Idi Amin wasn’t short, Paul Kagame is turning out into a dictator, Saddam wasn’t short even by European standards and neither is Castro.
But I guess those would be exceptions that prove the rule.
Mintoff.
Bush.
“Something tells me that if all men were born tall, half of Europe’s problems would never have happened”. a rather hazardous hunch, it seems to me.
Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, Horatio Nelson, Voltaire, Immanuel Kant, Jean Paul Sartre, Pablo Picasso, H. Toulouse Lautrec, Vladimir Lenin, Charles Chaplin, Igor Stravinsky, Josef Goebbels,Yuri Gagarin: these are all European men who readily come to mind and who were reputed to be short and left their indelible mark, positive or negative, in European history and culture.
Others who were non-European also left a mark. I think of: Genghis Khan, Mahatma Ghandi, Andrew Carnegie, Yasser Arafat, Mao Tse Dong to name but a few.
Tall men also had a strong influence: Charlemagne was said to be over 7 feet tall (interestingly, his father was Pepin le Bref). Abraham Lincoln was about 6′ 4″ tall, Aldous Huxley and Oscar Wilde were both well over 6′ tall. With such a motley crowd of tall and short men, it seems to me perilous to draw conclusions with any degree of certainty.
One tends to think that, owing to their short stature, short men would want to prove themselves by outdoing others. This seems a rather simplistic conclusion to my mind. The average height of men in India is statistically 5′ 3 and a half” and that in rural China 5′ 5 and a half” and this means that a good proportion of humans are short.
What conclusions can be draw from this? In Malta, a man 5’6″ high is not considered too short. Most of our politicians were of that stature or shorter: Eddie Fenech Adami, Guido de Marco, Dom Mintoff, Giorgio Borg Olivier. I guess Lawrence Gonzi must be about 5’7″ tall.
[Daphne – Lawrence Gonzi is about 5’3″ or 4″, actually. All our recent prime ministers (and the deputy you mention) have been really diminutive, not just short. Don’t you think that says something? It can’t just be a reflection of the population size – you know, the odds of having a diminutive prime minister growing because so many men here are diminutive. They’re much shorter than average. But it’s interesting you should say that about Gonzi. He comes across as much taller than he is because he has a big personality and so much self assurance which is completely different to the ‘puppatur’ behaviour of pushy little men. I notice immediately when men are 5’7″ because I usually wear flat shoes and can look them in the eye: I’m 5’7″. I tend to avoid wearing heels because I feel like a giant, and that in itself tells you a lot about general population size.]
President Abela must be something like 5’5″ but Ugo Mifsud Bonnici and Censu Tabone are taller. Russia’s Vladimir Putin is about 5′ 6 and a half” and Medvedev is only 5’6″ and this in a country were the average height is tall. Berlusconi is also short…. maybe for you, dear Daphne, he is the one who proves your intuition ….
Apologies for my nerdy contribution but Alexander the Great was probably average height (Arrian’s sources were not always reliable) and Napoleon’s shortness was a myth created by the English – he was actually taller than average.
5’7 is not all that tall, come on, my wife is 5’9 – AND I call her shorty!
[Daphne – Yes, I know it isn’t. That’s why I said it’s a reflection on just how very short people are in Malta that I stick out at 5’7″ and am described as very tall. I think of myself as very average, not very tall.]
It’s the legs that are short. Their body is usually OK..and that makes them look like penguins.
Mussolini (not tall at all) was a Harlem Globetrotter compared to the King of Italy Vittorio Emanuele who must have been a midget.
Lord Nelson was 5ft 4 inch ‘u kif nghidu poggut’. There is an anecdote that when he was in Malta, Emma, Lady Hamilton was dressed as a lad, but not enough to deceive the Bishop, who ‘turned a blind eye,’ but, in any case, who would deny his greatness as an admiral?
Anyone interested can go to Greenwich Museum London and still see the uniform he worn on the Battle of Trafalgar. It’s a poignant feeling one gets, looking at the burnt shredded hole where the musket shot penetrated his shoulder blade to lodge in his spine.
As far as Sarko, yes I admit I am not impressed, ‘veru pampalun’. A stark contrast with one of his predecessors the late Mitterrand or as the French affectionately dubbed him, l’Empereur.
In any case as the saying goes, one normally finds essences & high sought after perfumes in midget bottles.
Yeah but he looks more like a bottle-cap than a midget bottle!
“L-essenza fil-fliexken iz-zghar………………..imma mhux fit-tappijiet!”
Imma dak ghax spiccaw il-flixken iz-zghar. I am 5’10” and am short compared to my brothers and sister, imma m’hemmx x’taghmel….
Erm Rita
nahseb li ridt tghid ‘ghax spiccaw il-KBAR’?
While on the subject of political leaders, unconfirmed reports state that one possible cause of the PL leader JM’s ankle injury was due to his failing to take his foot out of his mouth when getting up to throw some cool shapes on the dance floor.
You’re being too hard on Carla Bruni. She’s a very accomplished singer-songwriter. ‘No longer young enough to be interesting’ huh? (Less said the better.)
[Daphne – I meant interesting to the newspaper gossip columns and rock stars, even aging rock stars. The last time I read about Carla Bruni before she jumped into bed with Sarkozy it must have been in the early 1990s, when Jerry Hall found her in bed with her husband.]
As for class ideals, Marx for one was very proud of his Jenny ‘Baroness von Westphalen’ (a title made up largely by him).
She’s being hard on Carla but kind to Mick, who would probably knock off anything in a skirt that has a pulse nowadays. Am I right in saying that he’s the ‘husband’ in the Jerry Hall anecdote?
Hall was about 6′ tall as I recall.
That’s probably true, though more an indictment of newspaper gossip columns than of Carla Bruni. By ‘less said the better’ I meant she’s still astonishingly gorgeous, by the way, no more. (Just realised it could be understood as a piece of nastiness.)
[Daphne – Don’t worry. I understood what you meant. Yes, she’s very beautiful in the real sense of the word, but the world is full of astonishingly gorgeous women. The newspapers are interested only when they do something exceptional, sleep with someone exceptional, or become international party girls, the emphasis on ‘girl’. Nobody wants to know when you’re 30+ because there are always the new girls coming up behind.]
I’ve seen Bruni up close and she isn’t all that beautiful. Botoxed to the gills and possessed of as much character as a wet teabag.
[Daphne – Thank you, my dear. It sounds so MUCH better coming from a man. If we women say the same they tell us we’re jealous. And they can’t understand why we’d much rather be George Clooney’s fiancee or Abramovich’s girlfriend than Sarkozy’s wife.]
She’s rightly derided by the French media, including left-wing satirical papers, as the archetypical dumb bimbo with a permanent simper – fixed by surgery. As for her songs, the less said, the better.
[Daphne – Not only that, but she has so little self respect that she took on a man who was very publicly and embarrassingly dumped by his wife more than once, the last time being just a few weeks before she began ‘dating’ him, when he was clearly on the rebound and only doing it to make his wife – who patently regarded him with boredom and contempt – jealous. The first thing that everyone noticed about Bruni was that she looked eerily like Cecilia – a superannuated botoxed Stepford wife version. The whole thing was so obviously an attempt at getting Cecilia’s attention, making her ‘jealous’ and getting revenge on her for dumping him in full view of the international media when he was a Very Important Person that it was really quite laughable. And still is. The joke is that now he is stuck with Bruni and has lost Cecilia for good.]
Ah! So you noticed it too. One time we were having a discussion with Philippe the barman at Le Village Ronsard (who claims he was offered a job by a porn talent scout…). “Mark me,” he said, “in ten years’ time Carla will look just like Cécilia. They even have the same supercilious expression.”
The running joke is that Carla Bruni can’t smile properly because her skin is stretched taut from all the facelifts.
As for Sarkozy, he turned out be to be a great disappointment on many fronts, even to his own supporters (myself included). However, there are two things that the English-speaking media forget, deliberately or otherwise:
1) the alternative (Ségolène Royal) was even worse and
2) he did achieve one huge success when he reformed the public sector – a feat that was thought to be impossible.
This latest proposal must also be understood in the correct context. It is being pushed as much by the interior minister as by Sarkozy himself, with the support of the justice minister. The first, Brice Hortefeux, is probably the most respected member of Sarkozy’s cabinet, and the latter, Michèle Alliot-Marie, is quite simply revered by the military, the police, and the judiciary (she was formerly defence, then interior minister).
There is nothing unconstitutional in the proposed amendment to the law on forfeiting one’s citizenship. In France, as in most countries, citizenship is dependent upon a list of duties, including respect for the law and the values of the republic, and the willingness to integrate. I’m not paraphrasing the general concepts. These are more or less the actual words.
So Sarkozy is far from being the fascist he’s made out to be.
Alex Sciberras Trigona, Lino Cassar …
I don’t agree about Malta’s population being short. Most of my friends from the south are quite tall. I guess none of the Prime Ministers you mentioned are from the south.
[Daphne – What south? How can an island 17 miles by nine have a ‘south’?]
@Daphne
Do the words direction and cardinal points ring a bell?
My superficial observation: the tall/short problem is more of whether the person’s ancestry lived in hill-top town or valley town. But we are blessed in still being relatively egalitarian neighbourhoods, study, eat and work in mostly the same places and marry across most divides.
At least that’s my perception.
Your perception is mostly wrong.
tnx Baxxter. I thought so
Sarkozy only wants to remove the citizenship of criminals.
I think this is a valid reminder.
Woo, removal of citizenship for genital mutilation, how backwards the French are. I suppose you would add that they ought to be more respectful towards foreign practices and traditions, am I right?
“Something tells me that if all men were born tall, half of Europe’s problems would never have happened”
Humility is not your middle name, is it (all smiles).
[Daphne – I am not a tall man.]
Something tells me that your arguments are rather inconsistent. You started off by labelling Sarkozy a racist, then you finished off by insulting a very large percentage of the world’s population (including most of the local population). So tell me, how can you solve this ‘problem’?
[Daphne – Oh grow up and learn what a joke is.]
Maybe use a rack and add an extra two inches to half the population? Better still, why don’t you exterminate all short people and create a super species.
[Daphne – Why? If everyone is tall, then nobody is. Similarly, if everyone is short, then nobody is. You might as well solve teh problem by eliminating all tall people.]
@ Daphne
I consider myself of average height, but that’s beside the point. Frankly and putting it mildly I just couldn’t care less about a person’s physique. Life is too short to worry or think about such trivial matters.
it matters:
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Tall-Men-Earn-More-Study-Shows-111947.shtml
What you mean to say is: if all men were born of THE SAME HEIGHT.
Among tall men, there are always those who are slightly taller.
It is the comparison which leads to whatever it is that you are trying to put your finger on.
I tend to disagree with most of what has been said above about Sarkozy, Bruni, tall and short men. De gustibus.
I will put in a word or two for Carla though. She is one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. She comes from one of the wealthiest, most aristocratic and cultured families in Italy. In her own right she is an accomplished artist and a multimillionairess.
In Maltese we say ” ghandha is-seba doni”. She must make trillions of people, especially females, green with envy.
[Daphne – Men think she does, but women KNOW she doesn’t. We know that if she were really that magnificent, she would have won herself a better prize than Sarkozy, like Roman Abramovich or George Clooney, and not for want of trying for 20 years, either. Do you really want to know the secret of who women really are jealous of? It’s not Carla Bruni, but Abramovich’s Dasha. The thing is that when a man who is a real prize decides whether he wants to marry a woman, it’s not other men’s envy that he considers, but whether he can stand to live with her – and the men Carla Bruni really wanted decided they didn’t want her. That’s why she married Sarkozy. The interesting bit is what comes next: what happens when he is no longer the main man in France, she is no longer the first lady, the media are no longer interested and all the prize men are running around with women half her age who look like she did 20 years ago. Let me reveal a little secret of female psychology: women do not envy other women’s looks or money. They envy other women’s LIVES. No woman I know envies Bruni’s life or the fact that she has to share a bed with Sarkozy. As for her money – here’s another bit of female psychology: the women who are married or shacked up to billionaires are envied but women who are billionaires themselves are strangely not. So while Carla Bruni is not envied for her inherited wealth, Dasha is envied for having access to Abramovich’s gadzillions. Go figure – but that’s the way it is. Men just don’t understand how women’s minds work: Venus and Mars, honestly. Here’s a clue: women do NOT think like men. They do not envy or want the same things.]
I have one objection. On international affairs I, personally, would be rather reluctant to quote the NYT.
maltastar.com might even be a more dependable source and I am not joking.
Why is the New York Times so despised here? You’re the second person making that point.
[Daphne – Ghax it-Times taghna hafna ahjar.]
muhahahaha!
75 years of factual reporting
@ Daphne
“Women do NOT think like men” Totally agree with you there. In fact it has been proved scientifically so. Mind you the end result is the same and both sexes have their pros and cons.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1258233/Has-Carla-Bruni-little-help-keeping-appearances.html
This photo says it all
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1174612/The-day-Carla-met-match–How-Spains-Princess-upstaged-French-First-Lady.html
Strange how in 2010 Malta everybody still uses the imperial system. One more Maltese idiosyncrasy…
About time to move to metric don’t you think?
[Daphne – All English-speaking countries use feet and inches for a person’s height. It’s not a Maltese idiosyncrasy. Can you picture what 1.72cm looks like? Probably not. But I bet you have a pretty good idea what six feet tall looks like.]
As a matter of fact, yes, I know what 1.72m looks like but not six feet. Probably it is a question of age. Luckily, I was educated in the metric system.
[Daphne – So was I. But I speak English as a first language, and in English, height is always in feet and inches.]
On the contrary, I can visualise what 1.72m looks like, but I am totally lost when I try to picture a six footer. I guess it’s a sign I was born in the late eighties! God I’m too young :p
[Daphne – That’s right, girl.]
I have no particular opinion on Sarkozy. However, anyone who inflicts female genital mutilation (FGM), nicely put as circumcision should pay a high price. It’s much worse than abuse! I might be missing the point here, but at least this is mentioned somewhere in the French agenda.
Good things come in small packages.
(As do perverted postmen.)
Hello Daphne dear, kemm jien kuntenta li ktibt fuq Sarko today. Jien mhux fuqu se nikteb imma, fuq Carlotta. Jekk hawn mara f wicc did-dinja li assolutament ma nnizzilx, hijja Carla Bruni.
U dawn l-irgiel li qed jghidu li hi sabiha, intihom parir imorru ikellmu tabib ta` l-ghajnejn minn l-aktar fis possibli!
Forsi kienet xi darba, imma not anymore. Tul ghandha, figura ukoll, anki jekk ta’ mudella, igifieri qisha lasta biex nifthemu. Imma dawk gosti, hallina minn hekk mela. Jekk ikkollok il-fortuna, jew l-isfortuna, tara lil Carla Bruni mil vicin malajr tindunaw x’ qed nghid, apparti li jien bil-make up rajtha, immagina minghajr!
Imma lanqas ma rrid intambar fuq id-difetti ghax kulhadd ghandhu u jien m’ iniex xi star. Pero li nghir ghaliha? NEVER! She lived a lie. All along. Anki isimha she pronounces differently now that she has become”French”.
Laghbet l-ahhar karta u gietha tajba, ghax dat-tip ta’ nies donnhu kollox jigihom tajjeb ta. Din minn dejjem ftahret li thobb l-irgiel ta haddiehor, li ma temminx fil monogamijja ghax, fi kliema “boring”.
Kienet toqghod ma’ ragel, u marret ma ibnu li kien ghadu mizzewweg, kellha tifel Aurilien li nahseb bilkemm rathu tuzzzana drabi kollox f hajjthu.
Biex na nsemmiex il-hajja ta’ eccessi sfrenati. Din fl-opinjoni tieghi, kellha bzonn psikjatra, bl-ikrah ukoll, ghax ma hi sew XEJN! A very sick mind.
Zghira kienet tghaddiha ghax maybe her face was her fortune, 20 years ago, imma ta! Issa ippruvat tirranga u iktar giet ottu! Ahjar she tried to age gracefully.
And please do not refer to her as a songwriter or singer, anqas l-icken idea ma ghandha tal-musika, veru daghwa fahxijja u offiza kbira ghal min veru jhobb il-veru musika.
Hasbet li ghax kienet mudella famuza kienet se ssir xi Lennon u McCartney din jew? Gejja bil-kitarra f’ idejha! U tmur teghreq u tirringrazzja l-Alla li qeghda fejn hi, hlief timmanipula l-irgiel ta’ certu kalibru qatt ma ghamlet.
As for the beautiful Dasha of Abramovich, anqas konfront, apparti li dik miljunarja ohra u mhux qeghda ma’ dak ghal flus biss, ghax ma tantx ghandha bzonn.
Carla`s hobby had always been to steal other women`s husbands (as long as they were rich, popular etc), and rejoice over her conquests, which always lasted for a very short while. Won’t count the number of women who found her in bed with their respective husbands. Qahba pulita insomma.
Arani se nghir ghal bniedma marida u qatt ma sabet paci, plus karattru imnellah ghal ahhar. Dik miskina nghidilha jien. One last note, I am 5ft 7 too and don`t consider myself that tall. Only if I wear heels because most men are shorter then, and never liked that.
[Daphne – Yes, I agree with you about the height. 5’7″ is tall for a woman only in Malta. The trouble as you say is with wearing heels when most men then are shorter. As for Bruni, you’re right; she’s completely f**ked up, to put it bluntly, and it all stems from the fact that she found out quite early on that the man who brought her up as his daughter and from whom she derived her status was not her father. Her mother had had an adulterous relationship with a South American entertainer and she was his child. When women make a point of sleeping with other women’s husbands on a chronic basis it’s never because of desire. The motivation is a generalised anger and need for revenge. The man is just a prop. The real target is the wife/girlfriend and what she represents.]
Mela il-prim ministru li jmiss li trid Daphne huwa it-twil u bla parrokka b’xagharu ‘salt and pepper’ il-vici PM Dr Tonio Borg!
When is Malta going to change to metric?
@Daphne
“Can you picture what 1.72cm looks like?”
To which I ask: Can you picture how much is 76,000 Euros? Probably not, but I bet you have a good idea what Lm33,000 look like.
[Daphne – No, I now think in euros and even ‘picture’ them. But height is something else. Interestingly, I take all other measurements in metres.]
You once poked fun at the GWU for making a compensation claim in Lms, saying that the GWU is backward as it still thinks in Lms. This was a few weeks after the euro conversion in 2008.
Malta changed officially to metric in 1977. But then again, that was under the old wicked socialst regime under that Mintoff.
[Daphne – Read my lips, Albert: in the English-speaking world, height is always given in feet and inches, even if everything else is metric. It’s one of those quirks. Give your height in metres/centimetres and everyone will assume you speak English as a second language or are a German in disguise: “I go now to measure me.”]
If I’m not mistaken in the UK , road signage is in feet and miles per hour.
At the grocer people still ask for “kwart irkotta” which is one quarter of a rotolo (800grams) , which is precisely 200 grams.
In Italy one asks for ” un etto di prosciutto” not “cento grammi”.
Car and building prices in Malta are still in Maltese Liri.
“height is always given in feet and inches, even if everything else is metric”
And weight is still in pounds rather than kilos, at least for a person’s weight – definitely the case in the US, where yards are also still used incidentally!
Yes, but the US still has not changed to metric or SI, they still use the Imperial System, although their gallon is slightly different.
I quite agree with Daphne on height expressed in feet and inches, this is so also in Australia, New Zealand, Canada as well as India and other ex-colonies.
Even image resolution is measured against an imperial system. As far as I know, the dpi measure (dots per inch) is used in all countries.
Roma do not always have citizenship in the country they live in. Most don’t even have identity cards, or passports. When I was robbed on a bus by two Roma, the French police said it’s almost impossible to find them and prosecute as most have no official identification.
You may have noticed that Roma almost never pay on buses. If they get caught red handed they just get sent off, while citizens pay a fine. If they have citizenship they have the same rights and benefits and can’t be kicked out of any EU country. Sarkozy may send groups out but they just find their way back in.
Dear Daphne
You are correct in the assumption that his “whirlwind courtship” of Carla was purely to spite Cecilia. Everyone talks about it in France and she is obviously just a replacement. Cecilia went back to Sarko during his election campaign and everyone swears that it was just a cynical ploy to get him elected. She dumped him soon after. So not too sure what she got out of it!
I have also seen frequently the SMS (Small Man Syndrome) upfront in the industry I work in and it can be very unpleasant, it does seem to be the case that guys have a hangup about being small and try to throw their weight (Ha ha) about, depending on their pay grade!
(I am 6 feet tall, imperial system 1.83cm metric system)
Another one in the Sarkozy/Bruni mould, in spite of the admiration you expressed for him in a recent article, Daphne. Just look at his latest antic:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100810/local/labour-mep-becomes-fknk-honorary-life-president
What a worm of a man. All full of himself, wearing Carla Bruni on his lapel, believing it’s a badge of honour.
Why are ‘tall’ women (5’7″) like you and Pat not comfortable with being taller than their male companions?
Presumably this is a throwback to our mammoth-hunting days?
[Daphne – Actually I’m a lot more uncomfortable towering over other women. I was thinking about this the other day and realised that my closest women friends are all around the same height I am or taller.]
Your being 5’7″ tall is quite a surprise as the couple of times I met you my impression is that you are much taller.
[Daphne – A woman of 5’7″ is 5’11” in her shoes, Iro. That’s why I usually wear flat ones.]
Yesterday I was told half jokingly that it is all due to the nun’s anti-slouching conditioning (she also went to a nun infested school).
I too am used to much shorter men feeling uncomfortable with my height and going over the top to prove themselves -quite entertaining most of the time – but this characteristic in most of us men is not limited to height but concerns other physical characteristics as well such as hair when what really counts is not what grows on top of your head but what’s inside it.
Interesting discussion on what women envy in other women, quite different from what I read in the John Gray and Pease books.
Hands up those who think that Carla looks remarkably like Cecilia?
Cecilia seems to possess more character. Bruni is a glorified minstrel and her claimed beauty is only relative to the odious Sarko, who looks like one of Noddy’s goblins.
I fail to understand how the French people keep such a git in power. He has come out with the expression ‘francais the souche’ (loosely translated, this means a French person from by root) , when his grandparents are Hungarian. There goes the inflated ego of short men, I guess.
It wasn’t Sarkozy who came up with that expression. It’s been around at least since the 1970s, and it was first used by sociologists, not politicians. Get your facts right.
As for keeping Sarkozy in power, there was an election, which he won. What should the French do, stage yet another revolution and do away with democracy?
The humble opinion of an old cock : Bejn Carla u Cecilia hemm bahar jaqsam. Carla does not need Nicolas.
She just toys with him like a cat treats a mouse.
She has had everything. Now she is the premiere dame. Is she growing old ? That is normal. In her case she is growing into a beautiful old lady. Rich and famous. She has had all the men she wanted to have.
Maybe she loves huge noses. She is an artist. She can afford to call the tune. I love spoilt brats. Her lovers are probably 2 metres plus. Who cares.
As to the mouse, his outburst with the sound technician on France 3 some weeks ago says a lot about the man. The incident was even reported by the BBC apart from some other few thousands of news channels. I am sure everybody has seen this.
I think he was right. Perfectly right. He is a no nonsense politician. If only we had more of them.
In the meantime Carla can relax at weekends at La Lanterne.
Abramovich cannot. He probably has not even heard of La Lanterne or the Trianon (the annex ! when there are more guests). He might pay to build a facsimile but he will never have the real McCoy. Carla can. Clever woman.
[Daphne – Men (though this is not a problem which afflicts them all) fascinate me in their inability to correctly interpret psychological and emotional situations and above all, women’s actions and thinking. The clever woman in this situation – literally (in terms of IQ, that is) and figuratively is Cecilia. Find another clever woman within your orbit and ask her to explain why. I can’t be bothered to do it myself.]
excuse me daph, but this happens to women as well. Some have a predilection for controlling, jealous liars with a dash of madness (the nasty type) because they think that if he’s jealous and controlling then he must be loyal and loving…
Did I at any point say who that man is? I have no idea who he is. It isn’t the point… oh but why am I bothering… yawn
@Daphne CG
“But it’s interesting you should say that about Gonzi. He comes across as much taller than he is because he has a big personality and so much self assurance”
kemm tiflah tilaq daphne jaqaw ghandek bzonn xi job mal gvern. give us a break daphne.
[Daphne – I’m an entrepreneurial type, Raymond,. People like me are never out of work because we create our own, and we would rather be pegged out and eaten alive by driver ants than get a job in the civil service, nor would we ever be constrained to lick ass to get one as a favour. That’s for life’s losers. It’s a fact: self-assured people (as opposed to ‘puppaturi’) come across as being much taller than they are. It’s one of the reasons people think I am exceptionally tall when I am only 5’7″ if that.]
The jealousy in some of the comments here is almost palpable.
Delicious envy oozing from men who could only dream of acquiring the power, wealth and fame (and women) of great men, downplaying their successes with a “hmph, it’s cos he’s short”.
@Tim Ripard
You are right. I was never comfortable going out with a man shorter than myself, very silly of me I guess. In fact, one of the reasons I was attracted to my husband was because he was much taller than me! And I could wear heels. All my female friends, except for one, were shorter and I was ok with that. I will spend the next couple of hours trying to figure out why, and laughing in the process. Having said that, you can have short , very interesting people, and dumb tall ones. Because, at the end of the day, it`s the character that really counts.
Why should I bother about the size of Sarkozy, his fancies and the life-style of Carla Bruni. Perhaps they perform better than in TERMINATOR 6.
I cannot understand how anyone in her right mind can even think of describing Carla Bruni as anything but beautiful.
Let’s not try and justify blatant jealousy by spouting pitiful inanities poorly disguised as psychological analysis. If someone had to say about us some of the things that have been said about her in this comment section, all hell would break loose.
I, for one, will not try to judge or justify any of her actions or motivations. (Some of her “official” pronouncements fly in the face of my beliefs, actually).
Carla Bruni is a beautiful woman. None of her perceived “defects” should (or can) diminish any of that physical beauty.
All this rubbish about female psychology and who envies what and why … pish to it all …
P.S. I’m 5’7″ (= 1.70m = 0.0017018 km) in my socks and I wouldn’t mind being towered over by somebody looking even remotely like Carla Bruni. (…erm I guess I’ll have some explaining to do once this gets published).
Envy is such a useless emotion, harming only its possessor and so typical of this end of the world.
I am so glad never to have experienced it, well except in one benign situation, when I see elderly people who, having been over half a century together, are so clearly still besotted with each other.
[Daphne – You really should read Brightness Falls. It’s a contemporary morality tale about just this sort of thing.]
Happiness is such a fleeting, fickle thing and so independent of material things. I certainly am not so detached from reality as to think that someone can be needy but happy but too many of these high profile persons clearly display dissatisfaction with their life and are constantly looking over their shoulder.
I don’t believe that the comments on this blog with regard to the French president are motivated by envy but just dislike based on what has appeared in the media.
As for this tall/short business, both extremes are a pain especially during standing conversation. While I agree that some people have a natural presence which makes them appear “larger than life”, this only applies when seeing them in the media isolated from taller individuals.
Our PMs for example always look uncomfortably short when photographed during European summits. and as for women, it’s true that a bit of heel helps but an observant man will see that immediately especially if the shoes are a Jimmy Choo type. Posture however does make a difference, tall individuals in fact naturally tend to slouch in order to appear shorter.
Always beware of short people, their brains are too close to their bottoms.